From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 00:18:08 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:18:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: John Clark : > Philosophically speaking, and that's what we're talking about, why is that distinction important? Man, John, it's disorienting to see you displaying such wanton civility. I must be doing something right! Or wrong. Anyway: it's a question of function. If you call information processing philosophically important, then certainly there is a philosophically important distinction to be made between gross structure and fine chemical/electrical activity. When it comes to the human brain, at least. If the brain were clockwork, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Generally a clock can just keep ticking along regardless of, say, its thermal conductivity. Generally, though, stripping a system of all but its structural properties will almost always render it lifeless. This is basically what happens in the case of plasticization. Structure is preserved, but chemical and electrical properties are radically altered. Read: removed. A plasticized brain no longer *does* anything of note. It just kind of sits there. As mentioned previously, I think the mind is an activity. So there you go. No activity, no mind. Now I realize what sparked Ben Zaiboc's quantized time argument! I might never finish chewing on that thing. This whole subject is some kind of Zenoan supertask of comprehension. John Clark : > Sometimes they do [wake up], and if they do subjectively the mind's existence has continued without a break even if it hasn't objectively. There's a little more nuance to it, but, yeah. Basically. I am forced to argue that when it comes to people who've woken up from comas (say), the mind's existence has ALWAYS continued without a break objectively. If that's the case, then it's a moot point. It seems to me that subjective continuity and objective continuity cannot be disentangled; one always implies the other. Mind scanning does not preserve objective continuity, as more gradual uploading methods do, and so subjective continuity is left as an open question. The worst case scenario is that your subjective experience is dropped directly into some kind of ill-defined eternal torment while some other entity takes your place to think your thoughts, feel your feelings, perceive your perceptions and conceive your conceptions. But that would be rather silly. Logically possible, sure, but... silly. From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 00:33:28 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:33:28 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: References: <214822.48535.qm@web113620.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 1 March 2010 06:02, Spencer Campbell wrote: > Technically, C has a different mind from A or B. The brain is doing > something different in C. For some reason or another, M makes the leap > from A to B to C, skittering across many different minds over time. I guess you are talking about M making a leap as a sort of analogy, but it can be a misleading one. For continuity of experience it is necessary *and* sufficient that the right sorts of mental states occur in A, B and C. M does not add anything to the explanation and does not go leaping. -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 00:07:19 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:07:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: <613970.21167.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <496794.57916.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 2/27/10, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > If my fervent belief that spreadsheets are not round and magnetic > commits me to property dualism, then I fully embrace my hitherto > undiscovered, yet apparently inescapable, dogma. It does not. If you think the conscious thoughts in your head exist as non-physical properties of brain matter then you can embrace property dualism. If you think the conscious thoughts in your head do not exist as any sort of property of matter, but rather as something entirely distinct from matter, then you can embrace substance dualism. If you think the conscious thoughts in your head exist as physical properties of matter then you can embrace materialism. If you think the conscious thoughts in your head exist only in your imagination then you can embrace Spencer Campbell. If you can think, but you think you do not exist, then you can embrace Jef-with-the-one-f-who-has-no-self. If you cannot think at all then you can embrace John Clark. -gts From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 00:42:16 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:42:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <230089.92387.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 2/27/10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > It's true that there is no requirement for an AI to follow > brain architecture, but I am considering the special case where > it does. After mulling over your thought experiment for oh so many weeks, it seems to me apparent that weak AI *must* deviate from organic structure. So I don't know what you mean by "special case", unless you've just begged the question of strong AI. I don't know if you understand the full ramifications of those false assumptions that I pointed out. I don't know why we/I didn't see them sooner. -gts From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 00:43:11 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:43:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat Message-ID: : > And I ask again, "What the hell happened to halt the growth of the > Extropy discussion list?" > > I remember that discussion on this list used to be surprising, > enlightening, challenging. ?Now the predominate pattern appears to be > participants ignoring that which they don't understand, railing > against that which offends their personal sensibilities, and > persisting in tooting their own horn. A better question, to which that one is an important corollary, might be: "How can we make the Extropy discussion list better?" I haven't been here long enough to have any idea of how things used to be, so that question is virtually the only contribution I am qualified to make. Personally, I joined on the hope that I could talk to a large number of witheringly intelligent people about esoteric-yet-promising ideas. Specifically, with an eye toward refining those ideas and perhaps (in some cases) gaining support to implement them. Predictably, perhaps, the first and only idea I presented fell flat on its face. Total silence. So, I've since changed my stance toward the list from "opportunistic" to "hedonistic". At this rate, I will probably phase you guys out eventually as my life fills up with more rewarding ventures. It's a tragedy of pragmatism. From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 00:46:37 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:46:37 +1100 Subject: [ExI] related replies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1 March 2010 06:39, Keith Henson wrote: > On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:00 AM, ?Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> There is no requirement on AI researchers to make an AI by following >> the structure and function of the brain. However, if they do do it >> this way, as mind uploading researchers would, the resulting AI will >> both behave like a human and have the consciousness of a human. > > This way is *exceeding* dangerous unless we deeply understand the > biological mechanisms of human behavior, particularly behaviors such > as capture-bonding which are turned on by behavioral switches (due to > external situations). ?A powerful human type AI in "war mode," > irrational and controlling millions of robot fighting machines is not > something you want to happen. > > Humans do go irrational (for reasons firmly rooted in our evolutionary > past). ?See the descriptions of the mental state the machete killers > in Rwanda were in while they killed close to a million people. I don't think a mind upload would be dangerous initially because it would not have either superintelligence or the ability to self-modify. However, researchers could then go on and add these qualities as a further project much more easily than they could to a biological brain, and that is when it might get dangerous. -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 01:04:15 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:04:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <681156.95585.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > And I ask again, "What the hell happened to halt the > growth of the Extropy discussion list?" I can tell you that I've got one foot out the door after ten years here. I'd have left already but for Stathis and a few other notable participants. I don't suppose many people care, and I suppose some might even welcome the news, but I've had it with John Clark among other things. -gts From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 01:08:45 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:08:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: References: <214822.48535.qm@web113620.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Stathis Papaioannou : > I guess you are talking about M making a leap as a sort of analogy, > but it can be a misleading one. For continuity of experience it is > necessary *and* sufficient that the right sorts of mental states occur > in A, B and C. M does not add anything to the explanation and does not > go leaping. Considering the fact that M is literally defined as, "some property [of an individual] such that continuity [of experience] remains unbroken as long as the individual retains that property", I would go so far as to say that an explanation which doesn't mention M, at least implicitly, is impossible. It's just shorthand for continuity of experience in and of itself, really. Your constraints do not help me at all. What are the right sorts of mental states? Stressing once again the problem of mental clones, what if more than one thing is in the right sort of mental state to qualify as me? Which one am I? Taking your statements at face value, I must necessarily be every entity that has the right sort of mental state. I'm not sure that it makes sense to talk about me being a bunch of individual people, considering the fact that I would not necessarily qualify as a hive mind. I don't know. In practice my many brains might somehow quantum-entangle with each other automatically and I will inevitably become a hive mind, but that seems very unlikely to me. I'm aware that some people here are keeping up to date on the latest findings in psi-like phenomena research. Damien Broderick could probably tell me with some confidence whether or not something like that is plausible. It does border on identical-twin telepathy and the like. From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 1 01:09:37 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:09:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> On 2/28/2010 6:43 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > Predictably, perhaps, the first and only idea I presented fell flat on > its face. Total silence. So, I've since changed my stance toward the > list from "opportunistic" to "hedonistic". At this rate, I will > probably phase you guys out eventually as my life fills up with more > rewarding ventures. It's a tragedy of pragmatism. Watching the Great Swobe Disaster endlessly unreel (while repeatedly hitting Delete) has made me realize that lists *can't* effectively allow this sort of monomania to overwhelm their dynamic. I used to agree with those who said "Let 1000 Flowers Bloom," pick and choose from posts as you will, ignore those other people droning on about their obsessional interests, say something new to keep the ball rolling into fresh areas. But I now suspect it doesn't work that way. The commons get clogged and the lively spirit drains away, somehow. It's a bit like standing in a party where a couple of people are yammering at the top of their voices at each other--in principle you can chat with the person beside you, but in fact most people just pack up and leave. I might be wrong about this. I'd be interested to hear other opinions. If there's anyone still here not named Swobe, Papaioannou or somewhat less frequently (exact numbers available on request) Clark. Damien Broderick From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 01:25:52 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:25:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: Damien Broderick : > Watching the Great Swobe Disaster endlessly unreel (while repeatedly hitting > Delete) has made me realize that lists *can't* effectively allow this sort > of monomania to overwhelm their dynamic. Would everyone agree that putting an abrupt end to all living Searle-derivative threads is a good idea? I could go either way. I certainly recognize that nothing good has or will ever come of it, aside perhaps from such ephemeral benefits such as "pride" or "amusement" or "oppressive frustration". I might be getting more than my fair share of those. I think mainly the GSD is damaging to morale, but it also robs time from people who could otherwise be contributing to more productive topics. From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 01:35:23 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:05:23 +1030 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> On 1 March 2010 11:55, Spencer Campbell wrote: > > Damien Broderick : > > Watching the Great Swobe Disaster endlessly unreel (while repeatedly hitting > > Delete) has made me realize that lists *can't* effectively allow this sort > > of monomania to overwhelm their dynamic. Disaster? This is a walk in the park. I remember the good old days of the g*n "debates", remember those? Whatever happened to Mike Lorrey? -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 01:45:25 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:45:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501002281745l32e46ee5o7db8f2692fc7289d@mail.gmail.com> There is something to be said for depth, however this horse may have been beaten beyond recognition. But I am sure some neat-o ideas have been put out there that never would have been produced if this stuff hadn't been taken beyond its logical ends. As for "esoteric yet promising ideas," I have posted not one but two messages to the list in the past 2 days, each in excess of 1000 words, that seem to have been ignored for what is most likely a response to the na?vet? of my writing (I'm seventeen, damnit!) but perhaps shows an endemic pro-classicism here. That, or I would just love validation. But honestly, to stimulate discussion: a) More topics on space, on material science, on energy, on social dynamics! b) To these topics, reply even if you aren't confident in totality of theory or if you think your ideas are half-formed. There is always a chance that the seed of wonder is somewhere in those ideas, especially when there is almost surely a person on this list who is very well-versed in said topic and can help with the nitty-gritty. The more ideas get put out there, the better chances there are of one being a good one. The rest will die as per natural selection. Be impulsive more, and, most importantly, establish a filter that replaces every instance of the word "Searle" with "Fuck me!" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 1 01:45:39 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:45:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> On 2/28/2010 6:43 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > I haven't been here long enough to have any idea of how things used to > be Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, Anders, Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some others left the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 1 01:50:07 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:50:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8B1D4F.7080500@satx.rr.com> On 2/28/2010 7:35 PM, Emlyn wrote: > I remember the good old days of > the g*n "debates", remember those? Whatever happened to Mike Lorrey? Exactly. From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 01:55:56 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:25:56 +1030 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1002281755s3d5adea7mdbe0a4d69fdefb12@mail.gmail.com> On 1 March 2010 12:15, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 2/28/2010 6:43 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > >> I haven't been here long enough to have any idea of how things used to >> be > > Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, Anders, > Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some others left > the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. > > Damien Broderick The extropians list was the best list in the world. But we can't remember the extropians list. Exi-chat is not that list. Ex-chat is just a tribute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4an3rpucSos&feature=related -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 02:22:56 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:22:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281745l32e46ee5o7db8f2692fc7289d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281745l32e46ee5o7db8f2692fc7289d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Will Steinberg : > There is something to be said for depth, however this horse may have been > beaten beyond recognition. ?But I am sure some neat-o ideas have been put > out there that never would have been produced if this stuff hadn't been > taken beyond its logical ends. But are we going to DO anything with those ideas? Will Steinberg : > As for "esoteric yet promising ideas," I have posted not one but two > messages to the list in the past 2 days, each in excess of 1000 words, that > seem to have been ignored for what is most likely a response to the?na?vet? > of my writing (I'm seventeen, damnit!) but perhaps shows an endemic > pro-classicism here. ?That, or I would just love validation. I skipped over "intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution" basically because I am more an engineer than a theorist when it comes to the natural sciences. I did read "The Chess Room", though, and I noticed your presentation shared a couple significant things in common with mine. 1: You ended on an open question, which should have provoked lively response yet somehow just made the whole thing seem incomplete and unapproachable. 2: It was very, very long. Also, rambling. These are what I came up with to explain the total lack of response I got, and now, thanks to you, I'm pretty convinced that I was right. >From now on, I'm going to shoot for concise and complete. Far more difficult, but I can adapt. I did feel drawn to talk about the chess room, as it seemed to vaguely point toward something very interesting about the nature of group intelligence (which I am extremely interested in), but I was very busy and just kind of half-consciously archived it. Maybe I'll go over it again tomorrow. Will Steinberg : > But honestly, to stimulate discussion: > a) More topics on space, on material science, on energy, on social dynamics! > b) To these topics, reply even if you aren't confident in totality of theory > or if you think your ideas are half-formed. ?There is always a chance that > the seed of wonder is somewhere in those ideas, especially when there is > almost surely a person on this list who is very well-versed in said topic > and can help with the nitty-gritty. ?The more ideas get put out there, the > better chances there are of one being a good one. ?The rest will die as per > natural selection. ?Be impulsive more, and, most importantly, establish a > filter that replaces every instance of the word "Searle" with "Fuck me!" Everyone listen to this man. I know what *my* next thread is going to be! From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:00:53 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:00:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281745l32e46ee5o7db8f2692fc7289d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281745l32e46ee5o7db8f2692fc7289d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Feb 28, 2010, at 8:45 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > for "esoteric yet promising ideas," I have posted not one but two messages to the list in the past 2 days, each in excess of 1000 words, that seem to have been ignored for what is most likely a response to the na?vet? of my writing (I'm seventeen, damnit!) but perhaps shows an endemic pro-classicism here. That, or I would just love validation. "Chess Room" seemed interesting, but I never finished it, sooo long, haha. Sorry. I'll probably read over it, though I make no promises. > a) More topics on space, on material science, on energy, on social dynamics! > > b) To these topics, reply even if you aren't confident in totality of theory or if you think your ideas are half-formed. There is always a chance that the seed of wonder is somewhere in those ideas, especially when there is almost surely a person on this list who is very well-versed in said topic and can help with the nitty-gritty. The more ideas get put out there, the better chances there are of one being a good one. The rest will die as per natural selection. Be impulsive more, and, most importantly, establish a filter that replaces every instance of the word "Searle" with "Fuck me!" Yes! I love it. I joined the list about 4-5 months ago now, and I really liked it when I started, but the last couple of months have sort just dragged on. I've gotten so used to just rapidly slamming on the "delete" key that I now tend to venture on the "nah, not going to read it side. Btw, I'm 19, and its good to know there are at least a couple young people on the list (not saying everyone else is old, but I got the impression youngins were rare 'round these parts). Not sure if I am comfortable to post an original topic just yet, but I'll try to pay more attention in the future. This is, after all, an "extropy" chat list, and the whole point is to fight entropy, after all. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 1 03:09:07 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:09:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn > Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat > > > > Damien Broderick : > > > Watching the Great Swobe Disaster endlessly unreel (while repeatedly hitting > > > Delete) has made me realize that lists *can't* effectively allow > > > this sort of monomania to overwhelm their dynamic. > > Disaster? This is a walk in the park... Agreed! The Searle discussion has been mostly civil. I have always thought it easy enough to hit the delete key, or to filter a thread, or even a specific poster. I see no harm nor foul in having a particular obsession, so long as one refrains from personal attacks. >... I remember the good old days of the g*n "debates", remember those? I do! Those debates were so pointless and out of place here, even though this was initially a libertarian site with plenty of pro gun people hanging around. In those rancorous debates there was so much personal animosity, I feel sorry for whoever was doing the moderating in those days. That was before my hitch. > Whatever happened to Mike Lorrey? Emlyn I googled on my own name a few months ago, and found Mike had quoted me on something I wrote a bunch of years ago regarding how to select a crew for a Mars colony. That post was from last summer as I recall, so Mike is still alive and still thinking. The question is whatever happened to Joe Dees. He disappeared about ten years ago, and I have never been able to find him since. Anyone here friends with Joe Dees? Do invite him to drop in to the kinder and gentler ExI-chat list. spike From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:11:44 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:11:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> Inspired by Spencer, here is a "brief" summation for those who thought this was "tl" and so "dr". A machine can construct an AI based on analysis of some data set on one person. Here it is their chess strategy. But the machine encounters a strategy that was carefully averaged over many players, yet still, by its algorithms, produced consciousness. I then noted that many systems are reliant on external information modified by more than one consciousness, and so can only be determined by all the consciousnesses (or an average.) This may already take place with our left and right brains. This left me wondering whether any group of minds, say, humanity itself, also had an emergent mind associated with it. If the brains are very complicated series of calculations, a bunch of brains is pretty much the same thing. I might even go so far as to say that this system is aware. Next, I leapt to the idea that the components of entire universe could well exhibit awareness by this means, albethey in a much slower and more complicated manner. I guess I'm sort of proposing a god of sorts, but one that is constrained by the same rules that constrain us and has awareness so spread out as to not even constitute a true being in our sense of the word. This leads to another question: at what boundary to communication does awareness stop working? When do the parts become too separate to lead to consciousness? Our brain is conscious. If we take it that the human system is not, to any degree, then there must be a boundary to physical intimacy (in the brain, of course.) I might even say that if you believe in a totally emergent consciousness, then you MUST believe in emergent consciousness on Earth and in the Universe in at least some small amount, and that if you believe that consciousness exists (as I do) at some certain neurological locus, there is still room for discussion. If THIS post is in fact too long to merit consideration, I suppose I'll have to craft an even shorter response and read it to you like a bedtime story. I could even use puppets, if you'd like. ;) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:26:24 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:26:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Will Steinberg : > Inspired by Spencer, here is a "brief" summation for those who thought this > was "tl" and so "dr". The summation is less compelling, but more approachable! B++ Based on the logic presented here, I feel pretty well convinced that it is accurate to speak of the earth (say) having a mind. However, I'd also submit that that mind is unconscious. This may just be my prejudice against non-verbal entities, though. There is a certain correlation, here, with Ken Wilber's concept of the evolution of consciousness. I am making the implication that the earth could develop into a conscious entity, whether or not it's converted to computronium first. In fact, it ought to be possible without any visible technology to speak of; we just have to get all the humans to act in a certain way. I'm not sure exactly what that way is, though. China Brain is cheating; that would only instantiate a new mind, whereas I want to give a voice to a mind that already exists. Benthic Violet (the machine with a genius name) does something equivalent to brain-scanning, and the jury is still out on that. How do you talk to a thing made of seven billion people? From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:36:08 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:36:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281745l32e46ee5o7db8f2692fc7289d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: JOSHUA JOB : > "Chess Room" seemed interesting, but I never finished it, sooo long, haha. > Sorry. I'll probably read over it, though I make no promises. I KNEW IT! There ought to be some kind of check in place to catch this when it happens. From the writer's perspective, it just looks like everybody hates you. Laziness and/or lack of time did not initially occur to me as a likely cause for "The Throughput of English" dying before it hit the ground. JOSHUA JOB : > Btw, I'm 19, and its good to know there are at least a couple young people > on the list (not saying everyone else is old, but I got the impression > youngins were rare 'round these parts). Twenty, here. I think intellectuals just age faster than normal people. From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:40:21 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:40:21 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: <230089.92387.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <230089.92387.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 1 March 2010 11:42, Gordon Swobe wrote: > --- On Sat, 2/27/10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> It's true that there is no requirement for an AI to follow >> brain architecture, but I am considering the special case where >> it does. > > After mulling over your thought experiment for oh so many weeks, it seems to me apparent that weak AI *must* deviate from organic structure. So I don't know what you mean by "special case", unless you've just begged the question of strong AI. What I mean by an AI following brain architecture is that it is made up of components that exactly duplicate the I/O behaviour of the corresponding biological component. There is no requirement that the artificial component itself follow the structure of the biological one internally, although as a practical matter it might be easier if it does. I have mainly been talking about these artificial components being neurons but they could just as easily be subneuronal or multineuronal structures. For example, we could remove a sphere of brain tissue one centimetre in diameter and replace it with a sphere of similar size comprised of machinery which interacts with the cut surface exactly as the replaced tissue would have. Within the implant there would be a computer running a program based on information from scanning or dissecting the original tissue, controlling sensors and effectors at the surface. Essentially, the implant is a little philosophical zombie designed to fool the surrounding brain into believing that it is normal brain tissue, in the same way as a fully grown philosophical zombie is designed to fool humans into thinking that it is a conscious human. You agree that the fully grown zombie is possible but you have expressed doubts about smaller and simpler versions of it. If you have presented an argument to support this view I have missed it. -- Stathis Papaioannou From aware at awareresearch.com Mon Mar 1 03:36:16 2010 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:36:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > Damien Broderick : >> Watching the Great Swobe Disaster endlessly unreel (while repeatedly hitting >> Delete) has made me realize that lists *can't* effectively allow this sort >> of monomania to overwhelm their dynamic. > > Would everyone agree that putting an abrupt end to all living > Searle-derivative threads is a good idea? As I've said before, if the participants actually cared about reaching a more encompassing understanding, they should make the effort to summarize THE OTHER participants's positions. Moreover, they could establish some structure expressing the various points of view, supporting beliefs, and potential approaches to falsification or assessment of [in]coherence. I think such efforts toward not reconciliation, but encompassment, would be worthwhile. But instead we get just another example of the psychology of human biases and status-seeking behavior. - Jef From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 1 03:14:41 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:14:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2A09304DD4664B59ADBC3E2EBFC62854@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat > > On 2/28/2010 6:43 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > > > I haven't been here long enough to have any idea of how > things used to be... > > Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when > Eliezer, Anders, Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, > Robert Bradbury and some others left the room. You have no > idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. > > Damien Broderick We adultos rue the day these guys left too. I got a phone call from Robert Bradbury a few weeks ago. He is well, still thinking, still being Robert. Anders was in town last spring for a meeting of some sort, but I was on the road on the east coast for business most of the time he was here, so we didn't even get a chance to gather the locals. Shelly and Isaac enjoyed the sunshine of his presence. Eugen has a son about the same age as mine, so I have a good notion of why we seldom hear from him these days. spike From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:50:32 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:50:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> On Feb 28, 2010, at 10:11 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > This left me wondering whether any group of minds, say, humanity itself, also had an emergent mind associated with it. If the brains are very complicated series of calculations, a bunch of brains is pretty much the same thing. I might even go so far as to say that this system is aware. Next, I leapt to the idea that the components of entire universe could well exhibit awareness by this means, albethey in a much slower and more complicated manner. I guess I'm sort of proposing a god of sorts, but one that is constrained by the same rules that constrain us and has awareness so spread out as to not even constitute a true being in our sense of the word. > > This leads to another question: at what boundary to communication does awareness stop working? When do the parts become too separate to lead to consciousness? Our brain is conscious. If we take it that the human system is not, to any degree, then there must be a boundary to physical intimacy (in the brain, of course.) I might even say that if you believe in a totally emergent consciousness, then you MUST believe in emergent consciousness on Earth and in the Universe in at least some small amount, and that if you believe that consciousness exists (as I do) at some certain neurological locus, there is still room for discussion. I am wary of the idea of an actual mind composed of minds. The thing is that people always have choices, they can behave in unexpected and unpredictable ways, and so as a result, I don't see a group as having a mind (unless all the people in it chose to behave in a very particular way that was designed to do such a thing, but that is, honestly, cheating). I really don't recognize how there can be anything called a "mind" without concepts and language. This Overmind or whatever composed of the actions of lots of humans can't have concepts or language, so it isn't, by my definition, a mind. My dog, in view, is literally mindless, as she has no concepts nor words. Babies too, are essentially mindless, up until 'round the time they say their first word. With language comes thought (conceptual thought), and with thought comes Mind. Perhaps such a thing may exist, and it is just too big to understand it. But it strikes me as more Voodoo witchery that anything else. I believe in emergent consciousness, I just find it difficult to imagine minds forming an Overmind. Something about the idea of a "mind" makes it a stand-alone entity. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 03:57:35 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:57:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:50 PM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > > I am wary of the idea of an actual mind composed of minds...I don't see a > group as having a mind...I really don't recognize how there can be anything > called a "mind" without concepts and language. This Overmind or whatever > composed of the actions of lots of humans can't have concepts or language, > so it isn't, by my definition, a mind...Something about the idea of a "mind" > makes it a stand-alone entity. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WD0-4FNNC67-1&_user=10&_coverDate=09/30/2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1226580090&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=42b68e9253e83b5635e7db8babaa700c Two separate consciousness registered; one could communicate because it contained speech processing areas. (Note--this is lifted right out of Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind, which is, though sometimes a bit to eager to give merit to its own ideas, a very well-done book, especially on recognizing the uniqueness of intuition. Poe's Eureka also speaks to the fact.) It is absolutely true that we cannot, as of now, comprehend this multi-consciousness existence. But here is the proof--right there in the pudding! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 04:20:04 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:20:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Feb 28, 2010, at 10:57 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Two separate consciousness registered; one could communicate because it contained speech processing areas. (Note--this is lifted right out of Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind, which is, though sometimes a bit to eager to give merit to its own ideas, a very well-done book, especially on recognizing the uniqueness of intuition. Poe's Eureka also speaks to the fact.) > > It is absolutely true that we cannot, as of now, comprehend this multi-consciousness existence. But here is the proof--right there in the pudding! I haven't read the article, as it would cost me money, but from the abstract, it was not two separate consciousness's, but rather a single consciousness which had been ripped in two by surgery, which could recognize "itself" in pictures. I don't view split-brain patients as really indicative of normal people, as they have been brain damaged. Normally, the two hemispheres of the brain communicate and cooperate to create our "I". When the corpus collosum is severed, this is no longer possible, and yes each side may then develop a somewhat separate personality, but two separate consciousness's, in our own minds? No, I don't think so. A split-brain patient is more akin to two minds sharing a body that two minds forming one mind. Of course, it is possible the article itself suggests differently. I only have the abstract to go on. I haven't read Penrose's book, or Poe's. I intend to soon start Hofstadter's "I Am A Strange Loop", though it has been on my bookshelf for nearly a year now, so we'll see. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 04:37:46 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:37:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> Ah sorry--I didn't read that specific article, but it seems to have been the study from tENM. What is interesting is that the split-brain patient's two sides expressed *different intentions!* Each side expressed wishes for separate futures and seemed to exist independently. The brain is known to compensate for damage. Perhaps it compensated here by forming an entirely new copy of the "consciousness sector." Hofstadter espouses a very similar idea close to the beginning of his book. I would recommend tENM over it, but both are very interesting. Eureka is...different, but it has great stuff on intuition and will paint Poe in a new light for you. Anyhow--back to an emergent mind. What sways me towards the idea is that a group can have intention and trends, sometimes without total comprehension of any within the group as singular units. Humanity progresses, but the specifics are not known to any one of us. This may just be an emergent necessity, but maybe our awarenesses are as well, given some special interactions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 1 04:48:10 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:48:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8B470A.3040901@satx.rr.com> On 2/28/2010 9:26 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > How do you talk to a thing made of seven billion people? Very slowly. From moulton at moulton.com Mon Mar 1 04:22:37 2010 From: moulton at moulton.com (moulton at moulton.com) Date: 1 Mar 2010 04:22:37 -0000 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat Message-ID: <20100301042237.21295.qmail@moulton.com> On Sun, 2010-02-28 at 19:45 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > > Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, > Anders, Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some > others left the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go > back that far. I seem to recall there was a movement at one time to create a complete archive. Is this still a possibility or is that history going to be lost? Fred From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 04:56:16 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:56:16 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: References: <214822.48535.qm@web113620.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 1 March 2010 12:08, Spencer Campbell wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou : >> I guess you are talking about M making a leap as a sort of analogy, >> but it can be a misleading one. For continuity of experience it is >> necessary *and* sufficient that the right sorts of mental states occur >> in A, B and C. M does not add anything to the explanation and does not >> go leaping. > > Considering the fact that M is literally defined as, "some property > [of an individual] such that continuity [of experience] remains > unbroken as long as the individual retains that property", I would go > so far as to say that an explanation which doesn't mention M, at least > implicitly, is impossible. It's just shorthand for continuity of > experience in and of itself, really. In an earlier post you posited, as I understood it, that there might be continuity of experience but no M. That if you wake from a coma M might be preserved but not if you are resuscitated after dying, even though your experience is exactly the same in each case. That does imply that you think M might be something over and above continuity of experience. Or without using M, you are saying there might be two types of continuity of experience, type A and type B. Type A occurs when you wake from a coma, while type B occurs when you are resuscitated after dying. There is no subjective difference between type A and type B, but type A is still "better". > Your constraints do not help me at all. What are the right sorts of > mental states? Stressing once again the problem of mental clones, what > if more than one thing is in the right sort of mental state to qualify > as me? Which one am I? You are the one you feel yourself to be at the moment you consider the question, of course. Your soul/consciousness/M/whatever does not flit from one body to the other. At any moment you have memories of having been a particular person, and you look forward to becoming a future version of the same person. In a single linear time line there is no problem with thinking that you are, in fact, the one person traveling through time in the forward direction, but if you consider unusual situations involving clones, parallel worlds and time travel it becomes clear that this is just a delusion. It is nevertheless a very important delusion, hardwired into your brain, so if you are duplicated in two places you try to make sense of it by assuming that you are still living linearly, which means that you expect to end up one or other copy with equal probability. It is harder to say what you should expect if there are multiple copies with varying degrees of mental similarity to the original, since that is unlike any situation your brain evolved to cope with. > Taking your statements at face value, I must necessarily be every > entity that has the right sort of mental state. I'm not sure that it > makes sense to talk about me being a bunch of individual people, > considering the fact that I would not necessarily qualify as a hive > mind. > > I don't know. In practice my many brains might somehow > quantum-entangle with each other automatically and I will inevitably > become a hive mind, but that seems very unlikely to me. I'm aware that > some people here are keeping up to date on the latest findings in > psi-like phenomena research. Damien Broderick could probably tell me > with some confidence whether or not something like that is plausible. > It does border on identical-twin telepathy and the like. I don't have a problem with simultaneously existing copies. I am one, and only one, of the copies at any moment. -- Stathis Papaioannou From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 06:16:24 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:16:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Someone posted that a few weeks ago, quantum mechanics in photosynthesis. That's not exactly true. Plants use multiple quantum chemistry because it takes more than one quantum of light to accomplish the first step in reducing carbon dioxide. Chemistry is understood today as quantum chemistry, particularly bonds are represented as electron quantum states, 1s, 2p, etc. But that's marginal. If you took chemistry recently you probably understand it better than I do. Being an old school electrical engineer, I took QM and the next semester solid state physics. If they assign you the non infinite square well problem when you take QM, the key to solving it is the Bessel equation. As a general matter in discussions on the net (not just here) I suggest not invoking QM arguments until you have had the course. After taking the course, chances are you won't do that because QM is hard to relate to common place events in the world except the trite cases such as chemistry or device physics. snip I don't know how deep your knowledge of modern biology, particularly evolution is. Selfish Gene by Dawkins is basic to understanding evolution, I presume you have read that. What other parts of the topic are you up on? Keith Henson PS. You are *so* lucky to be 17. If you study up on evolutionary psychology it should keep from wasting huge chunks of your life trying to figure out why people are the way they are. From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 06:35:16 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 01:35:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4e3a29501002282235n5ffe590em7d28b03155aa6d6f@mail.gmail.com> Oi! Phew--I am glad someone will tell me that (as I'd assumed) I have grossly oversimplified the workings of QM in order to speculate. However--given that neurons ALSO need multiple quanta of energy to fire, and that there may be "loose" enough bonding to allow sizable delocalization, is it tenable that the brain can in some way use this quantum efficiency to calculate things faster? I was under the impression that the problem with QM in biological situations was mostly associated with a "noisy environment," and that the discovery of coherence in plants, which are relatively hot, perhaps allowed for other situations. Am I wrong in assuming this? What makes coherence possible for plants that would not apply to brains? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 09:16:45 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:16:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 1:45 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, Anders, > Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some others left > the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. > > Matches: from:(Gordon Swobe) Do this: Skip Inbox, Delete it This will save wear and tear on your Delete key. But you will still see the vast number of posts trying to use reasoning to stop the unreasoning repetition of the same 'beliefs' over and over again. And people responding quote far too much of the drivel. Trim your quotes! List management has many different styles but it has to respond as necessary to the circumstances. Sometimes a light touch is all that is needed, with the threat of the big stick hidden behind your back. But neglect can let a good list sink into the swamp. It needs someone to have personal ownership of the list with a picture in their mind of what they want the list to be and time to spend to maintain the list accordingly. Many other attributes, of course, go towards making the perfect list moderator. (A Hitler mask helps!). The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. And their sphere of action moved away from the old ways. In some cases it may be that their 'philosophy' changed and some of their old ways became an embarrassment that they would rather not discuss. Their new outlook expresses itself in different ways in different environments. But we have a new generation appearing. Unfortunately (for the ol' guys) they appear to have the normal student desire to sit round a table at 2 in the morning, discussing whether the table really exists. (Don't laugh - you know you've all done it!) But the oldies will have to have a bit of patience while the youngsters work through that phase. The kids nowadays! ;) BillK But there are hopeful signs. From giulio at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 09:47:08 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:47:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: As Damien says, the list used to be more interesting a few years ago, and even more interesting 10 years ago. This depends partly on some of the most brilliant posters having left or missing in action, but also on not having a strategic visions for this list, shared by a majority of posters. Too bad, because this list used to represent one of the most exciting discussion spaces on the net, probably the most exciting. What could we do to restart a Golden Age? Giulio - by the way, I am now using my main email address for this list. On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:16 AM, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 1:45 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: >> Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, Anders, >> Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some others left >> the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 11:15:11 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 06:15:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003010315r7a94a266x6a2655ecea818bee@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:16 AM, BillK wrote: > But we have a new generation appearing. Unfortunately (for the ol' > guys) they appear to have the normal student desire to sit round a > table at 2 in the morning, discussing whether the table really exists. > (Don't laugh - you know you've all done it!) > But the oldies will have to have a bit of patience while the > youngsters work through that phase. The kids nowadays! ;) Hey! I'd call it more trying to see why the table exists given that we know it does. I guess it is a bit...airy? But where else are you going to find the latest references to MTV, texting, Miley Cyrus, instant gratification, electronic-mail, high-fructose corn syrup, hyphenation, blue jeans, or Pokemon? We might have some solid ideas! Because, I mean, like, what if this is all--you know, I mean life, right--what if it's all, like, we're in this big computer, and it's like, you know that binary shit, right? Like we're all that kinda code and then, like, you can hack the code, and--dude, fuck! Are you just going to hold it? I mean, pass it dude, you're wasting it! ...Do we have any more Easy Mac? ;) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 12:50:38 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 04:50:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> Message-ID: <178900.3450.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 2/28/10, spike wrote: >> Disaster? This is a walk in the park... > > Agreed!? The Searle discussion has been mostly civil.? Thank you Spike. I have been unfairly maligned for presenting a philosophy heretical to extropianism, and for no other reason. What happened to free thought and spirited debate on this list? Damien you ought to know better, but instead you fan the flames and encourage my ostracism. Disappointing. -gts From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 13:44:45 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 05:44:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 3/1/10, BillK wrote: > Matches: from:(Gordon Swobe) > Do this: Skip Inbox, Delete it Exactly, Bill. Nobody reads messages at gunpoint. If A has no interest in B's messages then A should behave like an adult and simply ignore B. No need for insults, snide messages, gossip or any other of the kind of childish behavior that I've seen here recently. Clark even created an entire thread just to harass me. -gts From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 15:04:23 2010 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 07:04:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] I need a favor... Message-ID: <29666bf31003010704x18fdc7dasb10d0399fb10016c@mail.gmail.com> Hello all, I would greatly appreciate if someone with restricted library access could download the pdfs of the following academic papers and send all of them to me. I am trying to help my group of local parents get an accelerated science track into our high school, which would benefit my own kids, their friends and our school generally. And you all know how administrators like data... :-) http://rer.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/409 http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/338 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005IJSEd..27..471C http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007PhTea..45..434V http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003APS..MAR.R1276S http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003IJSEd..25...13R Thank you SO much! Sincerely, PJ From aware at awareresearch.com Mon Mar 1 15:32:41 2010 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 07:32:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 1:16 AM, BillK wrote: > The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. > And their sphere of action moved away from the old ways. In some cases > it may be that their 'philosophy' changed and some of their old ways > became an embarrassment that they would rather not discuss. Their new > outlook expresses itself in different ways in different environments. Yes, I think this is the main reason for the decline. The confluence of the Internet taking off, the dot-com boom, nascent recognition of exponential growth, hints of disruptive technological developments (bio, nano, robo, cogno) always just on the horizon, Libertarian/Randian propensities finding an avenue for expression, and some highly intelligent and *passionate* people coming together resulted in heady times. That experience set my expectations (unreasonably) that if such people only come together in the right environment, the intellectual fires would continue to burn hotter and hotter. Now the "burning" is much more like that described earlier in this thread by Will. Oh well. I do know better. Thanks for the reminder. Fortunately, I subscribe to a (very) small number of other lists where very bright researchers discuss the leading edge of topics that once fueled extropian speculation: bigger-picture views of complexity, chaos and information theory, evolutionary and developmental change (and where epistemology need not be rediscovered each go-around.) But the dry academic humor on these lists is no substitute for the passion of the old extropy list. We've seen over and over again that new people join the list and are excited to discover the same old epistemological puzzles involving notions of qualia, consciousness, self, personal identity, etc. Most of these are motivated by the (easily understandable and to be expected) desire to promote the Self, via duplication, augmentation, amplification and immortality. Very few understand, or are interested in thinking, that shows the capital-S Self to be an entirely fictional entity, while the effectiveness of its agency really matters. We've considered creating repositories of past knowledge and arguments arguments on these topics, which might provide a scaffold for those interested in climbing higher. But the passion is gone, and local entropy reigns and as Gibson said, "the future is already here; it's just unevenly distributed." Silly (seriously) to have expected that here it could remain concentrated. - Jef From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 15:39:35 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:39:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003010739k4b04acbmb28830e59da93aa4@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 3:47 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Too bad, because this list used to represent one of the most exciting > discussion spaces on the net, probably the most exciting. What could > we do to restart a Golden Age? And if any of you are serious about wanting a "Golden Age", you'll stop hiding all of your old archives and say to hell with it. Forward those old emails, upload the archives. Even just sending one or two nuggets every few days would be enough to spark some interest in those topics. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 15:59:41 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 07:59:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Will Steinberg : > Anyhow--back to an emergent mind. ?What sways me towards the idea is that a group can have intention and trends, sometimes without total comprehension of any within the group as singular units. ?Humanity progresses, but the specifics are not known to any one of us. ?This may just be an emergent necessity, but maybe our awarenesses are as well, given some special interactions. Crowds make a perfect example of how this works. Put enough people in one place, direct their attention toward a single thing, and the mob mentality sets in. This is merely disconcerting when the mob-mind is focused on some physical phenomenon (music concerts, comedy clubs), but it can become outright dangerous when it gets an idea (protests, riots). Angry mobs are, somehow, angrier than the sum of their parts. Organizations of all kinds illustrate the concept on longer time scales. Microsoft seems to have its own dysfunctional personality, distinct from its constituent owners and employees. The willfulness of nations is well-documented; even in a democracy, which has no consistent "head" to speak of, the nation as a whole continues to have predictable behavior and preferences that distinguish it from every other nation. These aren't new ideas by any means, so Google can dig up gold. Here's a typologist talking about the personality type of a system of typology: http://socionist.blogspot.com/2008/01/socionics-game.html From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 16:26:03 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 08:26:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: References: <214822.48535.qm@web113620.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Stathis Papaioannou : > In an earlier post you posited, as I understood it, that there might > be continuity of experience but no M. That if you wake from a coma M > might be preserved but not if you are resuscitated after dying, even > though your experience is exactly the same in each case. That does > imply that you think M might be something over and above continuity of > experience. Or without using M, you are saying there might be two > types of continuity of experience, type A and type B. Type A occurs > when you wake from a coma, while type B occurs when you are > resuscitated after dying. There is no subjective difference between > type A and type B, but type A is still "better". No, you misunderstood it. To use your terminology: in Type A continuity there is no question of whether or not I retain M, because (and only because) nothing unusual is happening to make us think that maybe I don't. In Type B continuity we are doing strange things with technology. Even if I do wake up and show all the behavior of my old self, there will be suspicions from the pro-soul crowd: does the thing waking up have a soul? Is it the same soul as before? You can replace "soul" with M in both cases, in which case the answer to the first question is obviously yes. The answer to the second question is not so easy. If it's yes, then it seems my M must have been stored somewhere in the interim, which means M is an immortal soul. If it's no, which I am more inclined to believe, then we have a big problem: uploading would appear to work for all intents and purposes, but either (a) the thing experiencing my mind would not be the same thing that experiences my mind right now, or (b) there has never been anything that experiences being me. Saying that M must have been stored somewhere in the interim is probably going to attract more comments along the lines of "but interrupted continuity is experienced as identical to uninterrupted continuity", so I'll take a shot at addressing that right now. "Interrupted continuity of experience" is an oxymoron. M is not your conscious mind, which fades in and out; M is purely an abstraction. If you are temporarily knocked out or dead or whatever, resulting in a period of time in which you have no subjective experiences, you still have M during that period. The only situation in which you lose M is when you go to the atheist afterlife. M is, in a very literal sense, you. Again, nolipsism solves the problem neatly. If any of you say, "but M is a self, and there is no such thing as a self, so M is a meaningless abstraction of nothing", then my only possible response is: yes, that's logical. Stathis Papaioannou : > I don't have a problem with simultaneously existing copies. I am one, > and only one, of the copies at any moment. I could ask which, but that's a cheap shot. Instead: exactly one? Why not zero? From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 1 16:03:46 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:03:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How not to make a thought experiment In-Reply-To: <496794.57916.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <496794.57916.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2BCDD6B7-A420-4B01-88E3-A91627CD6FF6@bellsouth.net> Since my last post Gordon Swobe has posted 5 times. > If you think the conscious thoughts in your head exist as physical properties of matter then you can embrace materialism. But one cannot embrace Gordon Swobe's views who believes consciousness was created by things the Scientific Method cannot detect and, although Swobe gives lip service to it, clearly Darwin's theory of Evolution could not have produced. > If you cannot think at all then you can embrace John Clark. [...] I have been unfairly maligned for presenting a philosophy heretical to extropianism, and for no other reason. What happened to free thought and spirited debate on this list? What happened to people who had the courage to defend their views when seriously challenged instead of looking for sympathy and whining about unfair treatment ? > If A has no interest in B's messages then A should behave like an adult and simply ignore B. Or one could challenge B, in fact I was under the impression that was the entire point of the Extropian list; and I'm sorry this message is so short but even with 5 posts there was very little substance to work with. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 16:48:32 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:48:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:15 AM, wrote: snip > Will Steinberg : >> But honestly, to stimulate discussion: >> a) More topics on space, on material science, on energy, on social dynamics! Space and materials science relate. For example Spectra 2000 is good enough for a moving cable space elevator from the lunar surface out through L1. I put this into a spreadsheet not long ago and later found I had regenerated the stress graph Jerome Pearson did when he worked through the problem. Energy and space relate through solar power satellites. Alas, that is looking less and less likely since another approach has come along that will make energy in the "half the cost of coal" range and takes a lot less front end investment. Spike knows what I am talking about. We should be able to freely discuss it in a few months. Social dynamics requires a background in memetics and evolutionary psychology. For EP to make sense you must be up on the selfish gene (Dawkins) modern understanding of evolution. If you want to intelligently participate in such discussions it it critical you understand these topics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection#Hamilton.27s_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness >> b) To these topics, reply even if you aren't confident in totality of theory >> or if you think your ideas are half-formed. If you don't understand a post on these topics *ask questions.* Don't just assert your ignorance with dogmatic statements. To take this discussion up to a meta level, why to people read and post on mailing list at all? The reason is rooted in stone age evolution, particularly in reproductive success. Can anyone clearly state the logic? Mondo snip > Subject: Re: [ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, > ? ? ? ?quantum ? ? ? ? evolution > > Oi! ?Phew--I am glad someone will tell me that (as I'd assumed) I have > grossly oversimplified the workings of QM in order to speculate. > > However--given that neurons ALSO need multiple quanta of energy to fire, and > that there may be "loose" enough bonding to allow sizable delocalization, is > it tenable that the brain can in some way use this quantum efficiency to > calculate things faster? ?I was under the impression that the problem with > QM in biological situations was mostly associated with a "noisy > environment," and that the discovery of coherence in plants, which are > relatively hot, perhaps allowed for other situations. > Am I wrong in assuming this? ?What makes coherence possible for plants that > would not apply to brains? Coherence doesn't apply to either. The scale is wrong. What goes on in brains is many orders of magnitude away from where quantum effects show up. "Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have speculated that consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules, which they dubbed Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction). But Max Tegmark, in a paper in Physical Review E, calculated that the time scale of neuron firing and excitations in microtubules is slower than the decoherence time by a factor of at least 10,000,000,000. The reception of the paper is summed up by this statement in his support: "Physicists outside the fray, such as IBM's John A. Smolin, say the calculations confirm what they had suspected all along. 'We're not working with a brain that's near absolute zero. It's reasonably unlikely that the brain evolved quantum behavior', he says." The Tegmark paper has been widely cited by critics of the Penrose-Hameroff proposal. It has been claimed by Hameroff to be based on a number of incorrect assumptions (see linked paper below from Hameroff, Scott Hagan and Jack Tuszy?ski), but Tegmark in turn has argued that the critique is invalid (see rejoinder link below). In particular, Hameroff points out the peculiarity that Tegmark's formula for the decoherence time includes a factor of T2 in the numerator, meaning that higher temperatures would lead to longer decoherence times. Tegmark's rejoinder keeps the factor of T2 for the decoherence time. "In his book, The Web's Awake, Phillip Tetlow states that Penrose's ideas about the human thought process are not widely accepted in scientific circles, citing Minsky's criticisms, and quoting science journalist Charles Seife, who notes that Penrose is one of a handful of scientists for whom the nature of consciousness suggests a quantum process. [14]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose Keith From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 16:49:19 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 08:49:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Gordon Swobe : > Exactly, Bill. Nobody reads messages at gunpoint. If A has no interest in B's messages then A should behave like an adult and simply ignore B. Right! So, if you have a kid, and your kid is speaking passionately about some nonsensical drivel or other, you should do the adult thing: turn on the TV, send your kid off to school or homework, insist that it is bedtime or mealtime, for heavens sake find some excuse not to listen. Same deal between two adults. If you don't like someone, simply ignore everything they have to say. You already know that you know better than they do, anyway. Surely John Clark's only motivation for criticizing you is sheer unrepentant malevolence. The only noble approach for dealing with him is to snipe from afar, handing down judgements from on high so as not to stoop to his level. I don't like you, Gordon, but I would never clamp my hands over my ears and shout LAALAALAA to drown you out. It might be that I don't like you because you are right and I am wrong. I have no way to determine that ahead of time, so, if I want every opportunity to educate myself, I have to take my chances and keep reading what you write. From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 1 16:51:24 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:51:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: On Feb 28, 2010, at 7:18 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > > If you call information processing philosophically important I do. > then certainly there is a philosophically important distinction to be made between gross structure and fine chemical/electrical activity. I don't understand this philosophical distinction, it's all just a question of putting atoms (including electrically charged electrons) here rather than over there. > If the brain were clockwork, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. > Generally a clock can just keep ticking along regardless of, say, its > thermal conductivity. But if you magnetize the clock's parts it will stop ticking, and thermal effects will change the length of a clocks pendulum and thus its speed. I don't get the philosophical point you are trying to make. > This is basically what happens in the case of plasticization. > Structure is preserved, but chemical and electrical properties are > radically altered. Read: removed. A plasticized brain no longer *does* > anything of note. It just kind of sits there. Yes, but so what? If you stop a clock from ticking it will, ah, stop. > I think the mind is an activity. So there you go. No activity, no mind. Obviously. > I am forced to argue that when it comes to people who've woken up from > comas (say), the mind's existence has ALWAYS continued without a break > objectively. Well that is just untrue, if you go into a coma on Monday and come out on Wednesday then objectively your mind did not exist on tuesday, but objectivity is of trivial importance, subjectivity is not. > It seems to me that subjective continuity and objective continuity cannot be disentangled Well of course they can! If you put me under general anesthesia I'll swear up and down that it's Monday even though the calendar says it's Wednesday. > Mind scanning does not preserve objective continuity I don't care. > as more gradual uploading methods do That would imply there is a preferred rate of change in the universe and the evidence for that is as good as there being a preferred reference frame in the universe. None. > Man, John, it's disorienting to see you displaying such wanton civility. I don't know what you mean. I have been on the Extropian list for 15 years and in that time I have always treated fellow list members with all the respect they deserved. > John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 1 16:53:30 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:53:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4B8BF10A.6010907@satx.rr.com> On 3/1/2010 7:44 AM, Gordon Swobe wrote: > Nobody reads messages at gunpoint. If A has no interest in B's messages then A should behave like an adult and simply ignore B. I used to agree with those who said "Let 1000 Flowers Bloom," pick and choose from posts as you will, ignore those other people droning on about their obsessional interests, say something new to keep the ball rolling into fresh areas. But I now suspect it doesn't work that way. The commons get clogged and the lively spirit drains away, somehow. It's a bit like standing in a party where a couple of people are yammering at the top of their voices at each other--in principle you can chat with the person beside you, but in fact most people just pack up and leave. Damien Broderick From aware at awareresearch.com Mon Mar 1 17:01:45 2010 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:01:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2010/2/28 Will Steinberg : > Inspired by Spencer, here is a "brief" summation for those who thought this > was "tl" and so "dr". +1 to Spencer for self-referential humor. + 0.5 to Will for the effort at creative writing which, sadly, was "tltr". Actually, I did read it, but awareness of unawareness of awareness put me off. You might consider the somewhat counterintuitive fact that given perfect knowledge of the present, the *past* is *more* uncertain than the future, because there are multiple configurations of the past that /might/ have led to the present configuration but only fully specified and determined configurations going forward. Pass this along to Tippler if you happen to see him in the future. - Jef - Jef From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 06:36:53 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 17:36:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 01/03/2010, Emlyn wrote: > Disaster? This is a walk in the park. I remember the good old days of > the g*n "debates", remember those? Whatever happened to Mike Lorrey? Ooooh yeah, the post-9/11 "nuke the swarthy ragheads" ranting totally killed off my enthusiasm for this list. I don't post often (if ever) but I used to, I've been subbed since 1993 or so. Hell, I got email from Spaf and Marvin Minsky because of stuff I mentioned here, years ago. My impression is the European discussers wandered off to form various transhumanism groups leaving American debaters. My 5c. YMMV Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 06:37:59 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 17:37:59 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 01/03/2010, Damien Broderick wrote: > Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, Anders, > Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some others left > the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. They don't?!?!?!?! YIKES. I should have stuff archived somewhere. Maybe. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 1 17:17:22 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:17:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <178900.3450.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <178900.3450.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <208908272D9B474FB1535B542A2492AB@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Gordon Swobe > Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat > > --- On Sun, 2/28/10, spike wrote: > > >> Disaster? This is a walk in the park... > > > > Agreed!? The Searle discussion has been mostly civil. > > Thank you Spike. I have been unfairly maligned for presenting > a philosophy heretical to extropianism, and for no other > reason. What happened to free thought and spirited debate on > this list? > > Damien you ought to know better, but instead you fan the > flames and encourage my ostracism. Disappointing. > > -gts Hi Gordon, Do let me make a couple of observations from a disinterested viewpoint on the whole debate. I read over most of the Searle discussion, never posted anything on it for I am insufficiently informed. Like plenty of others, I didn't really see the discussion producing much fruit and observed some want of strict discipline in answering specific objections before running on to something else. That being said, the criticism was unfounded. Note that there was definite overposting, persistent, annoying overposting, and I do confess I did nothing about it, didn't even warn those who were doing it, so I share some of the blame for that. I don't filter anyone ever, since I still kinda try to help where I can with moderation. My philosophy is to moderate as lightly as possible, but not moreso. Regarding being unfairly maligned, this tone is seen from time to time on this list. I have seen worse. Having someone post comments such as "Gordon has posted yakity yak times since my last post" well, if you are not overposting, it just shows that person to be unreasonable. If you are overposting, it shows you to be unreasonable. Carry on! spike From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Mar 1 17:15:51 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:15:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <20100301042237.21295.qmail@moulton.com> References: <20100301042237.21295.qmail@moulton.com> Message-ID: <139CAF1F782A437A84A16A2D8894895A@DFC68LF1> Hi Fred, We are working on a book based on some early posts. By the way, Anders is still on the list, as is 'gene. Hal is unavilable, and we miss him. Robert graciously left the list after a problem concerning his posts. Fred, would you like to assist with the archive? Anyone? 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 moulton at moulton.com Sent: Sunday, February 28, 2010 10:23 PM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat On Sun, 2010-02-28 at 19:45 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > > Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, > Anders, Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and > some others left the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't > go back that far. I seem to recall there was a movement at one time to create a complete archive. Is this still a possibility or is that history going to be lost? Fred _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From aware at awareresearch.com Mon Mar 1 17:18:21 2010 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:18:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 5:44 AM, Gordon Swobe wrote: > --- On Mon, 3/1/10, BillK wrote: > >> Matches: from:(Gordon Swobe) >> Do this: Skip Inbox, Delete it > > Exactly, Bill. Nobody reads messages at gunpoint. If A has no interest in B's messages then A should behave like an adult and simply ignore B. ...and speaking of self-referentiality, not necessarily humorous: -1 to Gordon for another example of extreme oversimplification to make a point ("at gunpoint" and "simply ignore") again demonstrating insensitivity to context. -1 to Jef for futilely reminding Gordon of the importance of context. and, +2 to Jef for doing it in a humorous, self-referential way, (((taunting someone who is childishly suggesting we behave as adults) and self-referentially commenting on it) thus turning it into a joke.) - Jef From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Mar 1 17:10:52 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:10:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <4B8BF10A.6010907@satx.rr.com> References: <378348.32120.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4B8BF10A.6010907@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: I recall you saying this same thing, or something very close to it, about 5 or so years ago when the list was bottle-necked. 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 Damien Broderick "... rests, say something new to keep the ball rolling into fresh areas. But I now suspect it doesn't work that way. The commons get clogged and the lively spirit drains away, somehow. It's a bit like standing in a party where a couple of people are yammering at the top of their voices at each other--in principle you can chat with the person beside you, but in fact most people just pack up and leave." Damien Broderick _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From sparge at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 17:39:18 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:39:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] related replies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 7:46 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 1 March 2010 06:39, Keith Henson wrote: >> >> This way is *exceeding* dangerous unless we deeply understand the >> biological mechanisms of human behavior, particularly behaviors such >> as capture-bonding which are turned on by behavioral switches (due to >> external situations). ?A powerful human type AI in "war mode," >> irrational and controlling millions of robot fighting machines is not >> something you want to happen. > > I don't think a mind upload would be dangerous initially because it > would not have either superintelligence or the ability to self-modify. > However, researchers could then go on and add these qualities as a > further project much more easily than they could to a biological > brain, and that is when it might get dangerous. It also shouldn't be direct control of anything potentially dangerous, certainly not millions of robot fighting machines. -Dave From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 18:01:22 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:01:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keith Henson : > Will Steinberg : >> b) To these topics, reply even if you aren't confident in totality of theory >> or if you think your ideas are half-formed. > > If you don't understand a post on these topics *ask questions.* ?Don't > just assert your ignorance with dogmatic statements. Oh, sweet irony. I love it so. There are many, many things wrong with the standard methods used in formal education today, but we can categorize a great many of them under one heading: unidirectional learning. For the most part, teachers teach and students learn. It is a rare classroom indeed where the students also teach and the teacher also learns; generally, if you've worked as a teacher for at least two years, you are already about as good at your job as you will ever be. A few underlying assumptions have supported unidirectional learning as the leading paradigm at least as far back the industrial revolution, probably reaching back to around 1770, and "ignorance is best kept out of sight" is one of them. Yet, somehow, most teachers today have a strong tendency to ask leading questions; an excellent tactic for making your students look, and feel, ignorant of the subject matter. The reason it's important for people with a poor grasp on a concept to speak freely about that concept is simple: if you don't know enough to articulate it properly, you probably don't know enough to figure out what questions you could ask to improve your understanding. I think teachers ask leading questions mainly in an attempt to show what a Good Question looks like, so that hopefully their students will follow suit. It almost works. The class starts engineering its questions so that they sound insightful, in a mostly-unconscious ploy to display falsely keen understanding and thus earn better grades. These sorts of questions compete for time with questions born out of genuine curiosity, it should be noted. Notice I have not cited any of my sources. Further irony! Ah, what fun. Keith Henson : > To take this discussion up to a meta level, why to people read and > post on mailing list at all? > > The reason is rooted in stone age evolution, particularly in > reproductive success. ?Can anyone clearly state the logic? At first your hint seemed off-puttingly specific, but then I realized: yes, of course, you can say the same of just about all uniquely human behavior. It seems to me that we can only clearly trace the history of mailing lists as far back as the agricultural revolution, when people were apt to gather around and suss out why things don't always grow when you plant them (thus setting the stage for astronomy), but you seem to have a definite correct answer in mind. Do tell. Keith Henson : > Will Steinberg : >> Am I wrong in assuming this? ?What makes coherence possible for plants that >> would not apply to brains? > > Coherence doesn't apply to either. ?The scale is wrong. ?What goes on > in brains is many orders of magnitude away from where quantum effects > show up. "This theory requires long-lived quantum coherence at room temperature, which never has been observed in FMO. Here we present the first evidence that quantum coherence survives in FMO at physiological temperature for at least 300 fs, long enough to perform a rudimentary quantum computational operation. This data proves that the wave-like energy transfer process discovered at 77 K is directly relevant to biological function." http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5108 So, barring the potential invalidation of that research, coherence certainly applies to at least one. Try again. From ablainey at aol.com Mon Mar 1 18:30:34 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:30:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CC87846A4D167B-4D80-2E72@webmail-m009.sysops.aol.com> Yes what did happen to Mike? There are a few other names that I havn't seen post since my return. Harvey Newstrom for example. A. -----Original Message----- From: Emlyn To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 1:35 Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat On 1 March 2010 11:55, Spencer Campbell wrote: > > Damien Broderick : > > Watching the Great Swobe Disaster endlessly unreel (while repeatedly hitting > > Delete) has made me realize that lists *can't* effectively allow this sort > > of monomania to overwhelm their dynamic. Disaster? This is a walk in the park. I remember the good old days of the g*n "debates", remember those? Whatever happened to Mike Lorrey? -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog _______________________________________________ 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 giulio at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 18:41:26 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 19:41:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <55ad6af71003010739k4b04acbmb28830e59da93aa4@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> <55ad6af71003010739k4b04acbmb28830e59da93aa4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I used to be able to access the archives of the old "extropians" list, a real mine of wonderful content. I am unable to find them now. I will write to somebody who should know. So about this Golden Age Renaissance: what, how, who, when? G. On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 3:47 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: >> Too bad, because this list used to represent one of the most exciting >> discussion spaces on the net, probably the most exciting. What could >> we do to restart a Golden Age? > > And if any of you are serious about wanting a "Golden Age", you'll > stop hiding all of your old archives and say to hell with it. Forward > those old emails, upload the archives. Even just sending one or two > nuggets every few days would be enough to spark some interest in those > topics. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 18:49:54 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:49:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <412543.58639.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002170859g6c25fcag3ddb51826fff23bd@mail.gmail.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > I must confess that a selection of data points that you find disagreeable doesn't sound like forgery to me. > > I further find the fact that you make this accusation without any apparent proof of deliberate forgery slanderous. ### I have reassured myself by extensive reading that deliberate forgery of climate data is well supported through analysis of the papers, as well as perusal of additional documents produced by FOIA requests. I am not interested in suing anybody. Do you have any more comments? Rafal From ablainey at aol.com Mon Mar 1 18:50:54 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:50:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <2A09304DD4664B59ADBC3E2EBFC62854@spike> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> <2A09304DD4664B59ADBC3E2EBFC62854@spike> Message-ID: <8CC878741551DC8-4D80-356D@webmail-m009.sysops.aol.com> Yes Kids certainly put a dampener on our efforts to change the world LOL. How many brilliant minds have been lost to the drudgery of parenthood? I must admit that this thread has given me that gut sinking feeling of nostalgia. -----Original Message----- From: spike >We adultos rue the day these guys left too. I got a phone call from Robert >Bradbury a few weeks ago. He is well, still thinking, still being Robert. >Anders was in town last spring for a meeting of some sort, but I was on the >road on the east coast for business most of the time he was here, so we >didn't even get a chance to gather the locals. Shelly and Isaac enjoyed the >sunshine of his presence. Eugen has a son about the same age as mine, so I >have a good notion of why we seldom hear from him these days. spike _______________________________________________ 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 spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 1 18:28:27 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:28:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <139CAF1F782A437A84A16A2D8894895A@DFC68LF1> References: <20100301042237.21295.qmail@moulton.com> <139CAF1F782A437A84A16A2D8894895A@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <7023EAC9390349679EC78D45E7CB2816@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More > Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat > > Hi Fred, > > We are working on a book based on some early posts. ... > Fred, would you like to assist with the archive? Anyone? Natasha Vita-More What kind of help do you have in mind? I have been anticipating something like this for over a decade. spike From cluebcke at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 18:43:02 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:43:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] related replies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <318126.25454.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I think y'all are confusing "dangerous" with "fun". Honestly, if controlling millions of robot fighting machines with my lightning-fast, heavily augmented uploaded mind isn't part of the program, then what's the point? ________________________________ From: Dave Sill To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 9:39:18 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] related replies On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 7:46 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 1 March 2010 06:39, Keith Henson wrote: >> >> This way is *exceeding* dangerous unless we deeply understand the >> biological mechanisms of human behavior, particularly behaviors such >> as capture-bonding which are turned on by behavioral switches (due to >> external situations). A powerful human type AI in "war mode," >> irrational and controlling millions of robot fighting machines is not >> something you want to happen. > > I don't think a mind upload would be dangerous initially because it > would not have either superintelligence or the ability to self-modify. > However, researchers could then go on and add these qualities as a > further project much more easily than they could to a biological > brain, and that is when it might get dangerous. It also shouldn't be direct control of anything potentially dangerous, certainly not millions of robot fighting machines. -Dave _______________________________________________ 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 lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 19:22:57 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:22:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: John Clark : > I don't understand this philosophical distinction, it's all just a question > of putting atoms (including electrically charged electrons) here rather than > over there. (snip) > But if you magnetize the clock's parts it will stop ticking, and thermal > effects will change the length of a clocks pendulum and thus its speed.?I > don't get the philosophical point you are trying to make. It's really more of a tangent than a point. A supplemental tidbit, a sidenote, to the argument which concludes that mind-scanning is self-destructive*. You are correct. In concrete terms, electrical and chemical properties ARE structural properties. The particles are just arranged in such and such a way. I was addressing the whole thing from a very abstract perspective, as is my wont. We can drop it. It's an ancillary topic. I just thought it would clarify what I mean by "absolute brain death" and such, but, clearly, I have confused more than I've clarified. *I'm not sure if this is a pun or a double entendre or, for that matter, a single entendre. John Clark : > Spencer Campbell wrote: >> I am forced to argue that when it comes to people who've woken up from >> comas (say), the mind's existence has ALWAYS continued without a break >> objectively. > > Well that is just untrue, if you go into a coma on Monday and come out on > Wednesday then objectively your mind did not exist on tuesday, but > objectivity is of trivial importance, subjectivity is not. I don't think objectivity is trivial at all! What makes you say my mind *objectively* did not exist on Tuesday? How are you measuring? We may be talking about very different things, here. John Clark : > Spencer Campbell wrote: >> It seems to me that subjective continuity and objective continuity?cannot be >> disentangled > > Well of course they can! If you put me under general anesthesia I'll swear > up and down that it's Monday even though the calendar says it's Wednesday. Yeah, see. I think I know what you're talking about, but I don't think you know what I'm talking about. John Clark : > Spencer Campbell wrote: >> Mind scanning?does not preserve objective continuity, as more gradual uploading?methods do ... > > That would imply there is a preferred rate of change in the universe and the > evidence for that is as good as there being a preferred reference frame in > the universe. None. You could potentially convince me if you elaborated on that a bit, but, at first glance, I don't think I agree. I don't see any implication of the sort. One of the "more gradual" uploading methods I'm thinking of is, for example, replacing the brain with synthetic neurons one by one. The rate of change doesn't really matter as far as I'm concerned. What matters is whether or not the old brain is in constant communication with the new "brain" right up until the old brain is completely gone, so that you can't draw a clear line between the end of the old mind and the beginning of the new mind. It could take eons or jiffies for the transition to take place. Maybe I should have said "incremental" instead of "gradual". John Clark : > Spencer Campbell wrote: >> Man, John, it's disorienting to see you displaying such wanton?civility. > > I don't know what you mean. I have been on the Extropian list for 15 years > and in that time I have always treated fellow list members with all the > respect they deserved. Precisely my point. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 19:24:36 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:24:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] EP and scale Message-ID: > Keith Henson : >> To take this discussion up to a meta level, why to people read and >> post on mailing list at all? >> >> The reason is rooted in stone age evolution, particularly in >> reproductive success. ?Can anyone clearly state the logic? (Will Steinberg) > At first your hint seemed off-puttingly specific, but then I realized: > yes, of course, you can say the same of just about all uniquely human > behavior. > > It seems to me that we can only clearly trace the history of mailing > lists as far back as the agricultural revolution, when people were apt > to gather around and suss out why things don't always grow when you > plant them (thus setting the stage for astronomy), but you seem to > have a definite correct answer in mind. Do tell. People read and particularly post on mailing list to improve their status in the eyes of their peers. The reason people engage in status seeking behavior is utterly simple: In the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) high status was strongly correlated with reproductive success. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology#Environment_of_evolutionary_adaptedness We don't live in a stone age EEA any more. Status (at least that you can gain on a mailing list) isn't likely to get you the additional reproductive opportunities that a successful hunter got in those days. Even playing in an indie rock band is a more effective way to get nooky. (And with birth control, even getting more mating opportunities may not translate to more offspring.) > Keith Henson : >> Will Steinberg : >>> Am I wrong in assuming this? ?What makes coherence possible for plants that >>> would not apply to brains? >> >> Coherence doesn't apply to either. ?The scale is wrong. ?What goes on >> in brains is many orders of magnitude away from where quantum effects >> show up. > > "This theory requires long-lived quantum coherence at room > temperature, which never has been observed in FMO. Here we present the > first evidence that quantum coherence survives in FMO at physiological > temperature for at least 300 fs, long enough to perform a rudimentary > quantum computational operation. This data proves that the wave-like > energy transfer process discovered at 77 K is directly relevant to > biological function." > > http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5108 > > So, barring the potential invalidation of that research, coherence > certainly applies to at least one. Try again. Consider the coherence length and the size of a brain. At the speed of light, how far can a signal get in 300 fs? How far for typical nerve signal propagation speeds? Keith Henson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society From cluebcke at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 19:12:13 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:12:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <412543.58639.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002170859g6c25fcag3ddb51826fff23bd@mail.gmail.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> You wish only to accuse, not to prove. Your attitude speaks for itself and reflects directly on the worth of your opinions. I have nothing else to add. ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 10:49:54 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > I must confess that a selection of data points that you find disagreeable doesn't sound like forgery to me. > > I further find the fact that you make this accusation without any apparent proof of deliberate forgery slanderous. ### I have reassured myself by extensive reading that deliberate forgery of climate data is well supported through analysis of the papers, as well as perusal of additional documents produced by FOIA requests. I am not interested in suing anybody. Do you have any more comments? Rafal _______________________________________________ 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 bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 20:35:52 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:35:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <358535.23952.qm@web113615.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Will Steinberg wrote: > As for "esoteric yet promising ideas," I have posted not > one but two > messages to the list in the past 2 days, each in excess of > 1000 words, that > seem to have been ignored for what is most likely a > response to the na?vet? > of my writing Nope, Naivete is something we all possess in spades (we're all still human after all). For me, at least, the major factor is length (no smut, please). Any post longer than 2 pages, and I start to skim. Faster and faster, until I realise it's going to take far too long, then I jump to the next post. Shorter, more concise posts please. Ben Zaiboc From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 20:39:55 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:39:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: <834002.74785.qm@web65615.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <834002.74785.qm@web65615.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <972456.27246.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Forgive the top posting. I think?most self-identified materialist are really physicalists and that the difference between the notions is minor. To me, physicalism just means, in terms of mind, that mental processes _supervene_ on physical ones. I'm not sure this supports dualism or what you mean by a dualism that would be supported by it. I know there are non-reductive physicalists, such as Louise Antony and Josephy Levine (or they were a few years ago when they published an essay defending this position against the likes of Kim:). Is that dualist? They don't seem to think so -- save that they seem to mean mind has a domain of autonomy, but what does that mean in ontological terms? A problem for the dualist-physicalist is that the core tenet of physicalism is that the physical world is causally closed. This means that physical whatever -- things, events, etc. -- can only have physical causes. (This would amount to any seeming non-physical cause really being a physical one ultimately.*) How would dualism of any sort stand up to this? It seems once one introduces non-physical causes, one is giving up physicalism all together. I'm not sure computers captures dualism well. It's nice metaphor, but I doubt any serious dualist would see it as more than that. After all, computer programs can be reduced to how electrons are moving about. (Someone here mentioned multiple realizability. I don't think that works either. Antony and Levine seem to disagree on this, but I think their argument against Kim here, while it probably does knock out part of the latter's reasoning, doesn't really knock out the conclusion.**) I thought dualism, to be worth its salt, would have to have more than one set of things, events, properties, etc. merely supervening on another set -- as in mind supervening on brain or the mental supervening on the physical. In his _Physicalism, Or Something Near?Enough_, Kim presents a fairly strong case for physicalism with almost no non-reductive things, properties, etc. His argument is basically if all the mental stuff is really just physical stuff because all mental causes are, ultimately, reducible to and supervene on physical ones. In his terms, let's say you have two mental states, where it appears one causes the other: M1 -> M2 (i.e., M1 causes M2) and underlying two physical states, where one causes the other: P1 -> P2 (i.e., P1 causes P2) M1 one really supervenes on P1 and M2 on P2, so then we could say: P1 -> M2 as P1 -> P2 and there is no M2 without P2. Add to this causal closure under physicalism and there's no need to posit M1 -> M2 -- since there are and could be no non-physical causes for P2. I.e., per physicalism, so M1 can't have any causal input to P2. Does this make sense? Regards, Dan * This can get complicated depending on how one limits "physical." Obviously, if one expands it out to include everything now thought of as mental, then one gets physicalism by definition. But if one has too narrow a delimitation of physical, one might end up thinking QED effects are not physical and hence chucking out physical on the basis of post-QED physics. ** Of course, I've often wondered how the multiple realizable argument fits in with Paul Benacerraf's views of set theory's relation to number (as in his "What numbers could not be") and with Lionel?Robbins views on non-reducibility of economic laws (as given in the first edition of his _Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science_). From: The Avantguardian To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, February 26, 2010 5:27:41 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? ----- Original Message ---- > From: Dan > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Fri, February 26, 2010 11:46:07 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? > > Maybe I'm getting the wrong view from reading his work, but my view is Kim is a > materialist or a "physicalist" -- which seems to me to be a euphemism for > materialist. I get this from, e.g., his _Physicalism, Or Something Near > Enough. I think that physicalism is a bit more robust than simple materialism. Physicalism allows for all of physics to come to play in the philosophy of mind. This includes concepts like energy, information, and entropy. Things?that are distinctly not matter. So in a way physicalism is more supportive of a dualistic worldview, especially when QM is concerned. Since a?non-superstitious irreducible?dualism is at the heart of measurement problem. Of the prevailing opinions on the matter either?an observation by a mind?collapses a?non-material wavefunction?*or* an observation by a mind creates whole new universes out of nothing. > That said, though, I don't think the dualist > position is necessarily religious. To me, there are just many different views > one can have walking into this issue. Dualism happens to be the view many take, > but I don't think they take it for religious reasons -- meaning, they hold it on > faith. Rather, I think it's just a default position for > many. I don't think dualism is necessarily religious either. Indeed I don't see how computationalism can avoid being a?dualist philosophy. I mean computers have hardware and software and those distinctions?are every bit as dualist as body and mind. Stuart LaForge "Never express yourself more clearly than you think." - Niels Bohr From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 20:41:52 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:41:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <626687.91380.qm@web113617.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Spencer Campbell wrote: > I would not > consider electrical charge distribution to be a structural > property. > That's an electrical property. How can you separate one from the other? Think of a bunch of charged amino acids joined together. Can you change their charge distribution without changing their structure? No. The two are inextricably bound together. Good thing too, or life wouldn't even exist. > (Talking about quantized time, here.) > > I'd be inclined to agree. Nevertheless, it came up. I can't > just > ignore the arguments that I think are irrelevant, you > know! LOL. Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 1 21:18:35 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:18:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <8CC87846A4D167B-4D80-2E72@webmail-m009.sysops.aol.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com><710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <8CC87846A4D167B-4D80-2E72@webmail-m009.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <89FB6031E86B47B48A0FBAD5972864D7@spike> ________________________________ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of ablainey at aol.com Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 10:31 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat Yes what did happen to Mike? There are a few other names that I havn't seen post since my return. Harvey Newstrom for example. A. I got an offlist from Harvey about 5 or 6 months ago. He is busy as all get out, same with a lot of us these days. spike From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 21:21:30 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:21:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <724175.55151.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Gordon Swobe wrote: > Thank you Spike. I have been unfairly maligned for > presenting a philosophy heretical to extropianism, and for > no other reason. No. You have been repeatedly criticised for repeatedly contradicting yourself, making circular arguments and simply ignoring valid challenges to your ideas. All you need to do is address the actual challenges instead of evading or ignoring them. E.g.: Levels of abstraction. After several people pointed out how important they are for the issue of simulation/emulation, you just went quiet and totally ignored that aspect, but continued to talk about simulations not being wet, etc., as though nobody had ever mentioned levels of abstraction at all. But I guess you'll just ignore this as well. Ben Zaiboc From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 22:10:05 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 16:10:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Open Manufacturing] Leaf veins inspire a new model for distribution networks In-Reply-To: <4B8C34B7.309@kurtz-fernhout.com> References: <4B8C34B7.309@kurtz-fernhout.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003011410w742a141fw7b8342364262f2d1@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Paul D. Fernhout wrote: > ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2010) ? A straight line may be the shortest path from > A to B, but it's not always the most reliable or efficient way to go. In > fact, depending on what's traveling where, the best route may run in > circles, according to a new model that bucks decades of theorizing on the > subject. A team of biophysicists at Rockefeller University developed a > mathematical model showing that complex sets of interconnecting loops -- > like the netted veins that transport water in a leaf -- provide the best > distribution network for supplying fluctuating loads to varying parts of the > system. It also shows that such a network can best handle damage. > ?The findings could change the way engineers think about designing networks > to handle a variety of challenges like the distribution of water or > electricity in a city. You may also be interested in "constructal theory": http://constructal.org/ "According to the Constructal law, every system is destined to remain imperfect, i.e. with flow resistances. The natural constructal tendency then is to distribute the imperfections of the system, and this distribution of imperfection generates the shape and structure of the system. The constructal way of distributing the imperfections is to put the more resistive regime at the smallest scale of the system." The constructal law is stated as: "For a finite-size (flow) system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve such that it provides easier and easier access to its currents." (Bejan, 1996) - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 22:09:06 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:09:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> Message-ID: <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Just a general comment: Isn't there a certain evolution of these things? There's a very creative stage followed by much less creative ones and the initial buzz or atmosphere is never going to be the same as during that stage. Maybe the model is something like the conventional view of a romatic relationship: there that first "magic" stage, but that sort of flowers and candies every day can't last. Eventually things have to settle down. ? But that's a depressing view and maybe it'd be better to focus on not so much lamenting that it's no longer 199x but seeing where we can go from here. ? Regards, ? Dan From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 22:50:25 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 17:50:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <54AE50CB-5259-4D9E-89BD-195E37ED5765@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 1, 2010, at 10:59 AM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > Crowds make a perfect example of how this works. Put enough people in > one place, direct their attention toward a single thing, and the mob > mentality sets in. This is merely disconcerting when the mob-mind is > focused on some physical phenomenon (music concerts, comedy clubs), > but it can become outright dangerous when it gets an idea (protests, > riots). Angry mobs are, somehow, angrier than the sum of their parts. > > Organizations of all kinds illustrate the concept on longer time > scales. Microsoft seems to have its own dysfunctional personality, > distinct from its constituent owners and employees. The willfulness of > nations is well-documented; even in a democracy, which has no > consistent "head" to speak of, the nation as a whole continues to have > predictable behavior and preferences that distinguish it from every > other nation. I hate crowds, political rallies, etc. precisely because they undermine the independence of the people in them, and make them behave irrationally, as in your angry mob example. People behave differently in them, and as you mentioned, it is (very) disconcerting. But are they minds? I mean, you can view them as such, via analogies, but the overall system is controlled by the choices of the individuals. There are, for good or ill, patterns which seem to hold in groups, but that is quite possibly more a result of statistical averaging over many different actions by the people concerned. You can say mobs have intentions, and corporations have personalities, but I think they are of a different character than your regular old "mind" like we humans have. When we have a thought, it is, in the context of our mind, a single entity. We might have many thoughts on a given issue, ideas about what to do, beliefs pulling us in different directions, but those are all, in our experience, entities separate from the others. In the context of our Overmind (whether it be a mob or a corporation), any such thoughts are composed of the individual fickle thoughts of people, all interacting in different ways. They are compositions, rather than discrete things. Perhaps that isn't really where the major difference is though (I'm fuzzy on that one). But the real crucial difference, is that this Overmind cannot exist without its parts working, but the parts CAN operate without the mind. And that isn't the case with, for example, our minds. Our minds are dependent on our brains, but if our neurons are working in a way which makes mind impossible (as in a seizure), they cause damage and die (or at least, risk death). And, at the very least, that is why, even if you can say there are such things as these "minds of minds" or whatever you wish to call it, they are derivative of our minds, and can't properly be said to have rights, as we are independent from them and have rights. Only in such a situation (where these composite minds have no rights) would I be comfortable in claiming they exist. That's my personal bias, ideologically. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Mon Mar 1 22:52:55 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:52:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] [Open Manufacturing] Leaf veins inspire a new model for distribution networks In-Reply-To: <55ad6af71003011410w742a141fw7b8342364262f2d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100301225255.VSBVQ.103802.root@hrndva-web13-z02> Jesus #!*$%@ Christ, does nobody ever pay any attention to the history of science, or actually read on applied bio-pysics? For the fist group, they should look into xylem and floem deeper, they're akin to veins and arteries. There are no circular loops involved it's a high pressure to low pressure network. There are no roundy rounds. If you know anything about the limits of diffusion at that scale you'll understand why there can be no loops in a living network. I suggest two things to this group of 'discoverers'.... Look up the 4/5 Scaling Law and read every damn work printed by Christopher McGowen. The sooner the better. To Constructal Theory, rewording the 2nd Law doesn't make it new. ---- Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Paul D. Fernhout wrote: > > ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2010) ? A straight line may be the shortest path from > > A to B, but it's not always the most reliable or efficient way to go. In > > fact, depending on what's traveling where, the best route may run in > > circles, according to a new model that bucks decades of theorizing on the > > subject. A team of biophysicists at Rockefeller University developed a > > mathematical model showing that complex sets of interconnecting loops -- > > like the netted veins that transport water in a leaf -- provide the best > > distribution network for supplying fluctuating loads to varying parts of the > > system. It also shows that such a network can best handle damage. > > ?The findings could change the way engineers think about designing networks > > to handle a variety of challenges like the distribution of water or > > electricity in a city. > > You may also be interested in "constructal theory": > http://constructal.org/ > > "According to the Constructal law, every system is destined to remain > imperfect, i.e. with flow resistances. The natural constructal > tendency then is to distribute the imperfections of the system, and > this distribution of imperfection generates the shape and structure of > the system. The constructal way of distributing the imperfections is > to put the more resistive regime at the smallest scale of the system." > > The constructal law is stated as: "For a finite-size (flow) system to > persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve such that it > provides easier and easier access to its currents." (Bejan, 1996) > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 1 23:13:55 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:13:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hayek and keynes bustin a rhyme fashizle Message-ID: <729D03D05B424C4FAB7D8FC7C2DBAF07@spike> I do not like rap SamIAm, but if they rap about something cool like evolution, physics or economics then I be down wid it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk &feature=player_embedded# spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 23:28:50 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:28:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hayek and keynes bustin a rhyme fashizle In-Reply-To: <729D03D05B424C4FAB7D8FC7C2DBAF07@spike> References: <729D03D05B424C4FAB7D8FC7C2DBAF07@spike> Message-ID: OMG! That was absolutely amazing. Favorited, going on facebook, etc., for sure. Thanks Spike! Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com On Mar 1, 2010, at 6:13 PM, spike wrote: > I do not like rap SamIAm, but if they rap about something cool like evolution, physics or economics then I be down wid it: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=player_embedded# > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 1 23:31:20 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:31:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> On Mar 1, 2010, at 2:22 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: >> I don't think objectivity is trivial at all! I don't care if objectively I'm dead as long as subjectively I'm not. Even when I was a kid I never understood why in some of those old horror movies at the end the hero is horrified to discover that he's really dead and the movie maker invites us to be horrified as well. It all seemed mystifying to me. Personally I'd be delighted to find out I'm dead because that would mean death is not nearly as important as I'd thought it was, I had always thought death meant oblivion but apparently not. >> if you go into a coma on Monday and come out on Wednesday then objectively your mind did not exist on tuesday > What makes you say my mind *objectively* did not exist on Tuesday? How are you measuring? I'm measuring with the only tool any of us have in detecting other minds, the way they act; admittedly this tool is not perfect but it's all we have to work with. And you sure didn't act like you had a mind on Tuesday, so with as much confidence as I can say anything about minds other than my own I can state that objectively your mind did not exist on Tuesday. I might add that on Wednesday, when you consider the previous day, you would agree that you had no thoughts on that day; and a mind can not exist without thoughts, so subjectively your mind did not exist then anymore then it existed in the year 1642. So if objectively it didn't exist and subjectively it didn't exists I think it's safe to say it didn't exist. >>> Mind scanning does not preserve objective continuity, as more gradual uploading methods do ... >> >> That would imply there is a preferred rate of change in the universe and the >> evidence for that is as good as there being a preferred reference frame in >> the universe. None. > > You could potentially convince me if you elaborated on that a bit, > but, at first glance, I don't think I agree. If you changed a biological neuron to a electronic neuron once a second it would take about 3000 years to change over the entire brain to the computerized version. That may seem like a long time but it depends entirely on the time scale used, from a cosmological viewpoint 3000 years would be virtually instantaneous. And there is no preferred time scale, it's just as valid to look at natural phenomena at the nanosecond level as the billion year level. > The rate of change doesn't really matter as far as I'm concerned. What > matters is whether or not the old brain is in constant communication > with the new "brain" right up until the old brain is completely gone I agree, otherwise the new electronic brain would be missing the last thoughts the old biological brain had. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 1 23:58:34 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:58:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <371FF4E8-1059-49AF-9FCF-F70E9184F6FC@bellsouth.net> On Mon, Mar 1, BillK wrote: > The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. Getting older really sucks, but it beats the alternative. I've been on this list for 15 years but I'm far from one of the original members. From day 1 15 years ago when I was the resident newbe I've been hearing about how much better the list was back in the good old days. It's like a ninety year old man telling us how much happier people were during the Great Depression; well I can easily believe that you personally were happier, back then you were a lusty teenager now you're a decrepit old man. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 00:46:05 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:46:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: References: <214822.48535.qm@web113620.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 2 March 2010 03:26, Spencer Campbell wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou : >> In an earlier post you posited, as I understood it, that there might >> be continuity of experience but no M. That if you wake from a coma M >> might be preserved but not if you are resuscitated after dying, even >> though your experience is exactly the same in each case. That does >> imply that you think M might be something over and above continuity of >> experience. Or without using M, you are saying there might be two >> types of continuity of experience, type A and type B. Type A occurs >> when you wake from a coma, while type B occurs when you are >> resuscitated after dying. There is no subjective difference between >> type A and type B, but type A is still "better". > > No, you misunderstood it. To use your terminology: in Type A > continuity there is no question of whether or not I retain M, because > (and only because) nothing unusual is happening to make us think that > maybe I don't. In Type B continuity we are doing strange things with > technology. Even if I do wake up and show all the behavior of my old > self, there will be suspicions from the pro-soul crowd: does the thing > waking up have a soul? Is it the same soul as before? The external observers may doubt it, but if the thing waking up is the same objectively *and* subjectively, what is there left? Different in the mind of God, perhaps. But we could undergo such a difference every time we sneeze, or scratch ourselves, or every second Tuesday. That "nothing unusual" is happening in these situations should not make us any more confident that M isn't being messed up. By assuming that it does you are assuming that you can know something about M from observation, when the whole idea is that you can't. It could be the that the probability that M changes is directly proportional to the degree than your life seems to be otherwise normal. God could even write down an equation describing this relationship if he wanted to. > You can replace "soul" with M in both cases, in which case the answer > to the first question is obviously yes. The answer to the second > question is not so easy. If it's yes, then it seems my M must have > been stored somewhere in the interim, which means M is an immortal > soul. If it's no, which I am more inclined to believe, then we have a > big problem: uploading would appear to work for all intents and > purposes, but either (a) the thing experiencing my mind would not be > the same thing that experiences my mind right now, or (b) there has > never been anything that experiences being me. > > Saying that M must have been stored somewhere in the interim is > probably going to attract more comments along the lines of "but > interrupted continuity is experienced as identical to uninterrupted > continuity", so I'll take a shot at addressing that right now. > "Interrupted continuity of experience" is an oxymoron. M is not your > conscious mind, which fades in and out; M is purely an abstraction. If > you are temporarily knocked out or dead or whatever, resulting in a > period of time in which you have no subjective experiences, you still > have M during that period. The only situation in which you lose M is > when you go to the atheist afterlife. M is, in a very literal sense, > you. > > Again, nolipsism solves the problem neatly. If any of you say, "but M > is a self, and there is no such thing as a self, so M is a meaningless > abstraction of nothing", then my only possible response is: yes, > that's logical. > >> I don't have a problem with simultaneously existing copies. I am one, >> and only one, of the copies at any moment. > > I could ask which, but that's a cheap shot. Instead: exactly one? Why not zero? I am the copy that is speaking. I have a self, and there is no confusion if I specify that I am the self being generated by the collection of matter at particular space and time coordinates. Normally, there is only one version of me extant at a time, so I can get away with just using my name; but if there are two copies of me I will have to specify whether I am copy A or copy B. This is straightforward so far. The problem comes when I try to claim that I am a single entity persisting through time, as if there is a soul waiting in limbo during the copying process and then entering one body and not the other. It's what my brain is programmed to believe, but everyone who gives serious thought to these duplication scenarios should realise how absurd it is. -- Stathis Papaioannou From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 02:22:00 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 21:22:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <54AE50CB-5259-4D9E-89BD-195E37ED5765@GMAIL.COM> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> <54AE50CB-5259-4D9E-89BD-195E37ED5765@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003011822j7d167d18h4489c3d405e9b742@mail.gmail.com> Here is a very interesting and possibly consequence-bearing way to rephrase my idea in a heretofore unstated manner: *any given number of people will be able to pass the Turing Test as a group.* We say a human is conscious because we deem him so by observation; we are also aware that the constituent mental structures which produce this consciousness are NOT aware of the greater emergent mind themselves. They are merely effectors of a higher-level product. So this would seem to imply that a group of people responding to the Turing Test DOES produce a consciousness that is discernable by us humans, *in essence, the same way the brain does,* yet those people themselves are not aware of the meta mind. Why should this consciousness not exist in the same way our own does? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 03:18:02 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:48:02 +1030 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <371FF4E8-1059-49AF-9FCF-F70E9184F6FC@bellsouth.net> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> <371FF4E8-1059-49AF-9FCF-F70E9184F6FC@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003011918ud0b2fabr9757ce2cd47ddc08@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/2 John Clark : > On Mon, Mar 1, ?BillK wrote: > > The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. > > Getting older really sucks, but it beats the alternative. I've been on this > list for 15 years but I'm far from one of the original members. From day 1 > 15 years ago when I was the resident newbe I've been hearing about how much > better the list was back in the good old days. It's like a ninety year old > man telling us how much happier people were during the Great Depression; > well I can easily believe that you personally were happier, back then you > were a lusty teenager now you're a decrepit old man. > ?John K Clark > I second that; I remember turning up on the list in the late 90s (I think), same deal; apparently it's a shadow of its former self. I do sometimes wonder if that attitude is somehow related to the lack of available archives, better for rose coloured glasses and all that. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 03:26:53 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:26:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > You wish only to accuse, not to prove. Your attitude speaks for itself and > reflects directly on the worth of your opinions. > I have nothing else to add. ### I offered to send you a list of the peer-reviewed articles written by Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, and others, that contain fraudulent data or conclusions, so as to enable you to see for yourself the specific instances of fraud, in primary sources. You did not take me up on that offer. Instead you chose to comment on my "attitude", and in an earlier post you insinuated that I am about to "bring our civilization to its knees". I couldn't help myself but chuckle over that one. I see that indeed you have nothing else to add. Rafal From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 03:38:54 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:38:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <371FF4E8-1059-49AF-9FCF-F70E9184F6FC@bellsouth.net> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> <371FF4E8-1059-49AF-9FCF-F70E9184F6FC@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <62c14241003011938m53e69dbbx47ccb50268947b24@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/1 John Clark : > On Mon, Mar 1, ?BillK wrote: > > The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. > > Getting older really sucks, but it beats the alternative. I've been on this > list for 15 years but I'm far from one of the original members. From day 1 > 15 years ago when I was the resident newbe I've been hearing about how much > better the list was back in the good old days. It's like a ninety year old > man telling us how much happier people were during the Great Depression; > well I can easily believe that you personally were happier, back then you > were a lusty teenager now you're a decrepit old man. Thanks for providing the segue into what I was feeling about this thread. So the good old days of X, Y, Z notables are in offline archives. So you're bored of the current commentary. Restoring topics from a decade ago won't make the list any better than retelling classic movies improves the story. I would rather hear NEW ideas. Oh.. but those are comparatively rare these days, right? ... because all the good ideas have already been thought? I say no, that's intellectual laziness. This meta thread may be a good "wake up call" - but if we want to see higher quality posts, then we need to act. btw, Good call on the suggestion to keep posts short and direct. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 03:41:10 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:41:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <62c14241003011938m53e69dbbx47ccb50268947b24@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B1C43.6080802@satx.rr.com> <371FF4E8-1059-49AF-9FCF-F70E9184F6FC@bellsouth.net> <62c14241003011938m53e69dbbx47ccb50268947b24@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003011941s3756330ewa16f7fbf7c3af592@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:38 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > btw, Good call on the suggestion to keep posts short and direct. Sorry, I should have properly attributed Ben Zaiboc for his suggestion. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 03:42:41 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 20:42:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:59 PM, John Clark wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 1, ?BillK wrote: > >> The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. > > Getting older really sucks, but it beats the alternative. I've been on this list for 15 years but I'm far from one of the original members. From day 1 15 years ago when I was the resident newbe I've been hearing about how much better the list was back in the good old days. It's like a ninety year old man telling us how much happier people were during the Great Depression; well I can easily believe that you personally were happier, back then you were a lusty teenager now you're a decrepit old man. Well, I was there, still have some of the postings from those days on various copied media (nowhere near the whole thing) There were a lot of new ideas boiling up in those heady days when nanotechnology, memetics, cryonics, and the consequences of godlike AI were first being discussed in the relatively new context of a mailing list. A lot of my archive files are on 3.5 inch Apple Lisa floppies which I have not been able to read for more than a decade. If anyone wants to read a story that was written around the ideas that floated across the Extropy list in those days, try Acclerando by Charles Stross. It's free on the net, but you might want hard copy as well. Keith From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 03:45:55 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 19:45:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki > ...you insinuated that I am about to "bring our > civilization to its knees". I couldn't help myself but > chuckle over that one. Rafal I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. Can someone explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree or two or half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its knees? Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? When I talk to teenagers about what they think will happen with global warming, they all seem to have something very short term in mind. One currently in her teens expressed surprise we haven't already seen something dramatic changing. Even the most hard core AGW types realize that this isn't anything that will change suddenly, ja? spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 2 04:17:22 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:17:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> On 3/1/2010 9:42 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > If anyone wants to read a story that was written around the ideas that > floated across the Extropy list in those days, try Acclerando by > Charles Stross. It's free on the net, but you might want hard copy as > well. I've been reluctant to mention this, but in that context (a good recommendation from Keith!) I might as well: if anyone wants to get something of the flavor of the ideas and approaches buzzing on the list in the mid-'90s, read my book THE SPIKE. The trouble is that these once hair-raising ideas are now commonplace, some decade and a half later (although I had to omit some of the more difficult material because I was aiming at a general Wired-ish audience). Perhaps one reason the idea flux seems a bit lacklustre now is that people who weren't there then inevitably rehash many of the same ideas, which are still somewhat novel if you're 20 or younger, and this is not so enthralling for the old timers. The Swobe cascade would also have been laughed off the list fairly quickly back then; 'gene would have been scathing in his brilliantly condensed way. Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. (I'm waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for cheap energy is.) Damien Broderick From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 04:22:16 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 23:22:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> Message-ID: <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. ?Can someone explain > why the average temperature increasing by a degree or two or half a degree > in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its knees? ?Are we really > that delicate and non-adaptable? My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a frog to death. So if we don't get wildly concerned today, we may find ourselves evolving perfectly comfortably into lizards to accommodate our new ecology. There may be a few people who are OK with this but they're more than two deviations from the top of the curve (which everybody knows is the safety-in-numbers best place to be) Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather model, we notice hypertetration of temperature increase. This threatens to overcome the mere exponential growth in technological ability to adapt to temperature change. If we don't act immediately to rectify Earth's runaway temperature increase, we might find ourselves within a few short months having an average temperature in excess of the surface of the sun. The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase to this weather model would indicate an unknown dampening of hypertetration. Unknown variables could later be discovered to have disastrous consequences, perhaps leading to a complete re-examination of the data and possibly the invalidation of the theory. People generally view a complete restart after years of emotional investment to be unimaginable and therefor inherently wrong. To answer that last question quite seriously: No, we are not that delicate - we only think that we are. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 04:45:56 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 23:45:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003012045p6dc847b6q64fb92f0b482fce7@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas > waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. (I'm > waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for cheap energy > is.) Seconded. I was thinking about electricity generation hooked to hamster wheels, but the unwanted waste output is a considerable design challenge (not so much per unit, but when you scale that operation up to 1GW you have a real logistics issue) Perhaps updating all floors with piezoelectric tiles that generate small amounts of current under the cyclical stresses of people walking around. Imagine: mall-walkers could be producing useful electricity. Also a way to get "half the price of coal" energy is to simply raise the price of coal until it is twice the price of the biodiesel alternative. That one is a lawyer/politician solution, Keith is an engineer. I'll reserve my prediction here, it might be increasingly viable as we approach the worldwide delivery date - the literal "drop dead" date, as it were. I hope with Keith's engineering propensity for numbers that he didn't take The Matrix too seriously, else those numbers about the electrical output of a neuron multiplied by the number of idle neurons in a human brain times 7B people start to be interesting. If you think today's grid power is unreliable, imagine what it would be like when one Neo can destroy the whole network. Anyway, I also wait eagerly (perhaps not idly) for Keith's next energy solution. From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Tue Mar 2 05:17:11 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 5:17:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20100302051711.DXDER.180344.root@hrndva-web24-z02> I'd strongly suggest along with that the Cypherpunks mailing list, if you can get over the space aliens eating your drugs that is. ---- Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/1/2010 9:42 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > If anyone wants to read a story that was written around the ideas that > > floated across the Extropy list in those days, try Acclerando by > > Charles Stross. It's free on the net, but you might want hard copy as > > well. > > I've been reluctant to mention this, but in that context (a good > recommendation from Keith!) I might as well: if anyone wants to get > something of the flavor of the ideas and approaches buzzing on the list > in the mid-'90s, read my book THE SPIKE. The trouble is that these once > hair-raising ideas are now commonplace, some decade and a half later > (although I had to omit some of the more difficult material because I > was aiming at a general Wired-ish audience). > > Perhaps one reason the idea flux seems a bit lacklustre now is that > people who weren't there then inevitably rehash many of the same ideas, > which are still somewhat novel if you're 20 or younger, and this is not > so enthralling for the old timers. The Swobe cascade would also have > been laughed off the list fairly quickly back then; 'gene would have > been scathing in his brilliantly condensed way. > > Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas > waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. > (I'm waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for > cheap energy is.) > > Damien Broderick > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Tue Mar 2 05:18:31 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 5:18:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: <62c14241003012045p6dc847b6q64fb92f0b482fce7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100302051831.E70I8.180350.root@hrndva-web24-z02> Has somebody been watching "Tokyo Zombie" again? ---- Mike Dougherty wrote: > Seconded. > > I was thinking about electricity generation hooked to hamster wheels, > but the unwanted waste output is a considerable design challenge (not > so much per unit, but when you scale that operation up to 1GW you have > a real logistics issue) > > Perhaps updating all floors with piezoelectric tiles that generate > small amounts of current under the cyclical stresses of people walking > around. Imagine: mall-walkers could be producing useful electricity. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 05:39:28 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 21:39:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > science isn'tsettled > > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. ? > Can someone > > explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree > or two or > > half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its > > knees? ?Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? > > My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year > wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a > frog to death... Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather > model... The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase > to this weather model...Mike Mike's post makes my point better than I did. We are so very accustomed to thinking of something per year, a few percent a year, another birthday per year and so forth. The climatologists are offering numbers that look like a degree per century. We just are not used talking about anything per century, so confusion results. A lot of teens somehow jump to the stunningly illogical conclusion that this two degree change we are trying to stop will show up in a few years or any day now since the Copenhagen flop. This causes what I call the Russians vs Germans effect. During WW2, the Germans had better technology, so in the summers when the days were long and warm, they beat back their foes and drove deep into Russia, but when the vicious November storms hit, the German tanks were ill suited to the cold, the tracks were glued to the ground in the freezing mud, the engines guzzled fuel since they had to be left running to prevent freezing etc. So in the winter the Russians had the clear advantage, and drove the Germans all the way back. In the global warming debate, the proposed change is very slow, but human lifetimes are very short. We end up with the global warming people, like the Germans, having the advantage in the summer, but every winter, they give up the ground they gained because people still die from the cold. Then the global warming ridiculers, like the Russians, regain lost ground. The battle surges back and forth every year, with tragic results. spike From max at maxmore.com Tue Mar 2 05:57:44 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:57:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Radical Life Extension and the Problem of Malthusian Hells Message-ID: <201003020557.o225vpx0015328@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Another good Ron Bailey article, this one citing a fine paper by transhumanist Russell Blackford: Radical Life Extension and the Problem of Malthusian Hells http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/09/radical-life-extension-and-the Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 06:11:18 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:11:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <22143.42867.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> The problem has never been that people cannot adapt. It's that ecosystems can adapt in ways that are extremely unfriendly to people. No matter how well-deserved your estimation of your own genes is, your kids are not going to grow gills or derive nutrition from sand. Catastrophic global warming won't kill by heat stroke. It'll kill by war, disease and famine. ________________________________ From: Mike Dougherty To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 8:22:16 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. Can someone explain > why the average temperature increasing by a degree or two or half a degree > in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its knees? Are we really > that delicate and non-adaptable? My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a frog to death. So if we don't get wildly concerned today, we may find ourselves evolving perfectly comfortably into lizards to accommodate our new ecology. There may be a few people who are OK with this but they're more than two deviations from the top of the curve (which everybody knows is the safety-in-numbers best place to be) Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather model, we notice hypertetration of temperature increase. This threatens to overcome the mere exponential growth in technological ability to adapt to temperature change. If we don't act immediately to rectify Earth's runaway temperature increase, we might find ourselves within a few short months having an average temperature in excess of the surface of the sun. The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase to this weather model would indicate an unknown dampening of hypertetration. Unknown variables could later be discovered to have disastrous consequences, perhaps leading to a complete re-examination of the data and possibly the invalidation of the theory. People generally view a complete restart after years of emotional investment to be unimaginable and therefor inherently wrong. To answer that last question quite seriously: No, we are not that delicate - we only think that we are. _______________________________________________ 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 cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 05:56:42 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 21:56:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <161962.36396.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > I offered to send you a list of the peer-reviewed articles written> by Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, and others, that contain > fraudulent data or conclusions, so as to enable you to see for > yourself the specific instances of fraud, in primary sources. To which I responded that I'm not a climatologist, or even a scientist. I am also excruciatingly well aware that these sources are being interpreted across an entire spectrum, from completely reliable to not only incorrect but fraudulent, to not only fraudulent but fraudulent in the furtherance of some conspiracy. I value my opinion on the matter no more or less than yours, and due to the highly charged atmosphere in which non-scientists are making pronouncements, I can only leave it to the scientific method to arrive at the actual truth. > Instead you chose to comment on my> "attitude", and in an earlier post you insinuated that I am about to > "bring our civilization to its knees". I do in fact believe that fear-mongering conspiracy theorists, in this technological day and age, pose an existential threat to modern Western civilization. I stand for reason, evidence and temperance. That is why I take accusations of fraud in science very seriously. It is also why I must dismiss as--let me not say fraudulent, but wildly hyperbolic--someone who makes such accusations but does not feel compelled to act on them, other than to add his voice to the senseless din of the digitally enraged. Or, more succinctly, you make the accusation, the burden of proof is on you. Put up or shut up, as they say. ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: Christopher Luebcke Cc: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 7:26:53 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > You wish only to accuse, not to prove. Your attitude speaks for itself and > reflects directly on the worth of your opinions. > I have nothing else to add. ### I offered to send you a list of the peer-reviewed articles written by Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, and others, that contain fraudulent data or conclusions, so as to enable you to see for yourself the specific instances of fraud, in primary sources. You did not take me up on that offer. Instead you chose to comment on my "attitude", and in an earlier post you insinuated that I am about to "bring our civilization to its knees". I couldn't help myself but chuckle over that one. I see that indeed you have nothing else to add. Rafal ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: Christopher Luebcke Cc: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 7:26:53 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > You wish only to accuse, not to prove. Your attitude speaks for itself and > reflects directly on the worth of your opinions. > I have nothing else to add. ### I offered to send you a list of the peer-reviewed articles written by Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, and others, that contain fraudulent data or conclusions, so as to enable you to see for yourself the specific instances of fraud, in primary sources. You did not take me up on that offer. Instead you chose to comment on my "attitude", and in an earlier post you insinuated that I am about to "bring our civilization to its knees". I couldn't help myself but chuckle over that one. I see that indeed you have nothing else to add. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 05:58:12 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 21:58:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> Message-ID: <52761.17779.qm@web111209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I wasn't referring to global warming. I was referring to fear-mongering conspiracy theorists, as willing to paint their opponents as a mortal threat as they are unencumbered by evidence in support thereof. ________________________________ From: spike To: rafal at smigrodzki.org; ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 7:45:55 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled > ...On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki > ...you insinuated that I am about to "bring our > civilization to its knees". I couldn't help myself but > chuckle over that one. Rafal I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. Can someone explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree or two or half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its knees? Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? When I talk to teenagers about what they think will happen with global warming, they all seem to have something very short term in mind. One currently in her teens expressed surprise we haven't already seen something dramatic changing. Even the most hard core AGW types realize that this isn't anything that will change suddenly, ja? spike _______________________________________________ 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 max at maxmore.com Tue Mar 2 06:45:20 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:45:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem Message-ID: <201003020645.o226jQHg027524@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Damn, this was good: "Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=player_embedded We need transhumanist rap songs... Max From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 07:03:55 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 02:03:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <669618.48277.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <669618.48277.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003012303i2050f32ci684688e8b97df041@mail.gmail.com> I wrote: >>?I offered to send you a list of the peer-reviewed articles written >> by Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, and others, that contain >> fraudulent data or conclusions, so as to enable you to see for >> yourself the specific instances of fraud, in primary sources. and Chris Luebcke recused himself from reading the aforementioned primary sources as follows: > I'm not a climatologist, or even a scientist. and then proceeded to add: > Put up or shut up, as they say. ### Chris, you demand proof from me but you refuse to read it when I offer it to you, citing lack of competence. Yet, you have the temerity to demand that *I* shut up, so that you, who admit to being completely ignorant of the technical issues involved in this discussion, can go home feeling victorious. Does this make sense to you? Rafal From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 07:24:55 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 23:24:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <22143.42867.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike><62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <22143.42867.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <56BCCD59396E4DB3BDDEAEA4639E183E@spike> >...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled >...The problem has never been that people cannot adapt. It's that ecosystems can adapt in ways that are extremely unfriendly to people. No matter how well-deserved your estimation of your own genes is, your kids are not going to grow gills or derive nutrition from sand. Catastrophic global warming won't kill by heat stroke. It'll kill by war, disease and famine... So I hear. Consider the kinds of oversimplification that leads to misunderstanding. One I pointed out, where the proletariat somehow turns a degree per century into a degree per year. Then there is the annoying habit of lumping all varieties of skeptics into one large bin of enviro-heretics, even though there are many subtle varieties. I for instance recognize that the surface temperature may rise a bit on average, but I seriously doubt that warming by itself will cause war, disease, famine etc. We have *plenty* of factors that can cause all that stuff without a couple degrees of warming. For instance, we have war, disease and famine as a result of human disagreement on the name of their imaginary deities. Humans just have a bad habit of killing each other. Considering modern war technology, agricultural technology, pest control, water handling, construction skills, I honestly think we would scarcely notice a degree or two of warming over a human lifetime. We can handle it, farm animals can handle it, crops can be genetically engineered for a bit warmer and longer growing season. Some beasts will go extinct as beasts do, but some would anyway even without the warming. Chris we have bigger problems to worry about, such as maintaining the supply of cheap energy. spike From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 07:59:49 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 23:59:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003012303i2050f32ci684688e8b97df041@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <669618.48277.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003012303i2050f32ci684688e8b97df041@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <879541.2414.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Rafal, I have absolutely no reason to suspect that I am capable of becoming, in less time that it takes to actually follow that career path, as qualified to judge the merits of the data selection as any junior climatologist. I similarly have no reason to suspect that you have any competence in the field, either. I have no reason to believe that climatology is a discipline that can be picked up any easier than, say, oncology. I trust you to evaluate climate research as much as you should trust me to evaluate a clinical trial. When I say "prove it", I don't mean that you should point me to the data you believe are fraudulent. I apologize that this wasn't clear, but I what I mean is, "Get it proven". If you're right, it is hugely important. If you're wrong, you're wrong about smearing people's names. Either way, it's important. Get it proven. Or drop it. If you're right, you can prove it to the people who actually matter, and if you're right, it's really important, so you should. But to sit back and say, "Yeah, I looked at the data, it's a fraud," but show no interest in actually doing anything productive about it--what the hell is the point? ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 11:03:55 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled I wrote: >> I offered to send you a list of the peer-reviewed articles written >> by Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, and others, that contain >> fraudulent data or conclusions, so as to enable you to see for >> yourself the specific instances of fraud, in primary sources. and Chris Luebcke recused himself from reading the aforementioned primary sources as follows: > I'm not a climatologist, or even a scientist. and then proceeded to add: > Put up or shut up, as they say. ### Chris, you demand proof from me but you refuse to read it when I offer it to you, citing lack of competence. Yet, you have the temerity to demand that *I* shut up, so that you, who admit to being completely ignorant of the technical issues involved in this discussion, can go home feeling victorious. Does this make sense to you? Rafal _______________________________________________ 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 cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 08:10:17 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 00:10:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <56BCCD59396E4DB3BDDEAEA4639E183E@spike> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike><62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <22143.42867.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <56BCCD59396E4DB3BDDEAEA4639E183E@spike> Message-ID: <350877.96512.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Spike, I disagree with some of what you wrote, but not all of it. From what I understand it's potentially a lot worse that you think it might be--"we" will probably do just fine from an evolutionary standpoint, but destabilization of ecosystems can cause a tremendous amount of suffering for a lot of people. Regardless, I appreciate your point, and I agree that cheap energy should be a top priority (because among other things, if we get close to some of the worst-case scenarios, we're going to need all the cheap, distributed energy we can get). My entire argument with Rafal actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the reliability, potential consequences or overall significance of warming predictions. It is entirely to do with the accusation of fraud he has made, and my deep concern that this type of discourse--the offhand demonization of one's opponents, no longer restricted to politicians and election cycles, but now to scientists, business leaders, non-profit organizations and everyday citizens--is frighteningly corrosive to the prospect of our civilization being able to survive intact, much less thrive. Fundamentally, an accusation of scientific fraud ought to be at least as thoroughly reviewed as the original science before being accepted. Any lower standard is an insult to the scientific method. ________________________________ From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 11:24:55 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled >...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled >...The problem has never been that people cannot adapt. It's that ecosystems can adapt in ways that are extremely unfriendly to people. No matter how well-deserved your estimation of your own genes is, your kids are not going to grow gills or derive nutrition from sand. Catastrophic global warming won't kill by heat stroke. It'll kill by war, disease and famine... So I hear. Consider the kinds of oversimplification that leads to misunderstanding. One I pointed out, where the proletariat somehow turns a degree per century into a degree per year. Then there is the annoying habit of lumping all varieties of skeptics into one large bin of enviro-heretics, even though there are many subtle varieties. I for instance recognize that the surface temperature may rise a bit on average, but I seriously doubt that warming by itself will cause war, disease, famine etc. We have *plenty* of factors that can cause all that stuff without a couple degrees of warming. For instance, we have war, disease and famine as a result of human disagreement on the name of their imaginary deities. Humans just have a bad habit of killing each other. Considering modern war technology, agricultural technology, pest control, water handling, construction skills, I honestly think we would scarcely notice a degree or two of warming over a human lifetime. We can handle it, farm animals can handle it, crops can be genetically engineered for a bit warmer and longer growing season. Some beasts will go extinct as beasts do, but some would anyway even without the warming. Chris we have bigger problems to worry about, such as maintaining the supply of cheap energy. spike _______________________________________________ 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 nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 2 10:46:20 2010 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:46:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <413829.24091.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I've given it a little thought, and there's a few other galactic endpoints rather than the M-brain around every star. The M-cloud - instead of layers of computronium with an ecology of data entities, a cloud of nanites/microbots each hosting a mind (or fraction/group thereof, depending on size and performance). This allows variety and flexibility, and allows greater room for territoriality and breaking free. It's a bit like the difference between huge algal mats covering earth's oceans and an ecology of plankton, krill and fish like have today. Creating more universes - why stick with this one when you can create your own, or (borrowing from Greg Egan's Diaspora) migrate to others? Inhabiting stars - OK, I'm borrowing from Baxter's SF here but there may be room to do this. At an extreme, there may be room for black-hole computing to support intelligence - instead of M-brains, minds being supported in the altered spacetime around a black hole. Alternatively, there may be sound ecological reasons why progress to M-brains across the galaxy is not inevitable. Potential answers to the Fermi Paradox sketch out possibilities - Stanislaw Lem has a story where different civilisations have learnt how to manipulate the laws of physics, and the universe we see about us is a compromise designed to keep the big civilisations apart, and we're stuck in a no-man's land. Maybe M-brains are too prone to becoming inward-looking and ignoring the outside (I'm thinking the later portions of Accelerando here). Alternatively, maybe the Great Filter keeps smacking down civilisations before they become M-brains, and all you see are single star system civilisations popping up, looking around wondering "where is everyone?" and then disappearing into the night once more. There's a lot of possibilities out there, each with their own logic. Tom (stopping before Ben Zaiboc skips the overly long post) From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 12:25:39 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:25:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 4:17 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: >snip> > Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas > waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. (I'm > waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for cheap energy > is.) > > Many of us have been to the gym and wondered why the exercise equipment isn?t hooked up to generate electricity and feed it back into the grid. At long last a company in Florida called ReRev has answered our calls, converting existing elliptical machines into sources of power. Now when you hit the gym, you can burn off those calories while creating some renewable energy for a carbon negative workout. :) BillK From rtomek at ceti.pl Tue Mar 2 13:45:49 2010 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:45:49 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 1 Mar 2010, Dan wrote: > Just a general comment: Isn't there a certain evolution of these things? > There's a very creative stage followed by much less creative ones and > the initial buzz or atmosphere is never going to be the same as during > that stage. Maybe the model is something like the conventional view of a > romatic relationship: there that first "magic" stage, but that sort of > flowers and candies every day can't last. Eventually things have to > settle down. > ? > But that's a depressing view and maybe it'd be better to focus on not so > much lamenting that it's no longer 199x but seeing where we can go from > here. > ? > Regards, > ? > Dan Well, I happen to read Scientific American (ok, its Polish edition actually) from time to time (say, once per month) and after more than a decade they still deliver. I don't think a marriage analogy covers this case. I remember old "exi", as I had a chance to read it in it's late period (final as it seems). After that something happened to my hardware and when I could switch on at least, the Universe was a bit different. So, I hope you forgive me (some day) but I say it is my fault. My computer broke and voila, all gone. My guilt feeling will be my punishment, if you don't mind. But seriously, this was quite a sudden change for me. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 14:56:50 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:56:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Some posters explain the decreased sex appeal of this list with the departure (or inactivity) of some key posters, or to the sad fact that we are all getting older and less energetic, and I think some truth in that. Others think this is the normal evolution of things (romantic love does not last forever) and there is some truth in this too. Others think the trend is due to the fact that our most radical ideas (indefinite lifespans, superAIs, uploading etc.), which were disruptive and conflictive in the 90s, have became almost mainstream or at least are covered in more mainstream discussion spaces (TED, BB, io9...). Also, this used to be the only transhumanist discussion space in the 90s, now the discussion is fragmented in many spaces. On the one hand this is good (1000 flowers), on the other hand it reduces cross-fertilization between different sensibilities. Restoring and publicizing the archives would definitely be a good idea. Not to convert the list into a museum, but to see whether we can find some new angle. What I miss more is the variety of transhumanist discourse, and at times I have the feeling that the list is now a set of disjointed monologues on personal pet ideas, of dubious interest for others. From rtomek at ceti.pl Tue Mar 2 15:07:05 2010 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 16:07:05 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Accelerando - and other recommendations, too In-Reply-To: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 1 Mar 2010, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/1/2010 9:42 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > If anyone wants to read a story that was written around the ideas that > > floated across the Extropy list in those days, try Acclerando by > > Charles Stross. It's free on the net, but you might want hard copy as > > well. > > I've been reluctant to mention this, but in that context (a good > recommendation from Keith!) I might as well: if anyone wants to get something > of the flavor of the ideas and approaches buzzing on the list in the mid-'90s, > read my book THE SPIKE. The trouble is that these once hair-raising ideas are > now commonplace, some decade and a half later (although I had to omit some of > the more difficult material because I was aiming at a general Wired-ish > audience). I still have to find some time for this book. However, I've thought it is a good moment to mention something from myself. I am the long time reader of books (and other things) written by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. Sometimes it seems strange to me that he did not get much publicity here (or that he got no pub at all, actually). Of course I may not be quite objective, since I consider the man one of my heroes (yep, and how many writers deserve to be called like this?). He wasn't explicitly extropian, yet if you could read his "Summa technologiae" or "Golem XIV" maybe you could recognise this or that. Some will say, this is old crap stuff. I still think this old stuff kicks a** - even 50 years later. Which is a hell of achievement. >From what I could read, Michael Kandel did wonders translating Lem into English, so you may pay attention to translator's name. Unless you could read Polish, and maybe German (I can say nothing about quality of German translations, only expect them to be good because Lem is said to have many German-speaking readers). I think Russian translations can be good too, since I've heard there were times when he got a lot of attention of their scientists and I doubt they would waste their time (unless, of course, they read this in some other language, Polish, maybe? - oh, I don't mean reading Lem in Polish would be a waste of time, ok let's stop it). > Perhaps one reason the idea flux seems a bit lacklustre now is that people who > weren't there then inevitably rehash many of the same ideas, which are still > somewhat novel if you're 20 or younger, and this is not so enthralling for the > old timers. The Swobe cascade would also have been laughed off the list fairly > quickly back then; 'gene would have been scathing in his brilliantly condensed > way. Yes, ideas seem to be recycled a bit. Read some older stuff, from times when extropy wasn't a word yet. > Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas > waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. (I'm > waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for cheap energy > is.) Is there anybody taking bets :-) ?. Regards Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 14:48:05 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 06:48:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> Message-ID: <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> If we look at the long course of human civilization and even humans before civilization, both human civilization and humans have gone through lots of drastic changes in climate. So, like you, I don't see the big deal for adapting. I suppose food production might have to change over decades to adapt to different conditions -- maybe by changing the ranges and times for crops or by changing the types of crops grown. Also, if we just look at the last two or three centuries, we see a huge shift in where and how people live and how they get their food. This shift hasn't taken place as much in the Third World -- but that's mostly because of bad policies that can easily be changed. (How? Simply turn over policy makers and enforcers to me for re-education.) This is, of course, assuming that global warming has merit and that at least some of the projected climatic shifts will take place. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 12:39:28 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > science isn'tsettled > > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. ? > Can someone > > explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree > or two or > > half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its > > knees? ?Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? > > My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year > wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a > frog to death... Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather > model... The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase > to this weather model...Mike Mike's post makes my point better than I did.? We are so very accustomed to thinking of something per year, a few percent a year, another birthday per year and so forth.? The climatologists are offering numbers that look like a degree per century.? We just are not used talking about anything per century, so confusion results.? A lot of teens somehow jump to the stunningly illogical conclusion that this two degree change we are trying to stop will show up in a few years or any day now since the Copenhagen flop. This causes what I call the Russians vs Germans effect.? During WW2, the Germans had better technology, so in the summers when the days were long and warm, they beat back their foes and drove deep into Russia, but when the vicious November storms hit, the German tanks were ill suited to the cold, the tracks were glued to the ground in the freezing mud, the engines guzzled fuel since they had to be left running to prevent freezing etc.? So in the winter the Russians had the clear advantage, and drove the Germans all the way back.? In the global warming debate, the proposed change is very slow, but human lifetimes are very short.? We end up with the global warming people, like the Germans, having the advantage in the summer, but every winter, they give up the ground they gained because people still die from the cold.? Then the global warming ridiculers, like the Russians, regain lost ground.? The battle surges back and forth every year, with tragic results. spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 16:18:42 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 08:18:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of BillK > ... > ating-gyms-a-reality/> > > Many of us have been to the gym and wondered why the exercise > equipment isn't hooked up to generate electricity and feed it > back into the grid. At long last a company in Florida called > ReRev has answered our calls, converting existing elliptical > machines into sources of power. Now when you hit the gym, you > can burn off those calories while creating some renewable > energy for a carbon negative workout. > > :) > > BillK I know the answer to that question BillK. > Many of us have been to the gym and wondered why the exercise > equipment isn't hooked up to generate electricity... It is because the tiny amount of energy generated scarcely covers the capital cost of the generator. This is not to say it isn't worth doing, for it is a great educational tool, a valuable way to enlighten the public. Modern people are astounded at how hard it is to pedal enough energy to light a standard 75 watt bulb. Athletes can do it, but the general proletariat cannot keep that bulb lit for more than a few minutes, if that long. As for pumping hard enough to run a blow drier, athletes can only do it for a short stretch. Big screen TV? Forget it. Computer? A laptop only. I like the idea, and hope plenty of people get to see how hard it is to muscle power our modern electric homes. They will go immediately and start to turn off stuff. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 2 16:33:51 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:33:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando - and other recommendations, too In-Reply-To: References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4B8D3DEF.1060504@satx.rr.com> On 3/2/2010 9:07 AM, Tomasz Rola wrote: >> > read my book THE SPIKE. The trouble is that these once hair-raising ideas are >> > now commonplace > I still have to find some time for this book. However, I've thought it is > a good moment to mention something from myself. I am the long time reader > of books (and other things) written by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. > Sometimes it seems strange to me that he did not get much publicity here > (or that he got no pub at all, actually). Lem is well known among sf scholars, but his work is mostly too cerebral for the mass market readers of adventures-in-space. Kandel's translations are indeed brilliant. SOLARIS has of course been made into two movies (neither especially effective in my view, although the Tarkovsky is famous for its moody cinematography). > I consider the man one of my heroes (yep, and how many > writers deserve to be called like this?). He wasn't explicitly extropian, > yet if you could read his "Summa technologiae" or "Golem XIV" maybe you > could recognise this or that. I cite Lem at several key points in THE SPIKE, and "Golem XIV" remains astonishingly good as a treatment of a self-augmenting AI that transcends/sublimes. Alas, SUMMA TECHNOLOGIAE has never been translated in full into English. I recall that an enthusiast started to translate some key chapters and put them on the net a decade or so back, but I've lost track of that attempt. Damien Broderick From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 16:41:44 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:41:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <879541.2414.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <669618.48277.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003012303i2050f32ci684688e8b97df041@mail.gmail.com> <879541.2414.qm@web111210.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003020841w235d3717q60d6bbc05842d2fc@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : > I similarly have no reason to suspect that you have any competence in the > field, either. If you're wrong, you're wrong about > smearing people's names. Either way, it's important. Get it proven. Or drop > it. ### Chris, you more or less say I am too dumb to understand an article about the thickness of tree rings in the Ural mountains, and yet willing to accuse "real" scientists of fraud in selecting the trees to be included in a proxy climate reconstruction. I have news for you: There are people who actually read and understand peer-reviewed articles in many disciplines, rather than rely on dumbed-down third hand journalistic reports for their opinions. If you are not one of us, drop it. Rafal From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 17:07:46 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:07:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando In-Reply-To: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003020907u114cabdai4ad20417b0c39a53@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 05:17, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/1/2010 9:42 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > > If anyone wants to read a story that was written around the ideas that >> floated across the Extropy list in those days, try Acclerando by >> Charles Stross. It's free on the net, but you might want hard copy as >> well. >> > > I've been reluctant to mention this, but in that context (a good > recommendation from Keith!) I might as well: if anyone wants to get > something of the flavor of the ideas and approaches buzzing on the list in > the mid-'90s, read my book THE SPIKE. The trouble is that these once > hair-raising ideas are now commonplace, some decade and a half later > (although I had to omit some of the more difficult material because I was > aiming at a general Wired-ish audience). > Absolutely. Personally I never liked much Accelerando. Personally, I would consider it mostly as a "by-product" of the transhumanist culture and language of the period... I am not sure in English, but "vulgarisation" has two different meanings in Italian or French. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 17:12:17 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 09:12:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] generating energy with exercise equipment. was :RE: Accelerando In-Reply-To: References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of spike > Subject: Re: [ExI] Accelerando > > > ...On Behalf Of BillK ... > > Many of us have been to the gym and wondered why the exercise > > equipment isn't hooked up to generate electricity and feed it back > > into the grid... BillK ... > It is because the tiny amount of energy generated scarcely > covers the capital cost of the generator... > This is not to say it isn't worth doing, for it is a great > educational tool, a valuable way to enlighten the public... spike To expand on this a bit, we could advertise that the value of the power generated by one's workout would be deducted from the monthly gym fee. A few customers with more muscle than brain might take it as a challenge to try to work off their entire bill with muscle generated power. These will find how difficult it is to generate one single copper penny's worth of electric power. Most moderns would give up before finishing the generation of one cent, for it would be a hell of a workout. Do calculate it for yourself. Ignore the energy cost of the HVAC system in the gym, and the lights, and the TV running Richard Simmons videos. A recurring gag in Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster is how the Edwardian English nobles were so very profligate, wasting money everywhere in every activity, but they don't even realize it. No one they know had ever had a real job, they had plenty of money and more coming in always from some mysterious source, so they knew not and cared not what anything costs. We are like the Woosters, except with energy. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 17:13:51 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:13:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 15:56, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Restoring and publicizing the archives would definitely be a good > idea. Not to convert the list into a museum, but to see whether we can > find some new angle. > > What I miss more is the variety of transhumanist discourse, and at > times I have the feeling that the list is now a set of disjointed > monologues on personal pet ideas, of dubious interest for others. > I fully agree on both points. To expand a little on the subject, it should also perhaps be added that other H+ lists are not in a much better shape, and that while I am still fond myself of this medium, in comparison with other more fashionable ones, mls in general are not exactly the rage of the day. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 17:30:47 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:30:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61002170859g6c25fcag3ddb51826fff23bd@mail.gmail.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> On 1 March 2010 19:49, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### I have reassured myself by extensive reading that deliberate > forgery of climate data is well supported through analysis of the > papers, as well as perusal of additional documents produced by FOIA > requests. This, OTOH, does not tell us anything about the factual existence of global warming (data may be forged to support a perfectly true hypothesis...). In turn, however, this does not tell us anything on whether it is anthropic, but above all what kind of difference the envisaged reductions in carbon emissions would actually make (let us say, for instance, that a runaway process is already in place...), let alone how the related costs would compare with the costs of the warming avoided, and/or with the costs of possible alternative measures of geo-engineering (or adaptative bio-engineering!). And I see very little discussion of those points. All in all, this makes me inclined to think that climatology, especially in the vulgarisations where somebody regularly suggests that we are facing a likely extinction risk, is basically becoming a religious discourse. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 17:35:53 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:35:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> On 1 March 2010 17:48, Keith Henson wrote: > Energy and space relate through solar power satellites. ?Alas, that is > looking less and less likely since another approach has come along > that will make energy in the "half the cost of coal" range and takes a > lot less front end investment. ?Spike knows what I am talking about. Why, give us at least a few hints... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 17:13:19 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 09:13:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth Message-ID: <619200.41936.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100302/sc_space/chileearthquakemayhaveshorteneddaysonearth Haven't followed this anywhere else, but wonder about any possibilities here for adjusting planetary rotations. Regards, Dan From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 17:43:35 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:43:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003020943x36a800catfb5aa1cb8c0f4df8@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > All in all, this makes me inclined to think that climatology, > especially in the vulgarisations where somebody regularly suggests > that we are facing a likely extinction risk, is basically becoming a > religious discourse. ### Indeed. There already appear to be suicidal cultists as well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Baby-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html Rafal From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 17:45:03 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 09:45:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] generating energy with exercise equipment In-Reply-To: References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <392534.18198.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Well, we live next to a star -- a huge energy source -- that gives us plenty of cheap energy -- either directly or indirectly (e.g., via fossil fuels). In a sense, we're always Woosters in some way -- if only the luck of not being in a far worse situation that we're unaware of. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 12:12:17 PM Subject: [ExI] generating energy with exercise equipment. was :RE: Accelerando To expand on this a bit, we could advertise that the value of the power generated by one's workout would be deducted from the monthly gym fee.? A few customers with more muscle than brain might take it as a challenge to try to work off their entire bill with muscle generated power.? These will find how difficult it is to generate one single copper penny's worth of electric power.? Most moderns would give up before finishing the generation of one cent, for it would be a hell of a workout.? Do calculate it for yourself.? Ignore the energy cost of the HVAC system in the gym, and the lights, and the TV running Richard Simmons videos. A recurring gag in Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster is how the Edwardian English nobles were so very profligate, wasting money everywhere in every activity, but they don't even realize it.? No one they know had ever had a real job, they had plenty of money and more coming in always from some mysterious source, so they knew not and cared not what anything costs. We are like the Woosters, except with energy. spike From scerir at libero.it Tue Mar 2 17:45:50 2010 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:45:50 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Accelerando Message-ID: <31477617.2958771267551950077.JavaMail.defaultUser@defaultHost> Damien > > Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas > > waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. (I'm > > waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for cheap energy > > is.) BillK > Many of us have been to the gym and wondered why the exercise > equipment isn?t hooked up to generate electricity and feed it back > into the grid. Since there is a lot of noise [not just on this list :-)] I would propose thermo-acoustic generators (generation of heat/energy from noise). If heat is given to the air at a moment of greatest condensation, and is taken from it at the moment of greatest rarefaction, a vibration is encouraged. If heat is given at the moment of greatest rarefaction, or subtracted at the moment of greatest condensation, the vibration is discouraged. By this process heat is converted into acoustic power and a self-sustained oscillation can be reached. For thermo-acoustic generators the process is reversed. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Engineering_Acoustics/Thermoacoustics http://uw.physics.wisc.edu/~timbie/P325/Fahey_thermoacoustic_oscillations.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoacoustic_hot_air_engine http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/the-power-of-sound/2 http://www.mecheng.adelaide.edu.au/avc/thermoacoustics/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 18:03:38 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:03:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <724175.55151.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <724175.55151.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003021003m704bc2d3v23ef58a50f5d7cd0@mail.gmail.com> On 1 March 2010 22:21, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > No. ?You have been repeatedly criticised for repeatedly contradicting yourself, making circular arguments and simply ignoring valid challenges to your ideas. I would not criticise too much Gordon for the circularity of the threads concerned. He has done nothing else than reiterating forever with different words statements as to what is "obvious" for him, in particular regarding some ineffable, ill-defined property of some organic brains, the existence of which should be an article of faith. This is hardly original or heretic, since it has been a widespread meme in the western culture for some 500 or 1000 years by now. What I found surprising and made the debate mostly pointless is that many people has taken this stance as pertaining to a factual issue, engaging in the impossible task of "demonstrating" that such property could be replicated, something which is impossible by definition, and shows if anything how the dualistic mentality has still deep roots even in our ranks - and not just in Gordon. -- Stefano Vaj From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 17:41:51 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:41:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > I fully agree on both points. > > To expand a little on the subject, it should also perhaps be added that > other H+ lists are not in a much better shape, and that while I am still > fond myself of this medium, in comparison with other more fashionable ones, > mls in general are not exactly the rage of the day. > Mailing lists and to some degree e-mail in general are anachronistic at this point. More often than not lists that were very active in the 1990s are in severe decline at this point. Young people are using e-mail less and less in favor of more immediate forms of communication. Web forums can still be successful if you can get reach a critical mass of posters and content. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 18:17:47 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:17:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003020943x36a800catfb5aa1cb8c0f4df8@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc61003020943x36a800catfb5aa1cb8c0f4df8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003021017x3c39ab4cs9a4f85fc9b7dfbe7@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 18:43, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Indeed. There already appear to be suicidal cultists as well: > > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Baby-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html Wow, now that you mention it, I have been emitting CO2 myself right now. Should I immediately stop, perhaps, for Gaia's sake? :-) There are a few transhumanists (see IEET) who appear to make much of the AGW as an occasion where scientists would be listened, and planet-scale measures commanding some technological investments would be adopted in view of taking control of our destiny, but I think that such reading of the AGW culture is very optimistic. Most of the time, I just see the rant of rabid neoluddites who would just hate as much any kind of large scale alternative to oil and gas and who abhor the very idea of fiddling with supposed "sacred natural equilibria"... -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 18:30:28 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:30:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/2 Jeff Davis wrote: > Mailing lists and to some degree e-mail in general are anachronistic at this > point.? More often than not lists that were very active in the 1990s are in > severe decline at this point.? Young people are using e-mail less and less > in favor of more immediate forms of communication. > > Unfortunately these users develop an attention span of 160 characters. BillK From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 18:42:43 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:42:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: But all attempts at moving an existing mailing list to a web forum have been a flop, at least all those I am aware of. Wave is very promising and very powerful, but still very beta and poorly understood. G. 2010/3/2 Jeff Davis : > >> I fully agree on both points. >> >> To expand a little on the subject, it should also perhaps be added that >> other H+ lists are not in a much better shape, and that while I am still >> fond myself of this medium, in comparison with other more fashionable ones, >> mls in general are not exactly the rage of the day. > > > Mailing lists and to some degree e-mail in general are anachronistic at this > point.? More often than not lists that were very active in the 1990s are in > severe decline at this point.? Young people are using e-mail less and less > in favor of more immediate forms of communication. > > Web forums can still be successful if you can get reach a critical mass of > posters and content. > > > > -- > "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be > other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be > based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. > We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can > oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." > - William S. Burroughs > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 19:07:11 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:07:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 > > On 1 March 2010 17:48, Keith Henson wrote: > > ... another approach has come along > > that will make energy in the "half the cost of coal" range > and takes a > > lot less front end investment. ?Spike knows what I am talking about. > > Why, give us at least a few hints... :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj I can't. I already signed non-disclosure agreements, and I always take those things damn seriously. spike From nanite1018 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 19:07:46 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:07:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: <413829.24091.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <413829.24091.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <99FA2BC4-6E2D-4969-92B6-DED3B30D40A0@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 2, 2010, at 5:46 AM, Tom Nowell wrote: > Maybe M-brains are too prone to becoming inward-looking and ignoring the outside (I'm thinking the later portions of Accelerando here). Alternatively, maybe the Great Filter keeps smacking down civilisations before they become M-brains, and all you see are single star system civilisations popping up, looking around wondering "where is everyone?" and then disappearing into the night once more. I think many civilizations will never leave their star system because of precisely the phenomenon you suggested- they become a civilization of navel-gazers. Just as a possible example of how that might happen, if you were to, say, think 1000 times faster than a human, so that your subjective experience of time is 1000x faster than people, communicating with a server on the opposite side of little ol' planet Earth would take about two and a half minutes. Something even a million kilometers away would be a full hour distant for you. People on Mars could only be communicated with on a timescale of days or weeks (subjectively), Saturn would take weeks or months. Traveling to the nearest star at the speed of light would place you out of the loop for 4000 years, and any civilization which attained such a high rate of thinking would never be cohesive, but rather fractured and disjointed. If you were to think a million times faster, the opposite side of the earth would be a day and a half away, and communicating with the other side of an M-brain would take years. Such a rapid rate of thought (even when that thought is far more advanced than our own) certainly isn't impossible (at least theoretically), so it is quite possible a vast majority of civilizations develop, create all the technologies that we think are amazing (mind uploading, cognitive enhancement, strong AI, etc.) and then stay inside their star system, with an ever increasing computational capacity but permanently bound to a small region of the Universe. I've never put much into the Great Filter idea. Someone would break through somewhere. I think rapid escalation of subjective time of communication is far more likely. Though I would think some faction would want to stay thoroughly tied to reality, rather than dive into virtual worlds. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From nanite1018 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 19:12:30 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:12:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003011822j7d167d18h4489c3d405e9b742@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> <54AE50CB-5259-4D9E-89BD-195E37ED5765@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501003011822j7d167d18h4489c3d405e9b742@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1ED50CBB-F750-48F6-8028-24E547FE4DEE@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 1, 2010, at 9:22 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > any given number of people will be able to pass the Turing Test as a group. Of course, but I do not think they would be able to unless they were intentionally trying to do so. The actions of mobs, crowds, markets, etc. are somewhat chaotic and do not have the cohesiveness necessary to pass a Turing Test. By intention, a group of people could pass it together, of course, but that's hardly a fair assessment of whether or not these spontaneous collections of people arising without central purpose would be able to do so. I think it is more likely that we would be able to tell they are composed of a multitude rather than have a cohesive idea of "self." Though, if one could demonstrate that they do have that capacity (and I'm skeptical), then I suppose I would have to admit that those minds can be said to exist, if only as a second-order, derivative result of the people within it (and thus not capable of independent rights of its own, as any such rights would violate the rights we normal old humans have). Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 19:15:38 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:15:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] generating energy with exercise equipment. was :RE: Accelerando In-Reply-To: References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 5:12 PM, spike wrote: > To expand on this a bit, we could advertise that the value of the power > generated by one's workout would be deducted from the monthly gym fee. ?A > few customers with more muscle than brain might take it as a challenge to > try to work off their entire bill with muscle generated power. ?These will > find how difficult it is to generate one single copper penny's worth of > electric power. ?Most moderns would give up before finishing the generation > of one cent, for it would be a hell of a workout. ?Do calculate it for > yourself. ?Ignore the energy cost of the HVAC system in the gym, and the > lights, and the TV running Richard Simmons videos. > > A bit of googling finds rather a lot of interest in pedal power. China runs on pedal cycles, as do many third world countries. The electricity generators claim 100 to 200 watts, with up to 300 watts for a professional cyclist. So this also means a big interest in low power electrics, like CFL lighting. They also make the point that most efficient is direct drive to a pump or drill, etc. Second is direct electric connection to TV, music player, etc. And worst is charging a battery for later re-use. Also see: BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 19:18:35 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:18:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > I've been reluctant to mention this, but in that context (a good > recommendation from Keith!) I might as well: if anyone wants to get > something of the flavor of the ideas and approaches buzzing on the list > in the mid-'90s, read my book THE SPIKE. The trouble is that these once > hair-raising ideas are now commonplace, some decade and a half later > (although I had to omit some of the more difficult material because I > was aiming at a general Wired-ish audience). I was reading The Spike again recently. I can't think of anything Charles Stross missed that was not covered there. It really isn't dated because most of the content was so far downstream. snip > Still, I'm sure there are new ideas waiting to be explored, or old ideas > waiting to be examined in depth--but it's not obvious what they are. > (I'm waiting eagerly for Keith to tell us what his current idea for > cheap energy is.) It's not my idea. Spike is under an NDA on this as well but he can express an opinion as to its technical merits. It will be out in the open late summer/early fall. I can ask to include people in NDA discussions at this stage if they have skills and knowledge that might be useful. > From: "spike" > >>...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke > ? ? ? ?Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science > isn'tsettled > > ? ? ? ?>...The problem has never been that people cannot adapt. It's that > ecosystems can adapt in ways that are extremely unfriendly to people. No > matter how well-deserved your estimation of your own genes is, your kids are > not going to grow gills or derive nutrition from sand. Catastrophic global > warming won't kill by heat stroke. It'll kill by war, disease and famine... Much worse would be a sharp drop in temperature, something that we know has happened and don't know exactly why. > So I hear. ?Consider the kinds of oversimplification that leads to > misunderstanding. ?One I pointed out, where the proletariat somehow turns a > degree per century into a degree per year. ?Then there is the annoying habit > of lumping all varieties of skeptics into one large bin of enviro-heretics, > even though there are many subtle varieties. ?I for instance recognize that > the surface temperature may rise a bit on average, but I seriously doubt > that warming by itself will cause war, disease, famine etc. ?We have > *plenty* of factors that can cause all that stuff without a couple degrees > of warming. ?For instance, we have war, disease and famine as a result of > human disagreement on the name of their imaginary deities. ?Humans just have > a bad habit of killing each other. Humans (along with every other animal I know about) have a habit of reproducing till they overrun the ability of the environment to feed them. Unique to humans, they invent gods or haul old ones out of memetic storage as a "reason" to kill neighbors. The process is mechanistic, switched on by gene built mental mechanisms that humans are not even aware of. One of the more insightful commentaries on this point is dated over 900 years ago: . . . the chronicler Robert the Monk has put into the mouth of Urban II: [...] this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. [...] God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_II > Considering modern war technology, agricultural technology, pest control, > water handling, construction skills, I honestly think we would scarcely > notice a degree or two of warming over a human lifetime. ?We can handle it, > farm animals can handle it, crops can be genetically engineered for a bit > warmer and longer growing season. ?Some beasts will go extinct as beasts do, > but some would anyway even without the warming. ?Chris we have bigger > problems to worry about, such as maintaining the supply of cheap energy. Exactly. When a family is spending half its income on food, a doubling of food prices due to higher energy cost means the family starves. Keith From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Tue Mar 2 19:32:47 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:32:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100302193247.GB9M2.380226.root@hrndva-web05-z01> Your comment about humans inventing gods as unique is presumptive and invalid. At this point in time we, either individually or as a race, don't know what other species are doing in their heads, regarding gods or other things. And as to the rest of your thesis, an additional piece of datum, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/science/02evo.html?hp=&pagewanted=all ---- Keith Henson wrote: > I was reading The Spike again recently. I can't think of anything > Charles Stross missed that was not covered there. It really isn't > dated because most of the content was so far downstream. > Much worse would be a sharp drop in temperature, something that we > know has happened and don't know exactly why. > Humans (along with every other animal I know about) have a habit of > reproducing till they overrun the ability of the environment to feed > them. > > Unique to humans, they invent gods or haul old ones out of memetic > storage as a "reason" to kill neighbors. The process is mechanistic, > switched on by gene built mental mechanisms that humans are not even > aware of. One of the more insightful commentaries on this point is > dated over 900 years ago: > > . . . the chronicler Robert the Monk has put into the mouth of Urban II: > > [...] this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the > seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your > large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes > scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder > one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by > mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your > quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and > controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; > wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. > [...] God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in > arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your > sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of > Heaven. > Exactly. When a family is spending half its income on food, a > doubling of food prices due to higher energy cost means the family > starves. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 19:42:15 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:42:15 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Exactly. ?When a family is spending half its income on food, a > doubling of food prices due to higher energy cost means the family > starves. > > Nawwww. As of Nov 2009, 38 million Americans (17 million households) spent nothing on food. They got food stamps from the government. BillK From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 19:23:58 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:23:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61002170859g6c25fcag3ddb51826fff23bd@mail.gmail.com> <154647.10956.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <733998.14603.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> It's extraordinary to me that scientific research that provides support for AGW theory gets so much critical attention, yet accusations of fraud are accepted on this list without comment. I find that very disappointing, but clearly I'm in the minority. One suspects that if Gordon made the same accusation about some aspect of AGI research it wouldn't be accepted quite so uncritically. ________________________________ From: Stefano Vaj To: rafal at smigrodzki.org; ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 9:30:47 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On 1 March 2010 19:49, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### I have reassured myself by extensive reading that deliberate > forgery of climate data is well supported through analysis of the > papers, as well as perusal of additional documents produced by FOIA > requests. This, OTOH, does not tell us anything about the factual existence of global warming (data may be forged to support a perfectly true hypothesis...). In turn, however, this does not tell us anything on whether it is anthropic, but above all what kind of difference the envisaged reductions in carbon emissions would actually make (let us say, for instance, that a runaway process is already in place...), let alone how the related costs would compare with the costs of the warming avoided, and/or with the costs of possible alternative measures of geo-engineering (or adaptative bio-engineering!). And I see very little discussion of those points. All in all, this makes me inclined to think that climatology, especially in the vulgarisations where somebody regularly suggests that we are facing a likely extinction risk, is basically becoming a religious discourse. -- Stefano Vaj _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 18:54:31 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:54:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > Unfortunately these users develop an attention span of 160 characters. > Is that necessarily bad or is it one of those things that 'just is', like languages changing over time? Maybe the people that are observed to have 'shortened' attention spans already had shortened attention spans before the advent of status updates. Depending on how you look at it, things like instant messages are more 'natural' forms of communication compared to the lengthy diatribes us old-timers are more used to. When you're having a physical conversation, you're generally not trading huge blocks of text back and forth, staying within the bounds of one topic. (I'm still undecided as to whether heavy internet use has shortened my attention span over the years. When I look at how many books I read and how much television I watch compared to when I was a child, it appears my attention span has declined. But thinking of it another way, my attention span has greatly lengthened with relation to computer-related material. I never used to spend 8 hours a day doing one thing as I now spend doing various activities online. I read 8 hours a day, I just don't read *books* 8 hours a day.) Another thing that doesn't help the transhumanist community is that the resources for communicating with each other are spread out and not necessarily well-advertised. I didn't know this list existed until today. I assumed wta-talk was the biggest and most active mailing list which appears not to be the case. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 19:48:55 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:48:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Nawwww. As of Nov 2009, 38 million Americans (17 million > households) spent nothing on food. They got food stamps from the > government. > > Assuming their food stamp allowance is enough to last through the month and they don't have to trade any for non-food essentials like toilet paper, soap, or especially diapers. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 20:09:36 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:09:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Chess Room In-Reply-To: <1ED50CBB-F750-48F6-8028-24E547FE4DEE@GMAIL.COM> References: <4e3a29501002281117q42f7dcben9def0d23b9bbe78e@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002281911o2290b25ag46b3cd2979f59407@mail.gmail.com> <16B90CBA-753A-4BC8-B378-4A3A6D056FE0@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501002281957v243ae9bdi4f7167851d17af77@mail.gmail.com> <4e3a29501002282037u34c158t29f944bad76da9b@mail.gmail.com> <54AE50CB-5259-4D9E-89BD-195E37ED5765@GMAIL.COM> <4e3a29501003011822j7d167d18h4489c3d405e9b742@mail.gmail.com> <1ED50CBB-F750-48F6-8028-24E547FE4DEE@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003021209i5be6aa7q1e236e9c66d5ff61@mail.gmail.com> They would have to be intentionally trying to do so, but I think the consciousness-giving parts of our brain might also all "strive" towards a common purpose, if only in that they engage in some similar behavior that leads to the mind. Here is my proposed experiment. We have two computer terminals. One is connected to one monitor and one keyboard; this is the observer's station. The other is connected to ten or so monitors and ten or so keyboards. Both screens display some sort of messaging program. Each keyboard is connected to a RNG, which randomly selects a keyboard to be the only active one after the enter key is pressed on the currently active one to send a message. This could be done in a very easy, completely digital way. Using the internet, we could even have people operate from the comforts of their own home. Running this en masse online would be the best way to gather a lot of data quickly. The ten people forming the otherbrain are given a few rules. They are told that it is their goal to, without communicating amongst themselves, trick the person on the other side into believing he is talking to a singular person. Each of the component people is encouraged not to espouse his or her own ideas as to the otherbrain's personality (as this would lead to a disjointed, obviously fake set of responses) but instead to go with the flow in a manner of speaking and let their "person" develop. I would argue a few things: 1. The mind will always reach an equilibrium where all ten people are able to produce responses that fit for the particular emergent mind. One might even say that they do this by knowing what that mind is like, by being familiar with its personality and reactions, though it seems to lack a locus of awareness. 2. The experiment, when repeated with those ten people, will tend to form similar minds. This is hard to know because the people will get to know the test and may produce the same character, but they should once again be encouraged to have no preconceptions as to what the mind will be but instead let it happen. I find it hard to believe that the experiment would not produce minds in at least some range of similarity. That range would provide some information about how those ten minds could form a consistent one. If anything, this would have interesting applications to psychology, group intelligence, and even things like chaos theory (seeing if initial directions of the otherbrain's development would sway the outcome of the experiment.) If anyone has experience enough to help set up this experiment, it could be run on the internet pretty simply. It is something I would like to do. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 20:13:56 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:13:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <733998.14603.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61002171955i33b65d34i80dcef79dc21669b@mail.gmail.com> <588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com> <568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003020930t33a0532s7b32441b83d5e04e@mail.gmail.com> <733998.14603.qm@web111201.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : > It's extraordinary to me that scientific research that provides support for > AGW theory gets so much critical attention, yet accusations of fraud are > accepted on this list without comment. The accusation is plausible, the accuser has a good reputation here, and climate science is more like an art. I know AGW is "important", but I just can't get worked up about it enough to care about investigating the claims. -Dave From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 20:26:45 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:26:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Radical Life Extension and the Problem of Malthusian Hells In-Reply-To: <201003020557.o225vpx0015328@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003020557.o225vpx0015328@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003021226x16fcce08i47916da02508ed01@mail.gmail.com> Ah, why can't people look on the bright side of things? Faced with the threat of said Malthusian hells, people will finally put the im in their petus to find cheaper, larger scale agriculture and food production methods. Diseases will have to be reigned in in order to prevent catastrophes associated with even denser populations. Water retrieval methods will improve, and perhaps the monopolistic control of water and food dispersal will fade in the face of necessity. And of course, most important of all, there will be a very good reason for interplanetary colonization! History has shown that necessity induces progress. The agricultural revolution was spurred by need for higher production. Don't forget that this pretty much started the industrial revolution--it wasn't that people said "Hey! Science! Let's use this to farm better!" They only took up new farming tools and methods because they *needed *them to keep up. You know: NITMOI, NITMOI! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 20:03:34 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:03:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > > > > On 1 March 2010 17:48, Keith Henson > wrote: > > > ... another approach has come along > > > that will make energy in the "half the cost of > coal" range > > and takes a > > > lot less front end investment. ?Spike knows what > I am talking about. > > > > Why, give us at least a few hints... :-) > > > > -- > > Stefano Vaj > > > I can't.? I already signed non-disclosure agreements, > and I always take > those things damn seriously. > > spike > The rest of us can speculate, though! Barring new physics (and a serious failure of my imagination), there are only two, maybe three possible sources of abundant energy: The sun, the atomic nucleus, and the heat inside our planet. I count things like zero-point energy as new physics, because as far as I know it's about as realistic as perpetual motion machines. So I'd guess either ground-based (or not far above it) solar energy or nuclear, either fusion or even some variety of fission. Geothermal is probably not going to wash, 'alternative' energy (wind, wave, tidal, etc.) can't deliver enough energy to be a serious contender. Methane is doubtful, even though there's loads of it around, it's very difficult to collect, and is still a fossil fuel, so wouldn't be politically popular (not going to say anything about abiogenic methane). My money would be on some process which makes ground-based solar energy much cheaper than at present, or one of the fringe fusion projects like the polywell or the focus fusion thing. I don't see anything else worthy of serious attention by our two intrepid pioneers. Ben Zaiboc From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 20:33:16 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:33:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <580930c21003021003m704bc2d3v23ef58a50f5d7cd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8917.25253.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 3/2/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > From: Stefano Vaj > Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat > To: "ExI chat list" > Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 1:03 PM > On 1 March 2010 22:21, Ben Zaiboc > > wrote: > > No. ?You have been repeatedly criticised for > repeatedly contradicting yourself, making circular arguments > and simply ignoring valid challenges to your ideas. > > I would not criticise too much Gordon for the circularity > of the > threads concerned. > > He has done nothing else than reiterating forever with > different words > statements as to what is "obvious" for him, in particular > regarding > some ineffable, ill-defined property of some organic > brains, the > existence of which should be an article of faith. This is > hardly > original or heretic, since it has been a widespread meme in > the > western culture for some 500 or 1000 years by now. > > What I found surprising and made the debate mostly > pointless is that > many people has taken this stance as pertaining to a > factual issue, > engaging in the impossible task of "demonstrating" that > such property > could be replicated, something which is impossible by > definition, and > shows if anything how the dualistic mentality has still > deep roots > even in our ranks - and not just in Gordon. Again someone mistakes me for a dualist. Amazing. As far as I can tell, only Jeff Davis understands me on this point. -gts From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 20:10:35 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:10:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I don't know of anybody who seriously contents that global warming is a threat to the survival of the species. But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. That's where my concern lies. ________________________________ From: Dan To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 6:48:05 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled If we look at the long course of human civilization and even humans before civilization, both human civilization and humans have gone through lots of drastic changes in climate. So, like you, I don't see the big deal for adapting. I suppose food production might have to change over decades to adapt to different conditions -- maybe by changing the ranges and times for crops or by changing the types of crops grown. Also, if we just look at the last two or three centuries, we see a huge shift in where and how people live and how they get their food. This shift hasn't taken place as much in the Third World -- but that's mostly because of bad policies that can easily be changed. (How? Simply turn over policy makers and enforcers to me for re-education.) This is, of course, assuming that global warming has merit and that at least some of the projected climatic shifts will take place. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 12:39:28 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > science isn'tsettled > > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. > Can someone > > explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree > or two or > > half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its > > knees? Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? > > My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year > wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a > frog to death... Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather > model... The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase > to this weather model...Mike Mike's post makes my point better than I did. We are so very accustomed to thinking of something per year, a few percent a year, another birthday per year and so forth. The climatologists are offering numbers that look like a degree per century. We just are not used talking about anything per century, so confusion results. A lot of teens somehow jump to the stunningly illogical conclusion that this two degree change we are trying to stop will show up in a few years or any day now since the Copenhagen flop. This causes what I call the Russians vs Germans effect. During WW2, the Germans had better technology, so in the summers when the days were long and warm, they beat back their foes and drove deep into Russia, but when the vicious November storms hit, the German tanks were ill suited to the cold, the tracks were glued to the ground in the freezing mud, the engines guzzled fuel since they had to be left running to prevent freezing etc. So in the winter the Russians had the clear advantage, and drove the Germans all the way back. In the global warming debate, the proposed change is very slow, but human lifetimes are very short. We end up with the global warming people, like the Germans, having the advantage in the summer, but every winter, they give up the ground they gained because people still die from the cold. Then the global warming ridiculers, like the Russians, regain lost ground. The battle surges back and forth every year, with tragic results. spike _______________________________________________ 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 bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 20:27:24 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:27:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <502276.29073.qm@web113611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> JOSHUA JOB mused: > so it is quite possible > a vast majority of civilizations develop, create all the > technologies that we think are amazing (mind uploading, > cognitive enhancement, strong AI, etc.) and then stay inside > their star system, with an ever increasing computational > capacity but permanently bound to a small region of the > Universe. > > I've never put much into the Great Filter idea. Someone > would break through somewhere. I think rapid escalation of > subjective time of communication is far more likely. Though > I would think some faction would want to stay thoroughly > tied to reality, rather than dive into virtual worlds. I'm ambivalent about the Great Filter myself, but I do think the Fermi Paradox probably tells us that the speed of light is indeed an unbreakable boundary (or that we are living inside a simulation, or that we are quarantined, or...). I'm quite attracted to the idea that advanced civilisations would tread very lightly on the physical structure of the universe, and we are simply not able to detect them (the galaxy-spanning, ancient civilisation in Greg Egan's 'Incandescence' would be totally undetectable by us, for example), and maybe any desire to fiddle about with mega-engineering projects would soon focus on areas or scales that don't impinge on what we see in our telescopes. Maybe there are very good reasons to live inside event horizons. Maybe the real action is in the dark matter universe. From what we know of the evolution of life, it's very very doubtful that we are the only intelligences in the universe, or even this galaxy, but I don't think the Fermi Paradox is as paradoxical as it's made out to be. I think SETI is a complete waste of time, simply from thinking about how BIG the place is. Our radio front is like a ping-pong ball in the Black Forest. It wouldn't surprise me if the galaxy could host thousands of highly advanced civilisations that knew nothing about one another. All we can do is try our best to highly advance our own civilisation. Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 21:05:33 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:05:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2E1AAB6351474D10A2ED34B4059E97C9@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson > Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy > > > > ... > > I was reading The Spike again recently. I can't think of > anything Charles Stross missed that was not covered there. > It really isn't dated because most of the content was so far > downstream... Way agreed, The Spike contains really excellent material, highly relevant to this day. It is in a sense the best existing condensed version of the ExI archives. There are some really sexy parts in there too, such as the material on page 86 of the 2001 edition, oohhh that is exciting. I get so turned on, it's better than sneaking to the back of the public library in the 70s with the National Geographic. That being said, I thought of a better way (than on p. 86 of The Spike) to describe in a thought experiment how fast the largest known prime number is increasing in size: An alien spacecraft lands on Earth. The alien recognizes the surface upon which she has landed as a living entity, and so wishes to figure out what is the scale of the life forms found thereon. The entity has a mass of about 1 microgram, and concludes this is the scale of life on earth, but two minutes later it recognizes that this life form is actually an indivual skin cell on the surface of another larger lifeform, a verroa mite which has a mass of a milligram, so the spacecraft's inhabitants conclude that the largest life forms on earth are three orders of magnitude greater than originally thought, but two minutes later it recognizes the mite is on the surface of a bumblebee with mass three orders of magnitude greater still, one gram, but two minutes later the alien recognizes the bumblebee is taking a rest on the back of a raven with a mass of a kilogram, then two minutes after that, recognizes that the raven is perched on the back of a bison with a mass of 1000 kilgrams, and two minutes later recognizes that the million kilogram structure next to the bison, a column of cellulose with green material attached, is a lifeform itself. So in ten minutes from the identification of the cell as alive, the largest known (to the alien) life form has gone from a microgram to a milligram to a gram to a kilogram to a megagram to a gigagram, from single cell to the giant redwood tree, fifteen orders of magnitude in ten minutes or an average of an order of magnitude very 40 seconds. Like the scale of earth's life from the point of view of the alien, the size of the largest known prime number has been increasing in size at this rate for the past fifteen years, an order of magnitude about every 40 seconds, requiring a new prefix every two minutes, more or less steadily since the formation of GIMPS in 1995. This analysis is actually on the conservative side, as the growth rate is actually slightly faster than that, and accelerating. Oooh, sexxxy. {8^D pant pant. Damien feel free to use the above in any future addition of The Spike. I would be honored sir if you do. > > ... > > It's not my idea. Spike is under an NDA on this as well but > he can express an opinion as to its technical merits...Keith This too I choose to withhold for now. I do not wish to be kept awake at night worrying if I accidentally revealed anything under which I am obligated by an NDA. I mean this not only from a legal standpoint, but rather primarily from an ethical and moral point of view. I am no copyleft fan, rather I fully recognize the value of protecting intellectual property. I can see a world in which everything of real value is information. I treat every comment uttered by Keith on the phone or in person as covered by NDA. Until I see it posted online by him in a public forum such as this, I refrain from comment. But I won't send you away completely empty handed: It's cool. {8-] Those of you who haven't read The Spike, do so forthwith, then return here and let us start a discussion thereupon. Those of you who have read it, do let us start a discussion thereupon. Final note: Damien did not name his book after me, he had the title The Spike before he ever heard of me. {8-] spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 21:10:03 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:10:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: <972456.27246.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <180977.5020.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 3/1/10, Dan wrote: > To me, physicalism just means, in terms of mind, that > mental processes _supervene_ on physical ones. > > I'm not sure this supports dualism or what you mean by a > dualism that would be supported by it. I know there are > non-reductive physicalists, such as Louise Antony and > Josephy Levine (or they were a few years ago when they > published an essay defending this position against the likes > of Kim:). Is that dualist? They don't seem to think so -- > save that they seem to mean mind has a domain of autonomy, > but what does that mean in ontological terms? In general I support non-reductive physicalism. I believe dualists make a mistake when they conclude that because mental phenomena seem irreducible to physics, those phenomena must represent either non-physical properties of matter or a substance completely foreign to matter. We can quite easily reduce mental phenomena epistemically without reducing the same phenomena ontologically. I mean here that we can understand mental phenomena in scientific terms of neurological causes and effects without abandoning the common sense notion that mental phenomena have an irreducibly subjective ontology. Confusion arises about this subject only because when we consider anything aside from consciousness, we do *both* an epistemic and an ontological reduction. -gts From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 21:11:05 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 16:11:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: <502276.29073.qm@web113611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <502276.29073.qm@web113611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > > I'm ambivalent about the Great Filter myself, but I do think the Fermi > Paradox probably tells us that the speed of light is indeed an unbreakable > boundary (or that we are living inside a simulation, or that we are > quarantined, or...). > > One possibility I've been thinking about lately is that working out the details of how two sentient species should make first contact is very difficult. Even an exchange of scientific knowledge could be disastrous under the right circumstances. Maybe for that reason it's best to stay in your own neck of the woods. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 20:51:37 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:51:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Energy Hints In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <412354.41906.qm@web113613.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> There's this: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24665/ Ben Zaiboc From rtomek at ceti.pl Tue Mar 2 21:19:58 2010 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 22:19:58 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Accelerando - and other recommendations, too In-Reply-To: <4B8D3DEF.1060504@satx.rr.com> References: <4B8C9152.1050404@satx.rr.com> <4B8D3DEF.1060504@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Mar 2010, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/2/2010 9:07 AM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > > Sometimes it seems strange to me that he did not get much publicity here > > (or that he got no pub at all, actually). > > Lem is well known among sf scholars, but his work is mostly too cerebral for "SF scholars", that's the problem. I have long stopped thinking of Lem as of sf writer. He has just dressed his tales about human condition in such costume. To treat him as sf writer is, I think, like saying that Aesop was a zoologist :-). Well, I am not suggesting you have any trouble with understanding that. But there is some kind of misunderstanding about Lem-sf connection. > the mass market readers of adventures-in-space. Yes, those guys expect something that Lem could not give to them. Or rather, his priorities were different. I am sure he would have been able to satisfy masses but I am happy he did otherwise. > Kandel's translations are > indeed brilliant. SOLARIS has of course been made into two movies (neither > especially effective in my view, although the Tarkovsky is famous for its > moody cinematography). >From what Lem himself have said, he wasn't very fond of neither version. Even thou I still have to see Tarkovsky's Solaris, I am willing to believe him (but I want to watch and have my own opinion on this). As of Soderbergh's one, well, Natascha McE shines (sure, I like her as a woman) but the rest is just a shadow of the book. Actually, I have been signaled (thanks, Daniel Ust) that English translation of Solaris is (probably) a shadow of itself. Funny, kind of "a shadow in, a shadow out" case. BTW, I've just learned from wikipedia that there was another Solaris, back in 1968 by Boris Nirenburg. Never heard of it before. Interesting. I myself (and I am not alone in this, if I can be a judge) think the best film adaptations of Lem were those made with lower funds. Things like: - "Przekladaniec" ("Layer Cake", by Adrzej Wajda, 1968) - this is so cool, so... Lemish! - "Test pilota Pirxa" ("Test of Pirx the Pilot" [?], joint Polish/Russian/Estonian/Ukrainian production by Marek Piestrak, 1978) - while some people laugh at cheap special effects, I like to look deeper into this and concentrate on depiction of humanity test, which is the subject here (and not some hurried action with blowups and gadgets). As such, the film is similar to the famous "Blade Runner" masterpiece. It is based on "The Inquest" short story from "Tales of Pirx the Pilot". Ah, Solaris-the-movie - I was sure someone would mention it :-) . I have this strange impression, that sf cinema is going down along kind of "toy story for children of ages 0-100" way. There are few notable exceptions, like once or twice in a decade. If we talk about mainstream and anybody reading this cared and was interested, I would suggest comparing I-robot-the-movie with Asimov's original. Not that there is much to compare on the one side. So, I think the case of sf movies is the case of lost opportunity. Especially when one thinks that film is so much different medium than a book. Indeed, it requires a master to make use of a medium. > I cite Lem at several key points in THE SPIKE, and "Golem XIV" remains > astonishingly good as a treatment of a self-augmenting AI that > transcends/sublimes. Yes, being astonishingly good as time goes by, that's the proof mark of Lem's writings. But, considering how much his writings relied on science and technology' state of the art, what does it tell of us mortals? As of THE SPIKE, I will keep it in mind ;-). > Alas, SUMMA TECHNOLOGIAE has never been translated in > full into English. Oh, fawk. This is a real pity. I didn't know. It's like building an arc of stones and "forgeting" to put the closing stone in place - and consequently, messing the whole. Shame on you, US market, shame! Somehow, however, I am not that much surprised. I would say, it fits into a bigger picture. > I recall that an enthusiast started to translate some key > chapters and put them on the net a decade or so back, but I've lost track of > that attempt. Seems like he is stuck a little... Hard to judge, but I mean, you mean this, right? http://www.fprengel.de/Lem/Summa/contents.htm I think this effort is worth a closer look. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 21:03:54 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:03:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I was merely responding to the "bring civilization to its knees" comment made earlier. And I do not mean to make light of the fact that any disruption in ecosystems might cause suffering -- to humans and non-humans. But my point was more that such disruptions have happened before and ask why this alledged one is different and needs special attention? (I use "alleged" because there's much uncertainty here -- and the doom and gloom predictions have often not panned out. This is even leaving aside the "climategate" scandal.) Let's turn this around: What do you think is the case here? What do think will happen? What do you think should be done? Regards, Dan From: Christopher Luebcke To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 3:10:35 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled I don't know of anybody who seriously contents that global warming is a threat to the survival of the species. But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. That's where my concern lies. From: Dan To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 6:48:05 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled If we look at the long course of human civilization and even humans before civilization, both human civilization and humans have gone through lots of drastic changes in climate. So, like you, I don't see the big deal for adapting. I suppose food production might have to change over decades to adapt to different conditions -- maybe by changing the ranges and times for crops or by changing the types of crops grown. Also, if we just look at the last two or three centuries, we see a huge shift in where and how people live and how they get their food. This shift hasn't taken place as much in the Third World -- but that's mostly because of bad policies that can easily be changed. (How? Simply turn over policy makers and enforcers to me for re-education.) This is, of course, assuming that global warming has merit and that at least some of the projected climatic shifts will take place. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 12:39:28 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > science isn'tsettled > > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. ? > Can someone > > explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree > or two or > > half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its > > knees? ?Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? > > My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year > wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a > frog to death... Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather > model... The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase > to this weather model...Mike Mike's post makes my point better than I did.? We are so very accustomed to thinking of something per year, a few percent a year, another birthday per year and so forth.? The climatologists are offering numbers that look like a degree per century.? We just are not used talking about anything per century, so confusion results.? A lot of teens somehow jump to the stunningly illogical conclusion that this two degree change we are trying to stop will show up in a few years or any day now since the Copenhagen flop. This causes what I call the Russians vs Germans effect.? During WW2, the Germans had better technology, so in the summers when the days were long and warm, they beat back their foes and drove deep into Russia, but when the vicious November storms hit, the German tanks were ill suited to the cold, the tracks were glued to the ground in the freezing mud, the engines guzzled fuel since they had to be left running to prevent freezing etc.? So in the winter the Russians had the clear advantage, and drove the Germans all the way back.? In the global warming debate, the proposed change is very slow, but human lifetimes are very short.? We end up with the global warming people, like the Germans, having the advantage in the summer, but every winter, they give up the ground they gained because people still die from the cold.? Then the global warming ridiculers, like the Russians, regain lost ground.? The battle surges back and forth every year, with tragic results. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 21:30:47 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:30:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com><2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike><217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ________________________________ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat >>Unfortunately these users develop an attention span of 160 characters... >Is that necessarily bad or is it one of those things that 'just is', like languages changing over time? Maybe the people that are observed to have 'shortened' attention spans already had short... Jeff Davis (the new one) Welcome Jeff! Yes it is necessarily a bad thing. I whacked off your comment at 160 characters, after giving the spaces for free. I and plenty of others have concluded that real thoughts cannot be adequately expressed in 160 character tweets. It is a fine medium for HOW R U, and most of what passes today for political commentary, but this evanescent medium is inadequate for anything that interests me. So I have refused to tweet. I am quick to point out that you are a different Jeff Davis from the well known and loved long time ExI poster here. Have you a nickname? Have you proposal for how we differentiate you from our veteran poster Jeff Davis? I think it unwise for the two of you to share a handle. In any case, welcome sir! Do tell us something, anything, (if you wish) about the new Jeff Davis please, such as where are you from, what turns you on intellectually, etc. spike {8-] From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 22:25:01 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:25:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: References: <502276.29073.qm@web113611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <374806.9312.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Neil deGrasse Tyson was on John Stewart last night and made much a similarly sobering observation (towards the end of the clip). http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-1-2010/neil-degrasse-tyson ________________________________ From: Jeff Davis To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 1:11:05 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] endpoint of evolution >I'm ambivalent about the Great Filter myself, but I do think the Fermi Paradox probably tells us that the speed of light is indeed an unbreakable boundary (or that we are living inside a simulation, or that we are quarantined, or...). > > One possibility I've been thinking about lately is that working out the details of how two sentient species should make first contact is very difficult. Even an exchange of scientific knowledge could be disastrous under the right circumstances. Maybe for that reason it's best to stay in your own neck of the woods. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 22:27:39 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:27:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > Welcome Jeff! > > Yes it is necessarily a bad thing. I whacked off your comment at 160 > characters, after giving the spaces for free. I and plenty of others have > concluded that real thoughts cannot be adequately expressed in 160 > character > tweets. It is a fine medium for HOW R U, and most of what passes today for > political commentary, but this evanescent medium is inadequate for anything > that interests me. So I have refused to tweet. > We still have other mediums of communication. A lot of what needs to be said can be said under such limitations. If people don't feel the need to express themselves in more than 160 characters maybe the problem is that they don't have anything to say that requires more space. After reading some of the drivel people post on Myspace I'm thankful for the brevity. I don't want to be stuck in the position of an old dinosaur that's still sitting around using e-mail for everything when everyone else has moved on. :-) Any way you look at it, mailing lists are in a state of decline because e-mail is becoming less popular as a medium. > I am quick to point out that you are a different Jeff Davis from the well > known and loved long time ExI poster here. Have you a nickname? Have you > proposal for how we differentiate you from our veteran poster Jeff Davis? > I > think it unwise for the two of you to share a handle. > I changed my display name to a fuller version which should help with that problem. Being a doppleganger is the curse of my existence. I'm always running into situations with multiple Jeffs, getting mail for the several other Jeff Davis's in my city, and being told I look like someone else. A local meetup group I participate in now has 3 different Jeffs despite never drawing a crowd of more than 10 people on average. > > In any case, welcome sir! Do tell us something, anything, (if you wish) > about the new Jeff Davis please, such as where are you from, what turns you > on intellectually, etc. > I'm 30 years old, male, married, and from an intellectually backwards mid-sized Ohio city. I love discussing big ideas. Traditionally the go-to person for discussing 'big ideas' has been the local priest, but over time I've discovered priests are completely ill-equipped to deal with the kinds of questions I consider important and thus I've lost most interest in religion. They have much less to say on the possibility of godlike AI than they do say, marriage counseling which I'm not in need of. The last one had never even heard of World Of Warcraft and didn't know about the affluence gap between Facebook and Myspace. Hard to take such a person seriously. One notable thing about me is that I'm entirely body-negative. It's not *my* body I have a problem with, overall, all human bodies have their issues. It's the very idea of being embodied. The only 'I' that has any meaning for me is my mind, and having it trapped in a very fragile body is an accident waiting to happen, like putting an egg in a cement mixer. I don't identify with my body at all. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 22:01:51 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:01:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte Message-ID: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Hello all - Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, I have a request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the (three? five?) most important foundational texts that one should read to become versed in the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the appropriate forum. Sarah From cluebcke at yahoo.com Tue Mar 2 22:19:21 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:19:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > Let's turn this around: What do you think is the case here? What do think will > happen? What do you think should be done? I think that there will probably be some fairly serious ecological disruptions over the next several decades; the root issues will be sea level rise and ecosystem disruption. Sea level rise has obvious consequences, not just for the people and agriculture displaced, but for the people uphill--imagine a few million starving Bangladeshis overwhelming your border, for example. Beyond sea level, the other changes are generally tied to weather system disruption, and result in threats to water security, crop failures and changes in migratory patters (for fish, game and fowl). If the ecological changes are a real possibility, and most climatologists think they are, there's actually probably not that much that can be done about it. I mean, we shouldn't just say to hell with it and double down on greenhouse gas emission, but it's not like we can just turn the thermostat down once we agree to. The recent and rapid changes in Arctic ice cover alone are probably enough to eventually cause or contribute to some fairly serious climate disruptions, and there probably isn't anything that can be done about it. So what do we do? - Develop cheap, renewable, and distributed sources of energy. We need electrification of the developing world to happen the way communication technology is spreading--not with massive infrastructure projects (e.g. land lines), but by developing inexpensive, individually-ownable, mass-producible systems (e.g. cell phones). Wind, solar, fuel cell, hydrodynamic, whatever--power to the people, literally, and power they can take with them if they have to move around. - Continue the already promising development of crops that are resistant to various environmental risks (e.g. drought-resistant grains, salt-resistant rice, etc). Agriculture they can take with them if they have to move around. - Water security is a very serious concern. Given the proximity of most of the world's population to oceans that are probably coming up to meet them, I'd say investment in (small, distributable) desalinization technology would probably be a good move as well. - Encourage economic development and education. This is what will create cultures of people who can be self-sufficient and adaptable even in trying times. Those are the types of things that I think ought to happen. I'm not suggesting who's responsible, who should pay for them, who should execute them. I also think that those types of developments, should they happen, would turn out to be a boon if in fact no GW scenarios come to pass. Thanks for asking. ________________________________ From: Dan To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 1:03:54 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled I was merely responding to the "bring civilization to its knees" comment made earlier. And I do not mean to make light of the fact that any disruption in ecosystems might cause suffering -- to humans and non-humans. But my point was more that such disruptions have happened before and ask why this alledged one is different and needs special attention? (I use "alleged" because there's much uncertainty here -- and the doom and gloom predictions have often not panned out. This is even leaving aside the "climategate" scandal.) Let's turn this around: What do you think is the case here? What do think will happen? What do you think should be done? Regards, Dan From: Christopher Luebcke To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 3:10:35 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled I don't know of anybody who seriously contents that global warming is a threat to the survival of the species. But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. That's where my concern lies. From: Dan To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 6:48:05 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled If we look at the long course of human civilization and even humans before civilization, both human civilization and humans have gone through lots of drastic changes in climate. So, like you, I don't see the big deal for adapting. I suppose food production might have to change over decades to adapt to different conditions -- maybe by changing the ranges and times for crops or by changing the types of crops grown. Also, if we just look at the last two or three centuries, we see a huge shift in where and how people live and how they get their food. This shift hasn't taken place as much in the Third World -- but that's mostly because of bad policies that can easily be changed. (How? Simply turn over policy makers and enforcers to me for re-education.) This is, of course, assuming that global warming has merit and that at least some of the projected climatic shifts will take place. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 12:39:28 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > science isn'tsettled > > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. > Can someone > > explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree > or two or > > half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its > > knees? Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? > > My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year > wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a > frog to death... Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather > model... The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase > to this weather model...Mike Mike's post makes my point better than I did. We are so very accustomed to thinking of something per year, a few percent a year, another birthday per year and so forth. The climatologists are offering numbers that look like a degree per century. We just are not used talking about anything per century, so confusion results. A lot of teens somehow jump to the stunningly illogical conclusion that this two degree change we are trying to stop will show up in a few years or any day now since the Copenhagen flop. This causes what I call the Russians vs Germans effect. During WW2, the Germans had better technology, so in the summers when the days were long and warm, they beat back their foes and drove deep into Russia, but when the vicious November storms hit, the German tanks were ill suited to the cold, the tracks were glued to the ground in the freezing mud, the engines guzzled fuel since they had to be left running to prevent freezing etc. So in the winter the Russians had the clear advantage, and drove the Germans all the way back. In the global warming debate, the proposed change is very slow, but human lifetimes are very short. We end up with the global warming people, like the Germans, having the advantage in the summer, but every winter, they give up the ground they gained because people still die from the cold. Then the global warming ridiculers, like the Russians, regain lost ground. The battle surges back and forth every year, with tragic results. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 23:03:48 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 23:03:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Sarah Wood wrote: > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, I have a > request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the (three? five?) > most important foundational texts that one should read to become versed in > the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. > > I'll have a go. What is transhumanism? The Principles of Extropy Transhumanist Declaration Transhumanist Values Transhumanist FAQ If you want books to read, then try these: And, of course, the most excellent 'The Spike' by Damien Broderick. Best wishes, BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 23:26:09 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:26:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike><217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> ________________________________ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeffery P. Davis Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 2:28 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat Welcome Jeff! ... > I don't want to be stuck in the position of an old dinosaur that's still sitting around using e-mail for everything when everyone else has moved on. :-) Dont worry Jeffery, you won't be left behind. This kind of forum creates an archive that can be very useful many years down the road. Twitter and some of these other fora don't really do that, and it's a good thing they don't. > Any way you look at it, mailing lists are in a state of decline because e-mail is becoming less popular as a medium... It has its enduring value, analgous to telephones today. >...I changed my display name to a fuller version which should help with that problem... Ja it does. Another of our Jeffs signs -Jef, so I assume that is why he does that, to prevent being conflated with Jeff Davis the first. >...Being a doppleganger is the curse of my existence. I'm always running into situations with multiple Jeffs, getting mail for the several other Jeff Davis's in my city... In this case it is good, for we hold both of our other two Jeffs in high esteem. Can we call you Jeffery? Then we have Jef, Jeff and Jeffery. I know how it goes with common names. I am Greg Jones, so nearly 30 yrs ago I became Spike Jones. Then later I found out there was a proto-Weird Al Yankovich sort from the 1950s who had that name. Doh! >...and being told I look like someone else... Me too, Jimmy Stewart. I am deeply flattered by that, since Stewart is one of my all time favorite actors, and also a fine person off the set. There was a most hilarious skit on the short-lived Dana Carvey show in which Stewart was a guest star. He dressed up as Dana Carvey and Carvey dressed up as Stewart, then they played each other in a skit in which the star-struck Carvey played by Stewart was interviewing the veteran actor Stewart, played by Carvey. The Stewart character suggests to the young actor an exercise in which the actors play each other. So now Stewart is dressed as Carvey, playing himself, and Carvey is doing likewise. That was cutting edge comedy twenty years ago, and is still hilarious. We have a lady who occasionally posts here who is a body double for Sandra Bullock. >>...In any case, welcome sir! Do tell us something, anything, (if you wish)... >...I'm 30 years old, male, married, and from an intellectually backwards mid-sized Ohio city... Part of my youth was misspent in Ironton Ohio, coal country. >...I love discussing big ideas... Sound like you have come to the right place. Do read this at your convenience, as it is still the best outline of what we are about here: http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm >...Traditionally the go-to person for discussing 'big ideas' has been the local priest... Indeed? >...but over time I've discovered priests are completely ill-equipped to deal with the kinds of questions I consider important and thus I've lost most interest in religion... Same here, with the long painful process of becoming a flaming atheist reaching completion when I was about the age you are now. >... didn't know about the affluence gap between Facebook and Myspace. Hard to take such a person seriously... Uhoh, I am sooo not hip. Do explain the affluence gap between Facebook and Myspace. I refuse to participate in either, but didn't realize one was for rich and other for poor. Is that what you meant? spike From max at maxmore.com Tue Mar 2 23:39:46 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:39:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] META: Overposting, and warning of potential topic moratorium Message-ID: <201003022339.o22NdwSI000654@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I have sent one warming of overposting. Please watch the volume of your posts and be sure not to exceed 8 in any 24-hour period. Also: In response to suggestions from list members -- in agreement with my own sense about what is needed to maintain interest in this List -- I was about to declare a temporary moratorium on posts related to the consciousness/identity/Searle discussion. However, it appears to have died down over the last day or so. If it flares up again, I *will* be imposing a moratorium of at least two weeks. Thank you, Max More Extropy-Chat Moderator ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 2 23:41:21 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:41:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of > Sarah Wood > Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte > > ...I would like to know what > are, in your opinion, the (three? five?) most important > foundational texts that one should read to become versed in > the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. > > Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the appropriate forum. > > Sarah Welcome Sarah! These are all older works, but you wanted foundation texts, so I would nominate in this order: 1. Extropian Principles: http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm 2. The Spike, by Damien Broderick, who hangs out here, 3. The Selfish Gene by Dawkins 4. Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler and for space 5, perhaps an old personal favorite: Godel Escher Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Hofstadter. Feel free to tell us something about you. spike From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 23:56:23 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:56:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> References: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> Message-ID: > > Any way you look at it, mailing lists are in a state of decline > because e-mail is becoming less popular as a medium... > > It has its enduring value, analgous to telephones today. > Well of course *we* think that, given that we're using e-mail to conduct this discussion. The question is whether up-and-coming generations feel that way. It seems to me the need to have an e-mail address is slowly going away. I've encountered an increasing number of sites that ask you to link a facebook account rather than authenticate an e-mail address. I don't even know the e-mail address of a lot of people I interact with frequently online, it's just never come up. I've never asked and they've never offered. > > In this case it is good, for we hold both of our other two Jeffs in high > esteem. Can we call you Jeffery? Then we have Jef, Jeff and Jeffery. I > know how it goes with common names. I am Greg Jones, so nearly 30 yrs ago > I > became Spike Jones. Then later I found out there was a proto-Weird Al > Yankovich sort from the 1950s who had that name. Doh! > You can call me whatever you want, just don't call me late for dinner! I actually don't have any particular attachment to my name, either. If it wasn't such a hassle I'd probably change my name about as often as I change my e-mail address...once every 2-3 years. It's kind of strange people have particular attachments to names that were given to them by others. Uhoh, I am sooo not hip. Do explain the affluence gap between Facebook and > Myspace. I refuse to participate in either, but didn't realize one was for > rich and other for poor. Is that what you meant? > One can't be expected to know *everything* about internet culture, of course. It's a general ignorance I was lamenting, considering how internet culture is starting to drive popular culture. Facebook is frequented by a more affluent audience that fled from Myspace when the former became open-registration. Myspace is now primarily frequented by black urban youth and poor whites. You might even argue the Myspace exodus was a form of white flight as the medium became more popular with black youth. Vast simplification, but that's basically how the cards fall. You see a lot of upper middle-class folks on Facebook of the kind you almost never found on myspace. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 3 00:19:49 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:19:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100302191949.hijatboao4skkgwk@webmail.natasha.cc> Welcome to the list Sarah. Thank you for asking this question.? Here are my suggestions: 1.? The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism[1] is a fairly good summary; however, it does have some flaws. The two flaws that stand out are that it skims over, very quickly, the philosophical beginnings of transhumanism and that its historical summation is not completely accurate. 2. "Transhumanism - Towards a Futurist Philosophy" http://www.maxmore.com/transhum.htm[2] is the essential reading. 3.? "The Global Spiral" special issue on transhumanism -?"Transhumanism Answers Its Critics" is, in my opinion, quintessential reading for anyone wanting to know about transhumanism!? It explains transhumanism by responding to specific criticisms of several high-profile academics.? Here is the introduction: http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10693/Default.aspx[3]? ?I especially like "True Transhumanism" http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/tabid/68/id/10685/Default.aspx[4] and "Trite Truths About Technology: A Reply to Ted Peters" http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10681/Default.aspx[5]? (You can easily search on this site for the each transhumanist's responsive paper, which?is listed in the?introduction.) 4.? Two Transhumanist FAQs:? http://www.extropy.org/faq.htm[6]? and http://humanityplus.org/learn/philosophy/faq[7] 5.? And last but not least!? Transhumanism is about people and culture.? This is a worn-out site in dire need to upgrading, but it has legs:? http://www.transhuman.org/[8]? and the arts, of course:? http://www.transhumanist.biz/[9] I suggest all of these because they provide a diverse set of ideas within transhumanism.? I especially suggest the Metanexus collection published in January of 2009 because they include criticisms and responses to criticisms in a thought-provoking way, rather than just reading a Declaration or Manifesto. Best, Natasha Natasha Vita-More[10] Quoting Sarah Wood : > Hello all - > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, I > have a request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the > (three? five?) most important foundational texts that one should read > to become versed in the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. > > Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the appropriate forum. > > Sarah > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[11] Links: ------ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism [2] http://www.maxmore.com/transhum.htm [3] http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10693/Default.aspx [4] http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/tabid/68/id/10685/Default.aspx [5] http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10681/Default.aspx [6] http://www.extropy.org/faq.htm [7] http://humanityplus.org/learn/philosophy/faq [8] http://www.transhuman.org/ [9] http://www.transhumanist.biz/ [10] http://www.natasha.cc [11] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 00:21:06 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:21:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> Message-ID: Welcome, Jeffery! 2010/3/2 Jeffery P. Davis : > >> ? ? ?? > Any way you look at it, mailing lists are in a state of decline >> because e-mail is becoming less popular as a medium... >> >> It has its enduring value, analgous to telephones today. > > > Well of course *we* think that, given that we're using e-mail to conduct > this > discussion.? The question is whether up-and-coming generations feel that > way. E-mail isn't "cool", but neither is electricity. I'm with Spike on the continuing usefulness of e-mail. > It seems to me the need to have an e-mail address is slowly going away. > I've encountered > an increasing number of sites that ask you to link a facebook account rather > than authenticate an > e-mail address. I'll be a cold day in hell before I give a site access to my Facebook account. > I don't even know the e-mail address of a lot of people I interact with > frequently online, it's just never come up. > I've never asked and they've never offered. So what do you use for private point-to-point e-comm? Text messaging? Facebook mail? Neither holds a candle to e-mail. > Facebook is frequented by a more affluent audience that fled from Myspace > when the former > became open-registration.? Myspace is now primarily frequented by black > urban youth and > poor whites.? You might even argue the Myspace exodus was a form of white > flight as the medium > became more popular with black youth.? Vast simplification, but that's > basically how the cards fall. > You see a lot of upper middle-class folks on Facebook of the kind you almost > never found on myspace. Curious, given that both are free... I started with Myspace but never really liked it. When I found Facebook, I never looked back. Still don't rely on it heavily, though. -Dave From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 00:03:13 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:03:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1347A2B9-03EB-4F1D-A3EB-29C52663A9FD@gmail.com> On Mar 2, 2010, at 6:41 PM, "spike" wrote: > >> >> >> > > Feel free to tell us something about you. Thank you. I live in South Florida, where it is currently 72 degrees with a lovely ocean breeze. I work for a small publishing company, editing several periodicals pertaining to military vehicles. And in the interest of sparking further discussion, I will share with you the reading recommondations made to me by one of my former professors with whom I still keep in touch: Sure! Ranges from the modestly sane to the totally wacky. Also this is a topic where it's hard to tell what's "plausible fiction" and what's "implausible nonfiction". Ray Kurzweil is a major presence in transhumanism discussions. You could read his Age of Spiritual Machines and move on to The Singularity Is Near. If you want the short version on the Singularity, sometimes known as "the geek version of the Rapture", read Vernor Vinge's online essay that invented the term and the concept:http:// mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html. Kevin Kelly's Out of Control is another book on singularity-type ideas, much more skeptical or concerned. If you want out and out skepticism, read Bill Joy's online manifesto, "The Future Doesn't Need Us", which is all over the place. Simon Young's Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist Manifesto, is a good overview of "polemical transhumanism", e.g., people who advocate transhumanism as a political and scientific objective. Kurzweil is also a promoter of transhumanism, but Vinge isn't necessarily: his idea about the Singularity is that it's inevitable but that the precise nature of its transformations are by nature unpredictable. Hans Moravec is a kind of transhumanist founder--he's a roboticist who taught at CMU for many years and promoted the idea of uploading our consciousness into what he called "bush robots", meaning robots that would not have humanoid forms (and therefore would not limit our capabilities or possibilities to what he sees as the clumsiness of the humanoid form). Francis Fukuyama, the moderately well-known conservative figure who became a darling in the waning years of the Reagan Revolution for his argument that we had reached the "end of history" past which no possible alternatives to liberal democracy could ever present themselves, wrote a surprising and rather odd book about transhumanism called Our Posthuman Future, in which he suddenly perceives transhumanism as the one thing which could trump liberal democracy, not entirely in a good way. I wouldn't start with it, but if you're sufficiently interested, it's worth a look. Transhumanist stuff dovetails with the literature on nanotechnology, AI and genetic engineering at some point or another--but that's another difference between transhumanists of various kinds, namely, which technology they tend to favor or see as critical to the project of transhumanism. Anyway, you can follow the path into those literatures and find a lot of transhumanist-oriented work as well as some more skeptical or hostile views of transhumanism. There's some influential science fiction on the subject, too: William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Charles Stross most notably. Stross' recent novel Accelerando is practically a guided tour of work on transhumanism and complexity theory. Vinge's Rainbow's End is another good work in the genre. I also liked John Wright's The Golden Age, but it's less closely tied into the literature on transhumanism. Take a look at YouTube or his own site of the work of the performance artist Stelarc, who is a transhumanist. On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Sarah Wood wrote: Do you have any reading recommendations? I thought you might have some stuff from your History of the Future course. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 00:29:27 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:29:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100302191949.hijatboao4skkgwk@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <20100302191949.hijatboao4skkgwk@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: 2010/3/2 : > > 1.? The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism is a > fairly good summary; however, it does have some flaws. The two flaws that > stand out are that it skims over, very quickly, the philosophical beginnings > of transhumanism and that its historical summation is not completely > accurate. Have you tried filling it out and correcting it? -Dave From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 3 00:37:34 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:37:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <1347A2B9-03EB-4F1D-A3EB-29C52663A9FD@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <1347A2B9-03EB-4F1D-A3EB-29C52663A9FD@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8DAF4E.20008@satx.rr.com> On 3/2/2010 6:03 PM, Sarah Wood wrote: >I will share with you the reading recommondations made to me by one of my former professors with whom I still keep in touch Who was the prof? Damien Broderick From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 3 00:42:27 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:42:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <20100302191949.hijatboao4skkgwk@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20100302194227.imvhdlp5uso8g0oo@webmail.natasha.cc> One needs to form a gang to do this. Quoting Dave Sill : > 2010/3/2 : >> >> 1.? The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism is a >> fairly good summary; however, it does have some flaws. The two flaws that >> stand out are that it skims over, very quickly, the philosophical beginnings >> of transhumanism and that its historical summation is not completely >> accurate. > > Have you tried filling it out and correcting it? > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 00:54:55 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:54:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:08 PM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > On Mar 2, 2010, at 5:46 AM, Tom Nowell wrote: >> Maybe M-brains are too prone to becoming inward-looking and ignoring the outside (I'm thinking the later portions of Accelerando here). Alternatively, maybe the Great Filter keeps smacking down civilisations before they become M-brains, and all you see are single star system civilisations popping up, looking around wondering "where is everyone?" and then disappearing into the night once more. > > I think many civilizations will never leave their star system because of precisely the phenomenon you suggested- they become a civilization of navel-gazers. Just as a possible example of how that might happen, if you were to, say, think 1000 times faster than a human, so that your subjective experience of time is 1000x faster than people, communicating with a server on the opposite side of little ol' planet Earth would take about two and a half minutes. Something even a million kilometers away would be a full hour distant for you. People on Mars could only be communicated with on a timescale of days or weeks (subjectively), Saturn would take weeks or months. Traveling to the nearest star at the speed of light would place you out of the loop for 4000 years, and any civilization which attained such a high rate of thinking would never be cohesive, but rather fractured and disjointed. > > If you were to think a million times faster, the opposite side of the earth would be a day and a half away, and communicating with the other side of an M-brain would take years. Such a rapid rate of thought (even when that thought is far more advanced than our own) certainly isn't impossible (at least theoretically), so it is quite possible a vast majority of civilizations develop, create all the technologies that we think are amazing (mind uploading, cognitive enhancement, strong AI, etc.) and then stay inside their star system, with an ever increasing computational capacity but permanently bound to a small region of the Universe. > > I've never put much into the Great Filter idea. Someone would break through somewhere. I think rapid escalation of subjective time of communication is far more likely. Though I would think some faction would want to stay thoroughly tied to reality, rather than dive into virtual worlds. You reconstructed my argument against Jupiter brains from September 1991. http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/JupiterBrains/#KH031223 The general problem has been discussed on his list quite a bit. http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2008-May/043807.html http://postbiota.org/pipermail/extropy/extropy-chat/2006-May/026617.html Also on sl4 http://www.sl4.org/archive/0403/8203.html An unsolved problem related to this topic is what size of brain is optimal? Nobody has come up with an answer, even a parametric answer in almost 20 years. Keith Henson From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 00:40:44 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 19:40:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4B8DAF4E.20008@satx.rr.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <1347A2B9-03EB-4F1D-A3EB-29C52663A9FD@gmail.com> <4B8DAF4E.20008@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: Timothy Burke. Swarthmore College. On Mar 2, 2010, at 7:37 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/2/2010 6:03 PM, Sarah Wood wrote: > >> I will share with you the reading recommondations made to me by one >> of > my former professors with whom I still keep in touch > > Who was the prof? > > 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 Wed Mar 3 01:08:02 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:08:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B8DB672.2020006@satx.rr.com> On 3/2/2010 6:54 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > An unsolved problem related to this topic is what size of brain is > optimal? Nobody has come up with an answer, even a parametric answer > in almost 20 years. I'm pretty sure Anders and Robert Bradbury, among others. kicked this around and came up with some numbers. The relevant parameters are presumably processing speed limits and the speed of light. On the face of it, an orbital gas of spheres that each comprise a Mind (with its own many dedicated partitions) would be optimal, and those in turn would form a sort of community perhaps comprising slow tides or fluxes of megameme mentalities. Allow the latency to grow too great and you'll risk the Revolt of the Modules. Damien Broderick From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 01:19:07 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:19:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 2:10 PM, wrote: > > Your comment about humans inventing gods as unique is presumptive and invalid. At this point in time we, either individually or as a race, don't know what other species are doing in their heads, regarding gods or other things. Assuming you are not just joking, can you think of any way to detect "inventing gods" in other species? Keith Henson From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 3 01:19:29 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:19:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <788EB90652934CDA89EEFAB94A0BC5AE@spike> >...On Behalf Of BillK > ... > If you want books to read, then try these: > > > And, of course, the most excellent 'The Spike' by Damien Broderick. > > Best wishes, BillK Why isn't The Spike on that list? I realize it is mostly about technological change and the singularity, but it has a lot of good transhumanist stuff in there. Also conspicuously missing is AC Clarke's Profiles of the Future. I realize Profiles is nearly fifty years old, but that in itself is a remarkable tribute to the man, that we are reading and discussing it still. Any wiki-hipsters here who would edit those in, please? spike From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 01:46:55 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 12:46:55 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <580930c21003021003m704bc2d3v23ef58a50f5d7cd0@mail.gmail.com> References: <724175.55151.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003021003m704bc2d3v23ef58a50f5d7cd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3 March 2010 05:03, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 1 March 2010 22:21, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> No. ?You have been repeatedly criticised for repeatedly contradicting yourself, making circular arguments and simply ignoring valid challenges to your ideas. > > I would not criticise too much Gordon for the circularity of the > threads concerned. > > He has done nothing else than reiterating forever with different words > statements as to what is "obvious" for him, in particular regarding > some ineffable, ill-defined property of some organic brains, the > existence of which should be an article of faith. This is hardly > original or heretic, since it has been a widespread meme in the > western culture for some 500 or 1000 years by now. > > What I found surprising and made the debate mostly pointless is that > many people has taken this stance as pertaining to a factual issue, > engaging in the impossible task of "demonstrating" that such property > could be replicated, something which is impossible by definition, and > shows if anything how the dualistic mentality has still deep roots > even in our ranks - and not just in Gordon. Incredible as it may seem, you can make logical deductions about magical or non-existent things. If I have four unicorns and acquire another two unicorns, then I will have six unicorns. If the unicorns have the quality of instantiating three distinct magical persons in one, then with my six unicorns I will have eighteen magical persons. But if the maximum number of such magical persons in the Universe is three, then with my six unicorns I will still have only three magical persons. If the Holy Book says that that a unicorn can only generate two magical persons, then either the Holy Book is wrong or the premises in the thought experiment just described are wrong. If it is claimed that logical consistency is not something God need follow, then at that point we have to throw up our hands and end the discussion. -- Stathis Papaioannou From lacertilian at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 01:55:41 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:55:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] EP and scale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keith Henson : > (Will Steinberg) > > > At first your hint seemed off-puttingly specific, but then I realized: > > yes, of course, you can say the same of just about all uniquely human > > behavior. I wrote that, not Will. Assuming that's what the parenthetical meant. Sorry for the delay, incidentally. Working through a huge backlog here. Keith Henson : > People read and particularly post on mailing list to improve their > status in the eyes of their peers. Oh, yes. Makes sense. Surely you aren't implying that's the only reason, but I don't find it hard to believe that it's the main one. I wonder how one would go about curtailing status-seeking behavior in Extropy-Chat posts... Keith Henson : > Consider the coherence length and the size of a brain. ?At the speed > of light, how far can a signal get in 300 fs? ?How far for typical > nerve signal propagation speeds? There are those leading questions again. About 90 micrometers, for the former. I don't have time to look up the latter! From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 3 02:19:57 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:19:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <788EB90652934CDA89EEFAB94A0BC5AE@spike> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <788EB90652934CDA89EEFAB94A0BC5AE@spike> Message-ID: <4B8DC74D.3070303@satx.rr.com> On 3/2/2010 7:19 PM, spike wrote: > >> >...On Behalf Of BillK >> > ... >> > If you want books to read, then try these: >> > > Also conspicuously missing is AC Clarke's > Profiles of the Future. And one we discussed briefly here the other day, Ed Regis's GREAT MAMBO CHICKEN AND THE TRANSHUMAN CONDITION. Again, a bit old, but full of nutritious yummies. Wiki lists can be modified/extended by anyone, of course. Damien Broderick From moulton at moulton.com Wed Mar 3 02:59:24 2010 From: moulton at moulton.com (moulton at moulton.com) Date: 3 Mar 2010 02:59:24 -0000 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat Message-ID: <20100303025924.8426.qmail@moulton.com> On Mon, 2010-03-01 at 11:15 -0600, Natasha Vita-More wrote: Hi Fred, > > We are working on a book based on some early posts. > Interesting. > Fred, would you like to assist with the archive? Anyone? > I suspect that I and many other people who would be interested in helping set up an archive. On a tangential point, who is the list admin who handles technical questions? The list seems to be blocking incoming email from some comcast email relays; I think: mta03.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net omta11.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net and possibly others. Could the appropriate person check on that. Thanks Fred From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 03:22:29 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 21:22:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <20100303025924.8426.qmail@moulton.com> References: <20100303025924.8426.qmail@moulton.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003021922h49f214c7ufd24354ec10596c9@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 8:59 PM, wrote: > On Mon, 2010-03-01 at 11:15 -0600, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> Fred, would you like to assist with the archive? ?Anyone? >> > I suspect that I and many other people who would be interested in helping set up an archive. Yep, I'd do it in a heart beat, if anyone actually has any of the emails from before October 2003. I don't have any of these emails, otherwise they would already be up on the net ;-) privacy issues be damned. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From moulton at moulton.com Wed Mar 3 03:42:17 2010 From: moulton at moulton.com (moulton at moulton.com) Date: 3 Mar 2010 03:42:17 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled Message-ID: <20100303034217.52175.qmail@moulton.com> On Tue, 2010-03-02 at 11:23 -0800, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > It's extraordinary to me that scientific research that provides support > for AGW theory gets so much critical attention, yet accusations of fraud > are accepted on this list without comment. I have been recovering from a cold and am thus a few days behind on several items. One item I am concerned about is the use of the term "fraud". I strongly urge that we avoid using the term "fraud" as a synonym for "dishonest" or "devious" or even "sloppy" or "unprofessional". We need to be precise in our language. And typically persons who provide solid evidence will have their claim taken more seriously. So let us all agree to improve the quality of the discourse Since Phil Jones has been mentioned in various messages I am providing the links to the panel where Phil Jones appeared in the UK. 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAj_lZv4Gxc 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK0oGnqtVXo 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBInhAVeixk 4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tskv-rX8F4 5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8KUm4AEZ5E Everyone can watch and listen and make their own decision about whether they believe Phil Jones or not. Fred From moulton at moulton.com Wed Mar 3 04:02:53 2010 From: moulton at moulton.com (moulton at moulton.com) Date: 3 Mar 2010 04:02:53 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte Message-ID: <20100303040253.84742.qmail@moulton.com> Although not specifically a "Transhumanist Book" I want to mention a book which influenced many in the early Extropian and Transhumanist crowd. Title: The Retreat to Commitment Author: W. W. Bartley Publisher: Open Court This is a very insightful book and I enjoyed it however it is not an "easy read". So for someone whois really interested in philosophy I recommend the book. For both those who read the book as well as everyone else I recommend the excellent piece by Max which covers Bartley's idea of pancritical rationalism: http://www.maxmore.com/pcr.htm It just struck me that Max delivered this paper at Extro 1 in 1994; more than a decade and a half ago. Fred From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 05:46:36 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 00:46:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke wrote: > imagine a few million starving Bangladeshis overwhelming your > border, for example. and: > The recent and rapid changes in Arctic ice cover ### Try to answer the following questions: 1) How much surface area has Bangladesh been losing per year in the last decade (the same decade that the IPCC until recently claimed to be the hottest decade on record), as measured in square kilometers per year? 2) What is the net change in ice coverage over our planet's oceans since 1995? Once you dig up the actual answers to these questions, you will be in a position to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion of "millions of Bangladeshis" and "fairly serious climate disruptions". Rafal From cluebcke at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 07:44:09 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 23:44:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Rafal, If you would like to argue that Bangledeshis are not at high risk if the sea level rises significantly, or that it is not the case that Arctic ice cover is drastically falling, do please be my guest. The careful reader will in fact note that at no point, not once, during our lively exchange, have I staked a claim that any particular forecast for climate change is correct. I have stated only that I believe that significant climate change over the next several decades is likely. Again, I fully encourage you to take your deep analysis and do something productive with it. Perhaps you should find someone who claims that global ice coverage, or Bangladesh's net land area, has shrunk over the last 10 years, and argue with them. ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 9:46:36 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke wrote: > imagine a few million starving Bangladeshis overwhelming your > border, for example. and: > The recent and rapid changes in Arctic ice cover ### Try to answer the following questions: 1) How much surface area has Bangladesh been losing per year in the last decade (the same decade that the IPCC until recently claimed to be the hottest decade on record), as measured in square kilometers per year? 2) What is the net change in ice coverage over our planet's oceans since 1995? Once you dig up the actual answers to these questions, you will be in a position to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion of "millions of Bangladeshis" and "fairly serious climate disruptions". Rafal _______________________________________________ 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 giulio at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 07:54:21 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 08:54:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <20100302191949.hijatboao4skkgwk@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article is maintained by a jealous editor who will delete all new contributions that do not fit his own agenda. He tries to be objective, but he has a moderate anti-transhumanist bias. This is a general problem with Wikipedia: it is theoretically open to everyone for editing, but in practice it is a dictatorship of a few admins who consider it as their personal property. On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:29 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > 2010/3/2 ?: >> >> 1.? The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism is a >> fairly good summary; however, it does have some flaws. The two flaws that >> stand out are that it skims over, very quickly, the philosophical beginnings >> of transhumanism and that its historical summation is not completely >> accurate. > > Have you tried filling it out and correcting it? > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From giulio at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 08:06:09 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:06:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: Welcome Sarah, Besides all excellent books that have been mentioned by others, I wish to recommend: The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. I do not like too much the more recent The Singularity is Near, which is basically a compilation of older content, but TAoSM is great. Citizen Cyborg by James Hughes (if you are politically inclined to the Left). Many other posters may not agree with this recommendation. Robot by Moravec, especially the final chapters All fiction by Greg Egan and Charlie Stross And of course all the unpublished books being written or to be written by members of this list, starting with Max' book (any recent intelligence?). Note: there are some anti-transhumanist writers who understand very well what transhumanism is about, and formulate it very clearly. For example Francis Fukuyama's gives a very good definition: "For the last several decades, a strange liberation movement has grown within the developed world. Its crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gay-rights advocates. They want nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints. As "transhumanists" see it, humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolution's blind process of random variation and adaptation and move to the next stage as a species." On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 11:01 PM, Sarah Wood wrote: > Hello all - > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, I have a > request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the (three? five?) > most important foundational texts that one should read to become versed in > the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. > > Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the appropriate forum. > > Sarah From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 10:53:49 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:53:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Old extropy-chat archives Message-ID: On 3/3/10, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Yep, I'd do it in a heart beat, if anyone actually has any of the > emails from before October 2003. I don't have any of these emails, > otherwise they would already be up on the net ;-) privacy issues be > damned. > > I appreciate that many people think privacy doesn't exist anymore in our Brave New World of the internet, Facebook, Google, etc. But in the case of old Exi archives you have to give some consideration to what the position was when these old emails were written. The current Exi-chat list is a public list, indexed by Google, so outrageous comments made nowadays will be on record forever. The Extropy-chat list started in 1991 and I believe it was originally a private list, so posters at that time would have had some expectation of privacy. Remember Google wasn't founded until 1998. The extropy-chat list went through several changes and at some stage became a public list. The present public archives go back to Oct 2003. First, there is the technical problem of how much of the old archives can actually be retrieved. Some are probably on old floppy disks that have not been read in years. Just rebuilding the archives is likely to be a significant effort. Secondly, there is the question of what weight should be given to the early expectations of privacy. >From a legal point of view (libel, slander, etc.) then the statute of limitations has long expired. The time limit for legal action varies between states and countries, but the norm is one or two years, with a few extending to three years. So, it would be a personal decision whether to expose the old archives to public view. Some posters to the archives have died and some have 'disappeared', so it will not be possible to get permission from everyone. Even if some posters were found that objected to publication, it is a moral question whether they should be allowed to prevent publication. (Remember that even back then messages could be copied and circulated elsewhere, so the privacy wasn't 100%). Attitudes have changed over the intervening years. It is a difficult decision. BillK From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 11:29:04 2010 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado (CI)) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 08:29:04 -0300 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com><710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com><2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike><217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <01e101cabac4$bd2586f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> To expand a little on the subject, it should also perhaps be added that other H+ lists are not in a much better shape, and that while I am still fond myself of this medium, in comparison with other more fashionable ones, mls in general are not exactly the rage of the day. Could you be so kind to enumerate some of these better shaped other lists? From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 11:49:03 2010 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado (CI)) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 08:49:03 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Radical Life Extension and the Problem of Malthusian Hells References: <201003020557.o225vpx0015328@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4e3a29501003021226x16fcce08i47916da02508ed01@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <020f01cabac7$885c2980$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Ah, why can't people look on the bright side of things? Faced with the threat of said Malthusian hells, people will finally put the im in their petus to find cheaper, larger scale agriculture and food production methods. Diseases will have to be reigned in in order to prevent catastrophes associated with even denser populations. Water retrieval methods will improve, and perhaps the monopolistic control of water and food dispersal will fade in the face of necessity. And of course, most important of all, there will be a very good reason for interplanetary colonization! History has shown that necessity induces progress. The agricultural revolution was spurred by need for higher production. Don't forget that this pretty much started the industrial revolution--it wasn't that people said "Hey! Science! Let's use this to farm better!" They only took up new farming tools and methods because they needed them to keep up. You know: NITMOI, NITMOI! Yes, please. These apocalypse-monger people never seem to acknowledge that technology doesn't stand still. I'd like to add that not only necessity induces progress, but progress itself induces more progress. Technology is a cumulative game. And while these people whine, the world keeps getting better and better. From sparge at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 11:57:38 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 06:57:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <788EB90652934CDA89EEFAB94A0BC5AE@spike> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <788EB90652934CDA89EEFAB94A0BC5AE@spike> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 8:19 PM, spike wrote: > >> >> >> And, of course, the most excellent 'The Spike' by Damien Broderick. > > Why isn't The Spike on that list? It wasn't on the list because it wasn't included in the category "Transhumanist books". I fixed that by adding: [[Category:Transhumanist books]] to its page. >?I realize it is mostly about > technological change and the singularity, but it has a lot of good > transhumanist stuff in there. ?Also conspicuously missing is AC Clarke's > Profiles of the Future. ?I realize Profiles is nearly fifty years old, but > that in itself is a remarkable tribute to the man, that we are reading and > discussing it still. > > Any wiki-hipsters here who would edit those in, please? I also added Great Mambo Chicken, but that was a bit more work. Since is a generated page containing a list of pages in that category, I had to create a stub page for Mambo Chicken. Even though it looks trivial, it took me half an hour or so to figure out what needed to be in there. The next one should go faster. -Dave From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 12:07:47 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 06:07:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <01e101cabac4$bd2586f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <01e101cabac4$bd2586f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003030407i740f6148q6ab13e04f3a2b285@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 5:29 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > > To expand a little on the subject, it should also perhaps be added that > other H+ lists are not in a much better shape, and that while I am still > fond myself of this medium, in comparison with other more fashionable ones, > mls in general are not exactly the rage of the day. > > > > Could you be so kind to enumerate some of these better shaped other lists? http://heybryan.org/mailing_lists.html Have fun. This message is 140-characters compliant. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 12:16:09 2010 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado (CI)) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:16:09 -0300 Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution References: <502276.29073.qm@web113611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <022701cabacb$50ba3b30$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> From what we know of the evolution of life, it's very very doubtful that we are the only intelligences in the universe, or even this galaxy, but I don't think the Fermi Paradox is as paradoxical as it's made out to be. I think SETI is a complete waste of time, simply from thinking about how BIG the place is. Our radio front is like a ping-pong ball in the Black Forest. It wouldn't surprise me if the galaxy could host thousands of highly advanced civilisations that knew nothing about one another. I allways wonder about that too. One thesis that I hold is that in order to to be seen from a big distance, someone has to waste copious amounts of precious energy that could be put to better use. Therefore we can't detect an advanced civilisation just because they don't want to be seen. Not because they are hiding but because they learned not to waste energy. And let's suppose that some of these hypothetical highly advanced civilisations are looking for others. Are we wasting energy enough so we could be detected from at least four or five digits of light years (assuming that they could be this close to us)? From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 13:23:40 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:23:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 9 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <353736.14764.qm@web113605.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > From: Sarah Wood > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte > Message-ID: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; > delsp=yes > > Hello all - > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of > transhumanism, I? > have a request. I would like to know what are, in your > opinion, the? > (three? five?) most important foundational texts that one > should read? > to become versed in the basic principles and vocabulary of > the subject. > > Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the > appropriate forum. Hi, Sarah, and welcome (and yes, this is definitely the appropriate forum). I'm answering this before reading any other replies to your post, so there may be some repetition (I expect so!), but I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else's recommended reading list. My top recommended reads for someone new to transhumanism: Anything and everything by Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec. (some transhumanists don't agree with all of Ray's ideas, but you need to know about them) The Spike, by Damien Broderick (which I can safely bet my mind/soul/ghost/life on someone having already recommended!) Beyond Humanity by Paul & Cox Creation: Life and how to make it, by Steve Grand Ending Aging, by Aubrey de Grey Plus, of course, a good trawl of the internet for sites such as: http://www.hplusmagazine.com/ http://www.aleph.se/andart/ http://lesswrong.com/ http://humanityplus.org/ http://www.crnano.org/about_us.htm http://transhumangoodness.blogspot.com/ http://humanityplus-uk.com/wordpress/ http://www.foresight.org/ http://www.imminst.org/ http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.htm http://www.singinst.org/ http://www.betterhumans.com/ http://www.extropy.org/ etc. I hope that helps. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 13:24:01 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:24:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <98957.39652.qm@web113601.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Sarah Wood asked: > > Hello all - > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of > transhumanism, I? > have a request. I would like to know what are, in your > opinion, the? > (three? five?) most important foundational texts that one > should read? > to become versed in the basic principles and vocabulary of > the subject. > > Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the > appropriate forum. Hi, Sarah, and welcome (and yes, this is definitely the appropriate forum). I'm answering this before reading any other replies to your post, so there may be some repetition (I expect so!), but I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else's recommended reading list. My top recommended reads for someone new to transhumanism: Anything and everything by Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec. (some transhumanists don't agree with all of Ray's ideas, but you need to know about them) The Spike, by Damien Broderick (which I can safely bet my mind/soul/ghost/life on someone having already recommended!) Beyond Humanity by Paul & Cox Creation: Life and how to make it, by Steve Grand Ending Aging, by Aubrey de Grey Plus, of course, a good trawl of the internet for sites such as: http://www.hplusmagazine.com/ http://www.aleph.se/andart/ http://lesswrong.com/ http://humanityplus.org/ http://www.crnano.org/about_us.htm http://transhumangoodness.blogspot.com/ http://humanityplus-uk.com/wordpress/ http://www.foresight.org/ http://www.imminst.org/ http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.htm http://www.singinst.org/ http://www.betterhumans.com/ http://www.extropy.org/ etc. I hope that helps. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 13:38:08 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:38:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> "spike" wrote: > Welcome Jeff! > I am quick to point out that you are a different Jeff Davis > from the well > known and loved long time ExI poster here.? How do you know, Spike, /How do you know/?? Maybe this is a born-again Jeff Davis, maybe he's actually a Time Lord, and has been regenerated as... Jeff Davis! (Oops, i mean "Jeffery P. Davis"). Jefferey P. Davis wrote: > I love discussing big ideas. Traditionally the go-to person for discussing 'big ideas' has been the local priest, but over time I've discovered priests are completely ill-equipped to deal with the kinds of questions I consider important and thus I've lost most interest in religion. Well done, sir. It's always nice to meet people who kept the operator's manual for their brain. > The last one had never even heard of World Of Warcraft and didn't know about the affluence gap between Facebook and Myspace. Hard to take such a person seriously. Uh-oh. I didn't know about the affluence gap between FB and Myspace. But I do know how to catch up quick! Which is more to the point, I think, these days. It took me about 10 seconds to find out about this affluence gap, and I'm sure that's not a great performance among the people on this list. I was taught long ago (from a professional librarian) that the most important skill is knowing how to find stuff out, and that's more true today than ever before. Never mind the 10 commandments (or is it 12? I never remember), knowing regular expressions and advanced search terms will save your soul! > One notable thing about me is that I'm entirely body-negative ... That's interesting. I presume you mean 'physical embodiment', because, afaik, /some/ form of embodiment is essential to your mind. Perhaps you'd be more comfortable with the concept of multiple alternative bodies, that you're not actually dependent on for survival, but that allow you to experience, and act upon, the world? And, of course, virtual worlds. Ben Zaiboc From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:12:56 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:12:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Sarah Wood wrote: > Hello all - > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, I have a > request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the (three? five?) > most important foundational texts that one should read to become versed in > the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. > > Please forgive (and redirect) me if this is not the appropriate forum. > > If you're interested in fiction, many of the noteworthy novels are available online for free under open redistribution licenses: Everyone In Silico Postsingular Accelerando Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom Manna The Metamorphosis Of Prime Intellect -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:22:52 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:22:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030622v1c1c8227t80a52d4bee56852d@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 23:01, Sarah Wood wrote: > Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, I have a > request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the (three? five?) > most important foundational texts that one should read to become versed in > the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. Languages? ;-) -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:25:44 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:25:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 20:07, spike wrote: > I can't. ?I already signed non-disclosure agreements, and I always take > those things damn seriously. That's very bad... for your lawyer. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:27:14 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:27:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: That's interesting. I presume you mean 'physical embodiment', because, > afaik, /some/ form of embodiment is essential to your mind. Perhaps you'd > be more comfortable with the concept of multiple alternative bodies, that > you're not actually dependent on for survival, but that allow you to > experience, and act upon, the world? And, of course, virtual worlds. Fungible, cheap, commodity 'bodies' are something I'm okay with. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:32:35 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:32:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 21:03, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Barring new physics (and a serious failure of my imagination), there are only two, maybe three possible sources of abundant energy: ?The sun, the atomic nucleus, and the heat inside our planet. Yes. Personally, I am a staunch fan, in the order, of some kind or other of fusion, of space-based solar power, and of very deep geothermy. While my understanding of the technical aspects is amateurish at best, one has plenty of other plausible reasons to have personal preferences in what to hope for... -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:46:56 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:46:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: <180977.5020.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <972456.27246.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <180977.5020.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> On 2 March 2010 22:10, Gordon Swobe wrote: > We can quite easily reduce mental phenomena epistemically without reducing the same phenomena ontologically. I mean here that we can understand mental phenomena in scientific terms of neurological causes and effects without abandoning the common sense notion that mental phenomena have an irreducibly subjective ontology. We can perhaps. But why ever should we? The real crux of the neverending "debate" which has given place to some complaint is that the "common sense" or not of non-falsifiable statementz is a cultural byproduct which cannot really be either confirmed or disproved, and we are bound to tracing its genealogy and verifying who may still adhere to some version thereof, and who does not find it very compelling any more. Let us take a computer specialised in... examining Turing-test candidates. Let us say that its performance are equal or superior to that of human examiners. Let us say that it is instructed to decide whether it is itself a good candidate or not. If its answer is "yes", as far as I am concerned it is by definition as conscious as yourself or myself (see the paradox of philosophical zombies wrongly persuaded to be conscious, and subvocalising, firing synapses, taking attitudes, etc., to this effect). You have obviously faith-based reasons to believe otherwise, but we should realise once and forever that there are no conceivable ways to demonstrate that you are wrong, since this has to do with personal, factual-invariant interpretations and views of the world. -- Stefano Vaj From aware at awareresearch.com Wed Mar 3 15:15:17 2010 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 07:15:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer? In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> References: <972456.27246.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <180977.5020.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 6:46 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 2 March 2010 22:10, Gordon Swobe wrote: >> We can quite easily reduce mental phenomena epistemically without reducing the same phenomena ontologically. I mean here that we can understand mental phenomena in scientific terms of neurological causes and effects without abandoning the common sense notion that mental phenomena have an irreducibly subjective ontology. > You have obviously faith-based reasons to believe otherwise, but we > should realise once and forever that there are no conceivable ways to > demonstrate that you are wrong, since this has to do with personal, > factual-invariant interpretations and views of the world. At this point, the issue becomes not that such a belief is held (and defended), but why? Given Occam's Razor, or its very successful, generally applicable, pragmatic cousin, Max Entropy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_maximum_entropy - Jef From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 15:30:00 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 08:30:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So as to nip any confusion in the bud, Jeff Davis aka "heavensblade23 at gmail.com" should NOT TO BE CONFUSED with the other Jeff Davis aka "jrd1415 at gmail.com". That is all. Best, jeff davis "Everything's hard til you know how to do it." Ray Charles On 3/2/10, Jeff Davis wrote: >> Nawwww. As of Nov 2009, 38 million Americans (17 million >> households) spent nothing on food. They got food stamps from the >> government. >> >> > Assuming their food stamp allowance is enough to last through the month and > they don't have to trade > any for non-food essentials like toilet paper, soap, or especially diapers. > > -- > "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be > other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be > based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. > We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can > oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." > - William S. Burroughs > From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 15:33:20 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:33:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Surrogates, movie Message-ID: <580930c21003030733o4a4ecba6h8bf11af4867ba96@mail.gmail.com> On 8 February 2010 04:19, Max More wrote: > I found the movie mildly entertaining, but not terribly engaging or > intellectually stimulating. > ... > The tone is lightly anti-transhumanist, > alas. I saw the film yesterday night, and my conclusion is "yes and no". The end is slightly moralistic, but the plot is quite merciless in exposing bioluddist ideas, practices and possible vested interests behind it. In fact, [SPOIL!] existing surrogates are eventually destroyed, yes, but contrary to the wish of the Prophet neither the relevant technology nor their users are eliminated, and the "abuse" of RW avatars is presented in a way which is quite consistent with a more general criticism of a life spent indifferently immersed in pop literature in print, as a TV-coach potato or as a compulsive videogamer, which is a time-honoured theme, not especially anti-technological per se IMHO. In fact, there is even a transhumanist angle on the excessive diversion of technological efforts towards low-cost simulacra as a compensation for diminishing real-world breakthroughs and adventure, from, say, human enhancement to space exploration to geo-engineering to improvements in everyday quality of life. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 15:41:37 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:41:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003030741ra8e6564ob77632971357a748@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/2 Jeff Davis : > Assuming their food stamp allowance is enough to last through the month and > they don't have to trade > any for non-food essentials like toilet paper, soap, or especially diapers. Wow, we might decide to grow gills, but a lack of toilet paper, soap and especially diapers would really spell extinction for our species... :-) But, seriously, I have no doubts that wars might well be fought over them. The question is exactly to which point the cost of temperature-lowering measures would be offset by the damages avoided. Because resources are *already* scarce, the world is already full of people starving or - perhaps even worse in terms of political instability - seeing their way of life under threat for a multitude of reasons having little to do with climate. And what we invest in the fight against AGW, taking for granted all the claims of its supporters, become unavailable for anything else. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 15:50:23 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:50:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <01e101cabac4$bd2586f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <4B8B13D1.7090800@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1002281735o7c92fe65mb4047141590eea83@mail.gmail.com> <2DC85FF12B364314B8D498D7B56DC041@spike> <217528.45419.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <01e101cabac4$bd2586f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <580930c21003030750n4894d354yb1e198803b40f7@mail.gmail.com> On 3 March 2010 12:29, Henrique Moraes Machado (CI) wrote: > > To expand a little on the subject, it should also perhaps be added that > other H+ lists are not in a much better shape, and that while I am still > fond myself of this medium, in comparison with other more fashionable ones, > mls in general are not exactly the rage of the day. > > > > Could you be so kind to enumerate some of these better shaped other lists? In most languages that I know the statement such as "other H+ lists are not in a much better shape" does not really imply that they do appear to be in a slightly better shape. I would even say that in normal usage it implies quite the contrary, in fact. But I am not English mother tongue, so you tell me. -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:06:47 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:06:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> Message-ID: On 3/2/10, Jeffery P. Davis wrote: > Facebook is frequented by a more affluent audience that fled from Myspace > when the former became open-registration. Myspace is now primarily > frequented by black urban youth and poor whites. You might even argue > the Myspace exodus was a form of white flight as the medium > became more popular with black youth. Vast simplification, but that's > basically how the cards fall. > You see a lot of upper middle-class folks on Facebook of the kind you almost > never found on myspace. > > Well, yes, maybe, but....... You have to be very careful with social analysis. It really is very mixed-up, nothing is black or white (to coin a phrase). Myspace was first and everybody flocked to the latest social gimmick, because all their friends went there. Then Facebook appeared with different features and some people tried it out. Traffic boomed and Facebook traffic passed Myspace a year or two ago. But people don't delete their Myspace accounts, (just in case), and still check them occasionally. People actively use the social system that their friends use, so momentum is moving more and more people to Facebook. This report from Oct 2009, says MySpace?s U.S. Traffic Falls Off a Cliff Despite some recent innovations by the former king of social networking (as well as a CEO replacement), it looks like the MySpace exodus is rapidly accelerating. Can MySpace?s freefall be stopped? Numbers released by web analytics firm Compete.com paint a terribly bleak picture for the future of MySpace (MySpace). According to the Compete numbers, MySpace?s U.S. traffic dropped from 55.6 million unique visitors in August to 50.2 million in September. It has nearly shed off 20% of its U.S. traffic since June. ------------------------- So it looks like Myspace is dying and *everyone* is moving to Facebook. To turn a mass changeover like this into 'white flight' seems a bit misleading to me. It will become more obvious over time whether the split into two groups is correct, or whether it was just a temporary snapshot in time during a wholesale move. BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 3 16:09:37 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:09:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8E89C1.90109@satx.rr.com> On 3/3/2010 2:06 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > And of course all the unpublished books being written or to be written > by members of this list, starting with Max' book I should have mentioned the recent book I edited, for the long perspective that underlies transhumanism: YEAR MILLION: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge (Atlas & Co.) which contains several excellent essays by current or former members of this list, as well as contributions from other men and women who understand the long prospect of the next million years of intelligence in the galaxy. All the essays are original to the anthology. Damien Broderick From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:11:49 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:11:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> Message-ID: <580930c21003030811v7448ec6dw6a6e652e15d5f9a7@mail.gmail.com> On 3 March 2010 17:06, BillK wrote: > Well, yes, maybe, but....... > You have to be very careful with social analysis. It really is very > mixed-up, nothing is black or white (to coin a phrase). Mmhhh, not aware, as a matter of fact, of similar demographics in Europe... -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:24:46 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:24:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : > But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. > That's where my concern lies. Disruption as in...? Reduction in the aggregate mass of living organisms? Reduction of complexity? Rapid change? Mass extinction of some species? Any "historical" global warming-related examples of such disruptions? And what about the accounting for the suffering obviously involved in avoiding them, as in, e.g., efforts invested in energy savings rather than in saving human lives? Those are not rhetorical questions, and beg serious answers. While I do my best to keep an open mind on the issue, when I try to educate myself on such issues I usually get my fair rate of doom mongering and precautionary principle preaches. But yes, it would be a pity to see Venise go eventually under water... -- Stefano Vaj From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:31:06 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:31:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] EP and scale Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 4:29 AM, Spencer Campbell wrote: >> > At first your hint seemed off-puttingly specific, but then I realized: >> > yes, of course, you can say the same of just about all uniquely human >> > behavior. > > I wrote that, not Will. Assuming that's what the parenthetical meant. > > Sorry for the delay, incidentally. Working through a huge backlog here. Sorry for the misatribution. > > Keith Henson : >> People read and particularly post on mailing list to improve their >> status in the eyes of their peers. > > Oh, yes. Makes sense. Surely you aren't implying that's the only > reason, but I don't find it hard to believe that it's the main one. > > I wonder how one would go about curtailing status-seeking behavior in > Extropy-Chat posts... It's not obvious that you want to do that. You very well may want *rational* status-seeking behavior. However, admitting that seeking status is a human motivation and that I (being a human) was motivated by it (even if not consciously) got me chastised from the bench by a federal judge. Of course, federal judges are spectacular examples of people who chose status over income. It seems "normals" don't like to know where there motivations come from. Exactly why is still a bit of a question. Possibly it gets into sex taboos since motivations come from reproductive success (over evolutionary times). > Keith Henson : >> Consider the coherence length and the size of a brain. ?At the speed >> of light, how far can a signal get in 300 fs? ?How far for typical >> nerve signal propagation speeds? > > There are those leading questions again. > > About 90 micrometers, for the former. I don't have time to look up the latter! Takes all of 30 seconds http://www.biologymad.com/NervousSystem/nerveimpulses.htm At the fastest, 100m/sec or one part in 3 million of light speed. 90x10^-6/3x10^6 = 30x10^-12 meters, or .03 nm. A water molecule is close enough to 0.1 nm so the coherence length is small compared to a water molecule at brain signal speeds. Not saying that aspects of brains don't depend on QM effects, but the numbers don't look good for coherence. Keith From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 14:29:23 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:29:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030622v1c1c8227t80a52d4bee56852d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <580930c21003030622v1c1c8227t80a52d4bee56852d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: English and French, please! On Mar 3, 2010, at 9:22 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 2 March 2010 23:01, Sarah Wood wrote: >> Having barely dipped my toes in the murky waters of transhumanism, >> I have a >> request. I would like to know what are, in your opinion, the >> (three? five?) >> most important foundational texts that one should read to become >> versed in >> the basic principles and vocabulary of the subject. > > Languages? ;-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 15:33:07 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 02:33:07 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3 March 2010 10:41, spike wrote: > and for space 5, perhaps an old personal favorite: Godel Escher Bach, an > Eternal Golden Braid by Hofstadter. Hey coool, I borrowed this from the library yesterday. I started reading it years ago but was too young to get my head around it (13? 14?) so thought I might as well get back into it. nice synch :) Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 15:43:53 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 02:43:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3 March 2010 09:01, Sarah Wood wrote: Okay, just read the thread. wow, no one has mentioned the book which was suggested to me (by Mitchell Porter) in 1993 when I first came across this stuff: F.M. Esfandiary's "Are you Transhuman?" Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:42:24 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:42:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <98957.39652.qm@web113601.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <98957.39652.qm@web113601.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003030842w14ee497cy4fe8548247b81151@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 7:24 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Plus, of course, a good trawl of the internet for sites such as: > > http://www.hplusmagazine.com/ > http://www.aleph.se/andart/ > http://lesswrong.com/ > http://humanityplus.org/ > http://www.crnano.org/about_us.htm > http://transhumangoodness.blogspot.com/ > http://humanityplus-uk.com/wordpress/ > http://www.foresight.org/ > http://www.imminst.org/ > http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.htm > http://www.singinst.org/ > http://www.betterhumans.com/ > http://www.extropy.org/ And if you want to go deeper into the nitty-gritty... accelerating trends and people to stalk http://acceleratingfuture.com/ transhuman tech http://humanityplus.org/ transhuman tech mailing list (very high signal to noise ratio) http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/neuro diy transhuman tech magazine http://hplusmagazine.com/ do-it-yourself personal/human augmentation and enhancement http://groups.google.com/group/diytranshumanist List of DIYbio articles http://openwetware.org/wiki/DIYbio/FAQ#Has_DIYbio_been_in_the_news.3F Frequently asked questions about DIYbio http://openwetware.org/wiki/DIYbio/FAQ DIY hardware on the web http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/toys-tools/hackerspace-your-garage-downloading-diy-hardware-over-web http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/diy-bio-growing-movement-takes-aging do-it-yourself biology http://diybio.org/ do-it-yourself biology mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/diybio various hackerspaces mailing lists http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo open manufacturing - "we bring software development methods to the physical world" http://openmanufacturing.org/ http://openmanufacturing.net/ open manufacturing mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing open source hardware incubator/co-op (personal plug!) http://gnusha.org/ http://replab.org/ self-replicating fablab project adciv - advanced civilization wiki http://adciv.org/ a collection of open source hardware design projects http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Design skdb (apt-get for hardware) http://designfiles.org/dokuwiki/skdb me me me http://heybryan.org/ a collection of STL files http://thingiverse.com/ another hardware repository (sort of) http://harkopen.com/ something similar to skdb http://bildr.org/ instructions for projects http://instructables.com/ an open source 3D printer (goo squirter) http://reprap.org/ and again http://makerbot.com/ and again http://fabathome.org/ living on the high seas http://seasteading.org/ electronics part search engine http://octopart.com/ open source 2-axis CNC printer http://mechmate.com/ a lot of resources on psych drugs http://erowid.org/ a lot of resources on nootropics ;-) http://imminst.org/ (especially in the forum) a community of academic labs and wiki pages http://openwetware.org/ a spoof on "the pirate bay" (i think it's serious) http://theproductbay.org/ n=1 cancer treatment http://pinkarmy.org/ free software for everyone http://ubuntu.com/ http://debian.org/ an incubator/co-op for open source tech http://gnusha.org/ http://replab.org/ open source medicine community http://groups.google.com/group/opensourcemedicine makerbot, a kit based on reprap http://groups.google.com/group/makerbot mailing list for thingiverse.com http://groups.google.com/group/thingiverse longevity, anti-aging, cryonics, and not dying http://designfiles.org/papers/longevity/ http://designfiles.org/papers/stem-cells/ http://mfoundation.org/ http://sens.org/ http://fuckdeath.org/ http://fightaging.org/ http://maxlife.org/ http://longevity-science.org/ http://thelongevityfoundation.org/ http://alcor.org/ In the synthetic biology area- http://syntheticbiology.org/ http://biobricks.org/ http://partsregistry.org/ - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:51:15 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:51:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <580930c21003030622v1c1c8227t80a52d4bee56852d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030851u272592ud3d19023d14893f5@mail.gmail.com> On 3 March 2010 15:29, Sarah Wood wrote: > English and French, please! Yes, it was just (half of) a joke. I would have to think a little more about it, but I should like in the meantime to take the opportunity to remind everybody that the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti has established at http://www.transumanisti.it/8.aspa Universal Transhumanist Bibliography, which ideally should include all writings published in volume in any language a) pertaining to transhumanist ideas or scientific, philosophical, technological, artistic or political issues which are critical in such perspective b) pertaining to subjects more generally related to futurism, technoscientific developments and their impact on societies, and posthuman change. The items can be extracted and/or ordered by language, author, title, time of publication, genre, orientation, subject, and offer links for the purchase of the books in prints and to the relative online versions, if any. This being obviously a work in progress, we are always grateful to anybody who may care to point out any title missing or any inaccuracy. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:56:14 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:56:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030851u272592ud3d19023d14893f5@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A94BE48-7632-4945-B18A-0178520FB4EE@gmail.com> <580930c21003030622v1c1c8227t80a52d4bee56852d@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030851u272592ud3d19023d14893f5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The list contains, for example, one of the best transhumanist books in French written by our friend Remi Sussan: 141 - Ed.orig.: Les utopies posthumaines. Contre-culture, cyberculture, culture du caos, R?mi Sussan (2005) Omniscience [fran?ais] - saggistica, H+ 2010/3/3 Stefano Vaj : > On 3 March 2010 15:29, Sarah Wood wrote: >> English and French, please! > > Yes, it was just (half of) a joke. > > I would have to think a little more about it, but I should like in the > meantime to take the opportunity to remind everybody that the Associazione > Italiana Transumanisti has established at http://www.transumanisti.it/8.asp > a Universal Transhumanist Bibliography, which ideally should include all > writings published in volume in any language a) pertaining to transhumanist > ideas or scientific, philosophical, technological, artistic or political > issues which are critical in such perspective b) pertaining to subjects more > generally related to futurism, technoscientific developments and their > impact on societies, and posthuman change. > > The items can be extracted and/or ordered by language, author, title, time > of publication, genre, orientation, subject, and offer links for the > purchase of the books in prints and to the relative online versions, if any. > > This being obviously a work in progress, we are always grateful to anybody > who may care to point out any title missing or any inaccuracy. > > -- > Stefano Vaj From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 16:56:20 2010 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:56:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : > > But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of > suffering. > > That's where my concern lies. > > Disruption as in...? Reduction in the aggregate mass of living > organisms? Reduction of complexity? Rapid change? Mass extinction of > some species? > > Any "historical" global warming-related examples of such disruptions? > In human history, no, because the current CO2 levels are unprecedented in the last dozen million years or so. In more ancient times, the PETM event ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum ) might be a good example. It was a period of "sudden" global warming (6 ?C over 20,000 years) associated with major changes in marine and terrestrial life. Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 3 16:37:51 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 08:37:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <98957.39652.qm@web113601.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <98957.39652.qm@web113601.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc > Subject: Re: [ExI] Question from a neophyte > > Sarah Wood asked: > > > > Hello all - > > ...most important foundational texts that one should read > > to become versed in the basic principles and vocabulary of the > > subject... > > ... > > The Spike, by Damien Broderick (which I can safely bet my > mind/soul/ghost/life on someone having already recommended!)... > Ben Zaiboc Try to get the later edition (2001) if you can find it. There were improvements and updates from the original 1997 edition. I noted with curiosity that the Wiki page specifies the 1997 edition, but I didn't see why. Regarding the Wiki page additions, thanks Dave Sill! The problem with helping us internet non-hipsters is that next time we need help we call on you again. And again, and again... We never actually learn how to fix things, but rather THERE'S TROUBLE! Call the Sillmeister! {8^D spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 3 17:20:04 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:20:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030741ra8e6564ob77632971357a748@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003030741ra8e6564ob77632971357a748@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ... > > ...but a lack of toilet > paper, soap and especially diapers would really spell extinction for our species... :-) > > But, seriously, I have no doubts that wars might well be fought over them. > > The question is exactly to which point the cost of > temperature-lowering measures would be offset by the damages avoided...Stefano Vaj I don't know what, if anything, to make of this. A couple committed murder suicide, leaving a note that they feared global warming. Possibly an example of what I mentioned yesterday, where the proletariat has been told degree per century, but somehow they understand it as a degree per year? The little girl survived: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Bab y-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 17:30:06 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:30:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030930h18e88fe4k8ec6bd130b4b53a9@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/3 Alfio Puglisi > In human history, no, because the current CO2 levels are unprecedented in > the last dozen million years or so. > Is this also true for temperature levels? One wonders, because Greenland seems far from having become green again... In more ancient times, the PETM event ( > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum ) > might be a good example. It was a period of "sudden" global warming (6 ?C > over 20,000 years) associated with major changes in marine and terrestrial > life. > The Wikipedia entry however suggests that such change led to an *increased* biological production "assisted by higher global temperatures and CO2levels, as well as an increased nutrient supply (which would result from higher continental weathering due to higher temperatures and rainfall; volcanics may have provided further nutrients)". :-/ -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 3 17:07:04 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:07:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >...On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj > > On 2 March 2010 20:07, spike wrote: > > I can't. ?I already signed non-disclosure agreements, and I always > > take those things damn seriously. > > That's very bad... for your lawyer. :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj My lawyer will have no problem making the next payment on her Mercedes. We just wrote a check for $44k, owwww, and we haven't even won the case yet. More on that later, after the verdict comes in. Actually my attitude towards NDAs is more ethical than it is legal. I have heard that NDAs can usually be broken if challenged in court, but I wouldn't do that on other grounds. If I stole someone's intellectual property, I would tunnel under the prison wall to break in, then I would refuse to leave. Intellectual property is property. A few years ago here we had a good debate on copyleft. I didn't participate much, but read it all. We had several of the information-wants-to-be-freers, and almost as many information-creators-want-to-be-paiders, with well thought out and well written arguments on both sides. Now that some time has passed, are there any comments about that debate? I started out more on the side of the copyrighters and moved still further into their camp. Is that topic worth revisiting? Has anyone comments on that debete here a few years ago? New guys are welcome to jump in. I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal means of protecting information as property; in most cases current intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive. I recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a better way. Your turn. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 17:35:47 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:35:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030741ra8e6564ob77632971357a748@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030935r498124eap2c16256eb4ebe843@mail.gmail.com> On 3 March 2010 18:20, spike wrote: > A couple committed murder > suicide, leaving a note that they feared global warming. Possibly an > example of what I mentioned yesterday, where the proletariat has been told > degree per century, but somehow they understand it as a degree per year? > The little girl survived: > Yes, I think Rafal has already pointed to this article. One wonders OTOH whether they committed suicide out of personal fear for global warming ("better a clean, quick death than being boiled alive") or in order to avoid contributing thereto with their continuing metabolism, and perhaps indirect energy consumption. I must say that I find the second possibility even more disquieting, but all in all more likely. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 17:43:11 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:43:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003030943j77326b18r2fe500642e8d03d8@mail.gmail.com> On 3 March 2010 18:07, spike wrote: > Is that topic worth revisiting? Has anyone comments on that debete here a > few years ago? New guys are welcome to jump in. > > I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal > means of protecting information as property; in most cases current > intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive. I > recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a > better way. > > Your turn. > I am far from claiming to have the magic bullet solving the problem to everybody's satisfaction, but while I have not much sympathy for cartels such as the RIAA or the MPAA or the BSA, the problem remains of finding alternative business (and/or social) models motivating and remunerating creative efforts. This is even more crucial, if possible, for industrial property (read: patents, utility models, industrial design, microchips masks, software) than for copyright. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 17:49:25 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:49:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030935r498124eap2c16256eb4ebe843@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003030741ra8e6564ob77632971357a748@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030935r498124eap2c16256eb4ebe843@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > One wonders OTOH whether they committed suicide out of personal fear for > global warming ("better a clean, quick death than being boiled alive") or in > order to avoid contributing thereto with their continuing metabolism, and > perhaps indirect energy consumption. > > I must say that I find the second possibility even more disquieting, but all > in all more likely. > > Can you believe anything written in popular newspapers? The whole story is built around a note found by the police. Can I have more evidence please? He was 56, his wife was 23. Were they having marital / financial problems? It is not that uncommon for a man to kill his family when his wife says she wants to leave and take the children with her. There have been cases like that recently in the UK. The global warming story sounds very odd to me. BillK From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 18:19:57 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:19:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I lean toward the view, echoing Stephen Kinsella*, that intellectual property is not property at all. As such, it's not defensible via or consistent with libertarian property rights theory. (However, I would not use the charge of ideological unreliability against libertarians who take the contradictory position.) Regards, Dan * Especially as given in his _Against Intellectual Property_. His site is at: http://www.stephankinsella.com/ _Against Intellectual Property_ in HTML is at: http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/against-intellectual-property/ ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 12:07:04 PM Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again >...On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj > > On 2 March 2010 20:07, spike wrote: > > I can't. ?I already signed non-disclosure agreements, and I always > > take those things damn seriously. > > That's very bad... for your lawyer. :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj My lawyer will have no problem making the next payment on her Mercedes.? We just wrote a check for $44k, owwww, and we haven't even won the case yet. More on that later, after the verdict comes in.? Actually my attitude towards NDAs is more ethical than it is legal.? I have heard that NDAs can usually be broken if challenged in court, but I wouldn't do that on other grounds.? If I stole someone's intellectual property, I would tunnel under the prison wall to break in, then I would refuse to leave.? Intellectual property is property. A few years ago here we had a good debate on copyleft.? I didn't participate much, but read it all.? We had several of the information-wants-to-be-freers, and almost as many information-creators-want-to-be-paiders, with well thought out and well written arguments on both sides.? Now that some time has passed, are there any comments about that debate?? I started out more on the side of the copyrighters and moved still further into their camp. Is that topic worth revisiting?? Has anyone comments on that debete here a few years ago?? New guys are welcome to jump in. I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal means of protecting information as property; in most cases current intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive.? I recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a better way. Your turn. spike From cluebcke at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 18:25:25 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:25:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Disruption as in reduction of arable land--or even dislocation of arable land and climate patterns shift. Again, to go back to Bangladesh, it's one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and a majority of it is at an elevation above sea level of one meter or less. I don't believe it's controversial to state that a sea level rise of half a meter over the next 50-100 years is potentially catastrophic. And it's not because people just sit around and die. They get up and move. Of course I don't give a damn about the aggregate mass of living organisms. I've made it absolutely clear that my concern is with human suffering. And no, I don't have "global warming" examples of this type of disruption. I just don't think it's arguable that significant changes in sea level or other climate factors will disrupt farming, fishing, infrastructure and freshwater supplies. The argument can't really be that climate change won't hurt anybody, is it? The best question is how to balance what might seem like black hole investments against potential but uncertain climate change effects. That's one of the reasons, as I stated earlier, that I prefer investment in the development of adaptive technologies and skills. While not without opportunity cost, those kinds of investments will tend to pay off regardless of what happens to the climate. And just for the record, I think that cap-and-trade is probably as close as you're going to find to an actual, large-scale scam in all of this. And I'm not a fan of carbon credits or carbon-trading schemes. I don't see the creation of artifical markets as benefitting anyone but those who obtained the rights to operate those markets (think Enron and California's energy "market"). ________________________________ From: Stefano Vaj To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 8:24:46 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : > But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. > That's where my concern lies. Disruption as in...? Reduction in the aggregate mass of living organisms? Reduction of complexity? Rapid change? Mass extinction of some species? Any "historical" global warming-related examples of such disruptions? And what about the accounting for the suffering obviously involved in avoiding them, as in, e.g., efforts invested in energy savings rather than in saving human lives? Those are not rhetorical questions, and beg serious answers. While I do my best to keep an open mind on the issue, when I try to educate myself on such issues I usually get my fair rate of doom mongering and precautionary principle preaches. But yes, it would be a pity to see Venise go eventually under water... -- Stefano Vaj _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 18:25:40 2010 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:25:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: I need a favor... In-Reply-To: <29666bf31003010704x18fdc7dasb10d0399fb10016c@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf31003010704x18fdc7dasb10d0399fb10016c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf31003031025x6a79bf58rb9d6b2044acecbb4@mail.gmail.com> Thank you all so much. Because of our chat-room communities, I now have all six papers and I'm ready to kick some school administration ass. Special thanks to Bill K, Nathan, Keith, Jata, Sky, etc. You guys ROCK! Now if you'll all put in a positive thought to our accelerated science track, who knows? Here's hoping STEM education isn't just a talking point and instead can bring real knowledge and inspiration to our kids. Take care all, PJ From sparge at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 18:40:01 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 13:40:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <98957.39652.qm@web113601.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:37 AM, spike wrote: > > Regarding the Wiki page additions, thanks Dave Sill! ?The problem with > helping us internet non-hipsters is that next time we need help we call on > you again. ?And again, and again... ?We never actually learn how to fix > things, but rather THERE'S TROUBLE! ?Call the Sillmeister! Spike, I'm an IT professional...that's the story of my life. :-) I'm glad to help, when I can. -Dave From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 18:45:39 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:45:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><588495.24073.qm@web111212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002201700n25179a9h63c3667a0e42739@mail.gmail.com><568542.51093.qm@web111205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61002230646r1123c6b2xe37b543382197232@mail.gmail.com><658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <906567.26664.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I'm not so sure about sea level changes. I've read the projected one meter change by 2100?a few years ago, which doesn't seem all that much and looks like the kind of change that, while it might be disruptive if it happened over a short time span, would be fairly easy to deal with just by letting people voluntarily interact. (As always, whatever the social question is, freedom is almost the answer or part of the answer.*) I also believe not much can be done -- and maybe, given the nature of current theory, not much should be done. (Why on the latter? If we look back a few decades, there were different projections and were people at that time to have aggressively acted on those projections -- say by attempting to thwart global cooling via a massive dump of methane in the atmosphere, who knows how things would've turned out by now.) Some of your proposals don't sound too bad. I think a big problem with "massive infrastructure projects"?is they are government or centrally planned projects. Were governments removed, it's unlikely voluntary individuals would create such huge, unmanagable nightmares because the cooperating individuals would be more closely coupled to the costs and the information. (On the former, government projects can redistribute costs via taxation and monetary policy -- which creates a huge incentives problem and a positive feedback loop.) I think this also applies to crops. A lot of monoculture is really there because of massive subsidies of agribusiness. Remove these and it's likely much farming would change to something more sustainable and flexible. Either way, a voluntary system in this area -- i.e., a free market -- would allow individual actors to adjust more quickly to local information and incentives as opposed to politically connected combines and companies merely shaking the political money tree when something doesn't go right. Likewise with water: if local people are closely coupled with costs, benefits, and information -- and this goes for everyone; there's no defensible reason taxpayers in Seattle, WA?should pay so wealthy retirees can have green lawns in Phoenix, AZ -- then they will be more adept at dealing with the problem in myriad ways from moving to conserving to developing new ways of extracting water to finding substitutes. Regards, Dan * The other part is turning over statists to me for re-education. ________________________________ From: Christopher Luebcke To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 5:19:21 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled >?Let's turn this around: What do you think is the case here? What do think will? >?happen? What do you think should be done? I think that there will probably be some fairly serious ecological disruptions over the next several decades; the root issues will be sea level rise and ecosystem disruption. Sea level rise has obvious consequences, not just for the people and agriculture displaced, but for the people uphill--imagine a few million starving Bangladeshis overwhelming your border, for example. Beyond sea level, the other changes are generally tied to weather system disruption, and result in threats to water security, crop failures and changes in migratory patters (for fish, game and fowl).? If the ecological changes are a real possibility, and most climatologists think they are, there's actually probably not that much that can be done about it. I mean, we shouldn't just say to hell with it and double down on greenhouse gas emission, but it's not like we can just turn the thermostat down once we agree to. The recent and rapid changes in Arctic ice cover alone are probably enough to eventually cause or contribute to some fairly serious climate disruptions, and there probably isn't anything that can be done about it. So what do we do? - Develop cheap, renewable, and distributed sources of energy. We need electrification of the developing world to happen the way communication technology is spreading--not with massive infrastructure projects (e.g. land lines), but by developing inexpensive, individually-ownable, mass-producible systems (e.g. cell phones). Wind, solar, fuel cell, hydrodynamic, whatever--power to the people, literally, and power they can take with them if they have to move around. - Continue the already promising development of crops that are resistant to various environmental risks (e.g. drought-resistant grains, salt-resistant rice, etc). Agriculture they can take with them if they have to move around. - Water security is a very serious concern. Given the proximity of most of the world's population to oceans that are probably coming up to meet them, I'd say investment in (small, distributable) desalinization technology would probably be a good move as well. - Encourage economic development and education. This is what will create cultures of people who can be self-sufficient and adaptable even in trying times. Those are the types of things that I think ought to happen. I'm not suggesting who's responsible, who should pay for them, who should execute them. I also think that those types of developments, should they happen, would turn out to be a boon if in fact no GW scenarios come to pass. Thanks for asking. ________________________________ From: Dan To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 1:03:54 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled I was merely responding to the "bring civilization to its knees" comment made earlier. And I do not mean to make light of the fact that any disruption in ecosystems might cause suffering -- to humans and non-humans. But my point was more that such disruptions have happened before and ask why this alledged one is different and needs special attention? (I use "alleged" because there's much uncertainty here -- and the doom and gloom predictions have often not panned out. This is even leaving aside the "climategate" scandal.) Let's turn this around: What do you think is the case here? What do think will happen? What do you think should be done? Regards, Dan From: Christopher Luebcke To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 3:10:35 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled I don't know of anybody who seriously contents that global warming is a threat to the survival of the species. But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. That's where my concern lies. From: Dan To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 6:48:05 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled If we look at the long course of human civilization and even humans before civilization, both human civilization and humans have gone through lots of drastic changes in climate. So, like you, I don't see the big deal for adapting. I suppose food production might have to change over decades to adapt to different conditions -- maybe by changing the ranges and times for crops or by changing the types of crops grown. Also, if we just look at the last two or three centuries, we see a huge shift in where and how people live and how they get their food. This shift hasn't taken place as much in the Third World -- but that's mostly because of bad policies that can easily be changed. (How? Simply turn over policy makers and enforcers to me for re-education.) This is, of course, assuming that global warming has merit and that at least some of the projected climatic shifts will take place. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 12:39:28 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > science isn'tsettled > > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > > I often see stuff like this, but it is always puzzling. ? > Can someone > > explain why the average temperature increasing by a degree > or two or > > half a degree in a human lifetime would bring civilization to its > > knees? ?Are we really that delicate and non-adaptable? > > My theory supposes linear growth of 1 degree per year > wouldn't be so bad if not for the anecdote about boiling a > frog to death... Conversely at >1 degree per year as input to my weather > model... The observation of <1 degree per year of temperature increase > to this weather model...Mike Mike's post makes my point better than I did.? We are so very accustomed to thinking of something per year, a few percent a year, another birthday per year and so forth.? The climatologists are offering numbers that look like a degree per century.? We just are not used talking about anything per century, so confusion results.? A lot of teens somehow jump to the stunningly illogical conclusion that this two degree change we are trying to stop will show up in a few years or any day now since the Copenhagen flop. This causes what I call the Russians vs Germans effect.? During WW2, the Germans had better technology, so in the summers when the days were long and warm, they beat back their foes and drove deep into Russia, but when the vicious November storms hit, the German tanks were ill suited to the cold, the tracks were glued to the ground in the freezing mud, the engines guzzled fuel since they had to be left running to prevent freezing etc.? So in the winter the Russians had the clear advantage, and drove the Germans all the way back.? In the global warming debate, the proposed change is very slow, but human lifetimes are very short.? We end up with the global warming people, like the Germans, having the advantage in the summer, but every winter, they give up the ground they gained because people still die from the cold.? Then the global warming ridiculers, like the Russians, regain lost ground.? The battle surges back and forth every year, with tragic results. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 18:32:08 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:32:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <621423.16976.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> While true on the _known_ rise in CO2 levels, it's not true in terms of climate change in historical times, no? Regards, Dan From: Alfio Puglisi To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 11:56:20 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : > >> But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering. >> That's where my concern lies. > >Disruption as in...? Reduction in the aggregate mass of living >organisms? Reduction of complexity? Rapid change? Mass extinction of >some species? > >Any "historical" global warming-related examples of such disruptions? > In human history, no, because the current CO2 levels are unprecedented in the last dozen million years or so. In more ancient times, the PETM event ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum ) might be a good example. It was a period of "sudden" global warming (6 ?C over 20,000 years) associated with major changes in marine and terrestrial life. Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 3 18:39:20 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:39:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc > Subject: Re: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat > > "spike" wrote: > > > I am quick to point out that you are a different Jeff Davis > from the well known and loved long time ExI poster here. > > How do you know, Spike, /How do you know/?? ... In my misspent youth, I took theology training at the college level, a skill I found really useful was in spotting when a different writer comes in. There are a bunch of tricks in the toolkit for doing this. I was an innovator. The college had just gotten a computer, the awesome VAX11-750! Oy vey, I am such a geezer. I converted the text into ASCII, then wrote a script which noted whenever a word was introduced which had never been used previously in the text. Whenever a new writer comes in, there is a spike in the number of new words right at that point. In those days, anyone who could write a script was automatically consigned to social hell, cut off forever from the rest of normal humanity. I enjoyed this. A sudden jump in new word frequency isn't always a new writer, but just as a new vocabulary signature comes in with a new writer, so also comes a new memeset. In that sense there is a meta version of the word frequency algorithm. If we managed to get a bunch of us to write a story in series as Lee and Anders attempted a few months ago, we could remove all the notations of where a new writer started, and I would challenge us: I could find them all, with 90%-ish accuracy. We could do it two ways: where we intentionally tried to match the style of the previous writer to hide the breaks, and where we didn't. I think I could still find most of the discontinuities in the former, for I have another trick I haven't told you about. The original Jeff Davis has been a friend and admired writer here for so many years, I was able to spot immediately a sudden alteration of style and substance. > ...thus I've lost most interest in religion... I lost the sense that religion is discussing matters that are objectively true. There is still interesting stuff in Religion Inc. They do make a buttload of money. I always admire that, if done honestly and openly. > ...Never mind the 10 commandments (or is it 12? I never remember)...Ben Zaiboc Monte Python routine: Moses descending from the mountain with three stone tablets, addressing the people. "I bring you fifteen commandmCRASH... TEN! I bring you TEN commandments!" Did you ever actually count the commandments? I get 11: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A1-17&version=KJV The various religions have all insisted there are ten, and to make it so, they have gone various paths with interesting consequences. The Catholic tradition generally combines the first two. The protestant tradition generally combines the last two. Consider the result: in the Catholic tradition, they combine 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, and 2. Thou shalt not make any graven image, etc. If those are one commandment, then it is OK to have and make graven images, so long as the proles do not worship them as gods. In the protestant tradition, images of the "Virgin" Mary are discouraged or disallowed under the second commandment. The protestant tradition on the other hand is just as determined that there be ten commandments. I like the number 11 better myself, being prime, but they say it must be ten, so they are forced to choose two others to combine. They choose commandments 10 and 11. That too has its consequences. Combining 10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife and 11) thou shalt not covet thy neighbors ox, ass etc, equates thy neighbors ox and ass with thy neighbor's wife! She becomes equivalent to his other property and servants. This leaves us with two other intriguing possibilities if we really insist there be exactly ten commandments. We could combine both 1 and 2 as in the Catholic tradition, and commandments 10 and 11 as the Protestants do. Then we have nine, and we are free to add another thou shalt not. What do we want to universally disallow? Alternately we can divide both 1 and 2, and divide 10 and 11. Then to get back to ten, we must toss out one of the others. Which sin do we now wish to allow? Well, lets see. Both my mother and father can at times be assholes. No wait, let's not go there, they are decent folks. Can we now take the lord's name in vain? I wouldn't want him taking my goddam name in vain, even if he is imaginary. Perhaps we can combine two (preferably adjacent) commandments. Which two, and what would be the result? spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 19:13:51 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 12:13:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: snip > I should have mentioned the recent book I edited, for the long > perspective that underlies transhumanism: > > YEAR MILLION: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge (Atlas & Co.) Hmm. I consider it possible there could be human derived intelligences a million years from now. But I consider it unlikely there will be any physical state humans left by the end of the century. Perhaps someone should write a story "The Last to Transcend." Keith From ablainey at aol.com Wed Mar 3 19:16:49 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:16:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com><580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CC891D33393042-70F8-73@webmail-d066.sysops.aol.com> OK, I will chime in for the Free side (I may change without warning or explanation). As someone that creates original Art, Music, Scientific theories, Writings, Inventions, Software and a few other things that could fall under I.P. I have found that the whole protection system stifles my creativity and offers nothing but distraction and concern. I have unreleased albums, unfinished books, unpublished theories, books and unrealised inventions cluttering my shelves. When they should be out in the world making it a better place. My own personal view is that the protection system is not the source of the problem. Reward is the real issue and this always comes down to cold hard cash. The sooner we do away with the stuff, the quicker we can get to creation for altruism and social merit. How many world changing inventions are locked away out of fear that the idea will be stolen or un rewarded? A -----Original Message----- From: spike To: 'ExI chat list' Sent: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:07 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal means of protecting information as property; in most cases current intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive. I recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a better way. Your turn. spike = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 19:37:52 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 14:37:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mar 3, 2010, at 12:07 PM, spike wrote: > I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing > a legal > means of protecting information as property; in most cases current > intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive. I > recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't > see a > better way. > > Your turn. Additional problems arise when a copyright-holder takes an inconsistent approach towards reproduction of its material. Take, for example, the Bundesarchiv - the German national archive, which is one of the most digitized archives in the world. The BA has an agreement with Wiki to make available hundreds of thousands of large, high res photographs without watermarks. Now, if I want to publish one of those same photographs in a photo-journal, I must first purchase a print, and then further purchase reproduction rights, for a total cost of about ?50 per image. This of course all has a significant impact on my COGS. When my book is printed and I send out review copies, a kind reviewer will then promptly inform his readership that these images may be seen for free at such and such a URL. Ouch. I am of two minds about this. As a graduate student in LIS, I was virtually indoctrinated to believe that information wants to be free, and I still do cling to the notion to a certain extent. As a publishing professional, however, I also want to sell books - and I want to sell books with pictures that people have seen before. Now, if I think an image is so indispensable to my subject matter that it's prior dissemination ceases to be relevant, well .... then why should I have to pay for it when others do not? As a counterpoint, the United States NARA has no charges whatsoever associated with copying its images. However, it is also barely digitized - so getting images means traveling to DC and digging through dusty boxes of moldering documents while wearing white gloves. I guess everything has its price! From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 19:41:39 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:41:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <8CC891D33393042-70F8-73@webmail-d066.sysops.aol.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com><580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <8CC891D33393042-70F8-73@webmail-d066.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <287853.56459.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Well, what stops one from just putting stuff out there without intellectual property?(IP) protection now -- save for the threat that someone might bring up an IP case against one? Also, how does one judge "original" here? It seems to me this would always be arbitrary and there are enough IP cases around where it's not an instance of, say, a photocopy or a high quality recording, but of something that looks or sounds?similar to something else. Well, the problem is, everything is, in some way, similar to (and different from) everything else. Unless one is going to bite the bullet and allow any difference at all to qualify -- in which case, someone's photocopy of Stephen King's latest novel or someone's bad camcorder recording of the remake of "The Crazies" is going to be a totally different work -- one is going to have really fuzzy boundaries -- and, unlike many other areas of life, these boundaries will cost people in terms of time, money, and maybe even prison time. One problem for IP is while it is literally impossible for two people to dispose of the same physical property in the same way at the same time, this is not so with IP. For instance, let's say I find a hunk a gold on Mars and put it in my pocket -- and let's say everyone agrees it's mine. Fine. You can't really have the same hunk of gold in your pocket at the same time in the same way. But let's say, instead, I come up with a new way of finding hunks of gold -- maybe some new search process. There's no way that this prevents you or anyone else from coming up with the same. Nor does my having the process in my head prevent you from having it in yours. This seems a way IP it radically unlike physical property -- and calls into question treating it like other property. (And I think the exclusivity problem is the or a major reason for property rights in the first place: once something can only be exclusively used, then issues of conflict over its use arise and these lead (inexorably?) to rights theory.) I don't know about cash or its absence being the issue. That's kind of like blaming rape on people not wanting to give sex on demand. The problem, rather, is an inappropriate use of the property concept. Regards, Dan From: "ablainey at aol.com" To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 2:16:49 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again OK, I will chime in for the Free side (I may change without warning or explanation). As someone that creates original Art, Music, Scientific theories, Writings, Inventions, Software and a few other things that could fall under I.P. I have found that the whole protection system stifles my creativity and offers nothing but distraction and concern. I have unreleased albums, unfinished books, unpublished theories, books and unrealised inventions cluttering my shelves. When they should be out in the world making it a better place. My own personal view is that the protection system is not the source of the problem. Reward is the real issue and this always comes down to cold hard cash. The sooner we do away with the stuff, the quicker we can get to creation for altruism and social merit. How many world changing inventions are locked away out of fear that the idea will be stolen or un rewarded? A -----Original Message----- From: spike To: 'ExI chat list' Sent: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:07 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal means of protecting information as property; in most cases current intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive. I recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a better way. Your turn. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 3 19:44:11 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:44:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Moses In-Reply-To: References: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4B8EBC0B.40807@satx.rr.com> On 3/3/2010 12:39 PM, spike wrote: > Monte Python routine: Moses descending from the mountain with three stone > tablets, addressing the people. "I bring you fifteen commandmCRASH... TEN! > I bring you TEN commandments!" I like this version: Moses descends from the mountain. "Guys, I've got good news and I've got bad news." "What's the good news?" "I talked Him down from 30 commandments to 10." General rejoicing. Then: "So what's the bad news already?" "Adultery's still in." From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 19:51:13 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 14:51:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I've been struggling for an original thought here since I've done this discussion so many times on so many different forums. How about a humble suggestion: Create a tax break for releasing creative works into the public domain. There's currently no real incentive to ever release anything into the public domain. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 19:51:34 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:51:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <802784.60913.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Some funny things happen?with copyrights. For instance, the folks at mises.org found that many economics classics by Austrian or related economists now deceased?were published by small presses that went under. This is partly because, among the Establishment, these economists were unpopular, so they rarely got approved for the bigger presses. The windfall is that the copyrights were not renewed, so a lot of this stuff is public domain and mises.org has taken to making them available online for free. Had these same writers been taken up by the bigger publishing houses, they might have enjoyed a little more money, but given the small audience and brief press runs, they would now be out of print and likely unavailable for free download if they were available in any form at all -- certainly, the copyrights would've been renewed. In other words, the failure to renew copyrights has actually given these works a new life. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Sarah Wood To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 2:37:52 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again On Mar 3, 2010, at 12:07 PM, spike wrote: > I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal > means of protecting information as property; in most cases current > intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive.? I > recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a > better way. > > Your turn. Additional problems arise when a copyright-holder takes an inconsistent approach towards reproduction of its material. Take, for example, the Bundesarchiv - the German national archive, which is one of the most digitized archives in the world. The BA has an agreement with Wiki to make available hundreds of thousands of large, high res photographs without watermarks. Now, if I want to publish one of those same photographs in a photo-journal, I must first purchase a print, and then further purchase reproduction rights, for a total cost of about ?50 per image. This of course all has a significant impact on my COGS. When my book is printed and I send out review copies, a kind reviewer will then promptly inform his readership that these images may be seen for free at such and such a URL. Ouch. I am of two minds about this. As a graduate student in LIS, I was virtually indoctrinated to believe that information wants to be free, and I still do cling to the notion to a certain extent. As a publishing professional, however, I also want to sell books -? and I want to sell books with pictures that people have seen before. Now, if I think an image is so indispensable to my subject matter that it's prior dissemination ceases to be relevant, well .... then why should I have to pay for it when others do not? As a counterpoint, the United States NARA has no charges whatsoever associated with copying its images. However, it is also barely digitized - so getting images means traveling to DC and digging through dusty boxes of moldering documents while wearing white gloves. I guess everything has its price! From ablainey at aol.com Wed Mar 3 20:28:24 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:28:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com><580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CC8927353B19EF-DA0-794@webmail-d039.sysops.aol.com> Likewise, It's another topic that has been done to death, resurrected and then massacred again. I like the tax break idea. Its like a social credit for your contribution to mankind. It would undoubtedly lead to arguments of value and reward, but something is better than nothing. If a country took up the idea it could lead to an influx of creative people, especially young folks trying to start out. -----Original Message----- From: Jeffery P. Davis To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:51 Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again I've been struggling for an original thought here since I've done this discussion so many times on so many different forums. How about a humble suggestion: Create a tax break for releasing creative works into the public domain. There's currently no real incentive to ever release anything into the public domain. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 3 20:07:33 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 12:07:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <91537.42296.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I don't know if there's never an incentive. Perhaps you meant to say a money incentive, but even in that case there are examples of things where people make money but can use IP. The food and fashion industries abound such examples as recipes and fashions, for the most part, do not fall under IP protection in the US and most countries -- to my knowledge. Yet, people seem to make money as?fashion designers and as chefs. At least, it seems, most of these folks aren't working pro bono. Regards, Dan From: Jeffery P. Davis To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 2:51:13 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again I've been struggling for an original thought here since I've done this discussion so many times on so many different forums. How about a humble suggestion: Create a tax break for releasing creative works into the public domain.? There's currently no real incentive to ever release anything into the public domain. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 20:52:54 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 21:52:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003031252x350ae609sc41c4e722fb81937@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/3 Christopher Luebcke > That's one of the reasons, as I stated earlier, that I prefer investment in > the development of adaptive technologies and skills. > It could be argued that "arable land" is in itself a disruption of ecosystems, but I think that we could easily form a consensus amongst transhumanists for the "development of adaptative technologies" - which *would* include, btw, the ability to grow human beings with gills, or to implement large-scale geo-engineering projects. But of course the devil is in the details. If, for instance, evidence suggested that, be it for our own emission, we are now facing a runaway warming process no matter what, probably we could accept the "ecological disruption" involved in firing up most of our fissile stuff to put in the sky, Project Orion-style, enough solar power satellites to cool down entire habitats... OTOH, one would probably require some evidence that this is actually the case before proceeding. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 20:59:16 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 20:59:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030935r498124eap2c16256eb4ebe843@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003030741ra8e6564ob77632971357a748@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030935r498124eap2c16256eb4ebe843@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > One wonders OTOH whether they committed suicide out of personal fear for > global warming ("better a clean, quick death than being boiled alive") or in > order to avoid contributing thereto with their continuing metabolism, and > perhaps indirect energy consumption. > > There is more detail in the Argentinian press (in Spanish). It appears that recently the man was very depressed and looked ill and had been behaving increasingly erratically, talking about the earth going to melt. In his youth he inherited a fortune but was now quite poor. He called himself a healer and sold home remedies to make a living. He was accused by the girl's father of 'abducting' the girl three years ago when she was 19 or 20. He complained to the police, but they said they could do little, due to her age. The girl was completely dominated by the much older man. He kept the family indoors so that the neighbours hardly knew they had children. It looks as though the man planned the murders carefully then committed suicide. He left money for the funerals and legal expenses and a note ranting about the government and global warning. It seems to be a very sad case about a man who lost everything, became very depressed and killed his family. BillK From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 21:10:52 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:10:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <91537.42296.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <91537.42296.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Would the idea of a Singularity-inducing doodad or Godlike AI fall under the category of intellectual property? Seems like an odd and dangerous idea that technology that powerful could be privately-owned. Personally the thrill in transhumanism is being able to take part in these events and not the enabling technologies being hoarded by the elite while the other 99% of us simmer in impotent rage. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 21:37:36 2010 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 22:37:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <621423.16976.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> <621423.16976.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4902d9991003031337j665b0e4fmbad482b5f871953f@mail.gmail.com> If you mean in human history, AFAIK there hasn't been a global raise of 1?C/century in historical times. Before that, I'm not sure that even ice age recovery rates can match that. Alfio 2010/3/3 Dan > While true on the _known_ rise in CO2 levels, it's not true in terms of > climate change in historical times, no? > > Regards, > > Dan > *From:* Alfio Puglisi > > *To:* ExI chat list > *Sent:* Wed, March 3, 2010 11:56:20 AM > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science > isn'tsettled > > On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > >> 2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke : >> > But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of >> suffering. >> > That's where my concern lies. >> >> Disruption as in...? Reduction in the aggregate mass of living >> organisms? Reduction of complexity? Rapid change? Mass extinction of >> some species? >> >> Any "historical" global warming-related examples of such disruptions? >> > > In human history, no, because the current CO2 levels are unprecedented in > the last dozen million years or so. > > In more ancient times, the PETM event ( > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum ) > might be a good example. It was a period of "sudden" global warming (6 ?C > over 20,000 years) associated with major changes in marine and terrestrial > life. > > Alfio > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Wed Mar 3 21:46:49 2010 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 22:46:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030930h18e88fe4k8ec6bd130b4b53a9@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030930h18e88fe4k8ec6bd130b4b53a9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4902d9991003031346ucfc46e3h4c292a8359b39aa0@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/3 Stefano Vaj > 2010/3/3 Alfio Puglisi > > In human history, no, because the current CO2 levels are unprecedented in >> the last dozen million years or so. >> > > Is this also true for temperature levels? > Not yet, the temperatures takes a much longer time to raise because of the thermal capacity of the oceans. Current temperatures are still within "normal" ranges for interglacial periods. > > One wonders, because Greenland seems far from having become green again... > Greenland is out of equilibrium and is slowly melting. Actually, Greenland is a leftover of the last ice age and would not form at the present temperature, even at pre-industrial levels as far as I know... Anyway, given its mass, It will take a much longer time than Arctic ice to melt. Antarctic ice will take even longer. > > In more ancient times, the PETM event ( >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum ) >> might be a good example. It was a period of "sudden" global warming (6 ?C >> over 20,000 years) associated with major changes in marine and terrestrial >> life. >> > > The Wikipedia entry however suggests that such change led to an *increased* > biological production "assisted by higher global temperatures and CO2levels, as well as an increased nutrient supply (which would result from > higher continental weathering due to higher temperatures and rainfall; > volcanics may have provided further nutrients)". :-/ > Glorious times ahead! :-) One thing that I noticed is that at the PETM time, the ice age/interglacial cycle hadn't started yet, while the current global warming may have the possibility of breaking the cycle. Now, what would happen in that case, if good or bad, I haven't the foggiest idea... Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 3 21:51:59 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 13:51:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <580930c21003031252x350ae609sc41c4e722fb81937@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com><2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike><62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com><5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike><942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com><574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com><212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003031252x350ae609sc41c4e722fb81937@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: From: ... Stefano Vaj ... ...If, for instance, evidence suggested that, be it for our own emission, we are now facing a runaway warming process no matter what, probably we could accept the "ecological disruption" involved in firing up most of our fissile stuff to put in the sky...Stefano Vaj Ja I get your point Stefano, but when I see comments in the lamestream press about runaway warming processes, I must wonder if the writers really understand three critically important concepts. - First, do they get the notion of negative feedback system stabilization in nature? Nature has a bunch of feedback mechanisms that are not at all obvious, even to those studying the systems. Negative feedback loops are everywhere in nature. The skies would be safer if aircraft had as many. - Secondly, do they recognize that we have a long history which indicates that huge changes in climate haven't happened in the past? - Third, do they understand the fourth power relationship of emitted black body radiation to temperature? The fourth power is a really hyperactive function: if the black body temperature rises just a little, the emitted energy to space increases as the fourth power. I am amazed that relationship, and how it is such a powerful factor in keeping the temperature of a planet within a reasonably narrow band, plus or minus 10-ish Kelvin for the history of life on this rock. I suspect that if sometime in the future we intentionally try to change the climate, we will be amazed at how hard it is to do, and how many stabilizing feedback loops keep showing up, kinda like bugs in whatever software I am trying to write, always at least one more. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 00:31:50 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:31:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem In-Reply-To: <201003020645.o226jQHg027524@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003020645.o226jQHg027524@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003031631y4d5d5597gb404523483a3f21d@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Max More wrote: > Damn, this was good: > "Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=player_embedded > > We need transhumanist rap songs... > > I suppose the closest thing we have right now is... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKG5l_TDU8&feature=related John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 00:41:35 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:41:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > I lean toward the view, echoing Stephen Kinsella*, that intellectual property is not property at all. As such, it's not defensible via or consistent with libertarian property rights theory. (However, I would not use the charge of ideological unreliability against libertarians who take the contradictory position.)-Dan > ......http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/against-intellectual-property/ I read the article, and I still think that IP is a requirement, in fact I say it is the root of all property rights. Property is a result of men using their mind to create something in the world which did not exist before. All creations of new things in their mind is theirs to do with as they wish. Men have to think to live, and they have to control how they act and what they can think in order to properly think, so you control your thoughts and creations both mental and physical as a result. A few things: 1. Facts about reality cannot be patented. The example from the article about the man learning their is oil on his neighbor's land through trespass and then spilling the beans to everyone is not a good example for this reason. The fact there is oil on Jed's land is a fact of reality. Regardless of whether or not Jed had told anyone, it is still just a fact, just as physical formulae are facts. Actually, Jed's plan to buy his neighbor's land strikes me as bordering on fraud, as there is an obviously important piece of information about their land that Jed knows and is withholding. It is akin to knowing that a certain drug can cause dangerous side effects and omitting that information when selling it to someone. Such a strategy is lying, which is a form of initiation of force against the other person (as you are divorcing their actions from reality intentionally). 2. Scarcity has nothing to do with it, nor does "first occupier." You have to create something to own it. Standing on some land does not make you create anything. You haven't changed it to some productive use, you haven't applied your mind to create some values from it. As a result you do not own it. If you build a fence, and start tilling the land, then you own the land, as you are using it for productive purpose, and are in the process of transforming it. If you pick an apple of a tree, it is yours, as it was not owned by anyone before, and now you are using it for a particular purpose (presumably to eat). What is important here though is that if I come up with a new way of doing something, I can do anything I wish with it. I own that process (if it is genuinely new), and so can patent it and prevent others from copying my idea and benefiting from my idea, when I didn't want them to be able to use it. The key here is that it is essentially impossible to prove that you had no knowledge of my idea, so while you may be innocent of stealing my idea (and it was new to you), you have to assume it was likely a copy of my idea (as I owned it since it came from my mind). Generally, ideas aren't patented or copyrighted, like in conversations, but you probably should cite the ideas of someone else if you employ them (out of respect). Often it simply isn't in the creator's interest to control the use of something. Jonas Salk gave away the polio vaccine for free, because he just wanted to wipe polio off the face of the Earth, and that was the fastest way to do it, as far as he was concerned. Just an example. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 00:51:38 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:51:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <936439.21436.qm@web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003031651jfb183den687d3611c3cf10c3@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:39 PM, spike wrote: > > Perhaps we can combine two (preferably adjacent) commandments. ?Which two, > and what would be the result? > Combine steal and murder - both essentially end ownership; one of property, the other of life. In our transhumanist future, bodies (reference-universe avatars) will be mostly just property anyway, right? From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Thu Mar 4 00:43:50 2010 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:43:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003031631y4d5d5597gb404523483a3f21d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <380183.95358.qm@web110402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Really? That's it? Come on..I'm pretty sure there is better than this:) Anna --- On Wed, 3/3/10, John Grigg wrote: > From: John Grigg > Subject: Re: [ExI] Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem > To: "ExI chat list" > Received: Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 7:31 PM > On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Max More > > wrote: > > Damn, this was good: > > "Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap > Anthem > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=player_embedded > > > > We need transhumanist rap songs... > > > > > > I suppose the closest thing we have right now is... > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKG5l_TDU8&feature=related > > > > John? : ) > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > __________________________________________________________________ Make your browsing faster, safer, and easier with the new Internet Explorer? 8. Optimized for Yahoo! Get it Now for Free! at http://downloads.yahoo.com/ca/internetexplorer/ From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 01:16:03 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:16:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030811v7448ec6dw6a6e652e15d5f9a7@mail.gmail.com> References: <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> <580930c21003030811v7448ec6dw6a6e652e15d5f9a7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003031716k5e38bcfdqf7fe1195e216b758@mail.gmail.com> Damien Broderick wrote: Rue the day, kiddo. The sigma dropped by at least 50% when Eliezer, Anders, Robin Hanson, Eugen Leitel, Hal Finney, Robert Bradbury and some others left the room. You have no idea. A pity the archives don't go back that far. >>> And don't forget about Greg Burch! I greatly respected him for his knowledge of history, political science and of course, the law (being that he is a legal eagle). Hey Max, what happened to your good buddy? : ) Giulio wrote: Too bad, because this list used to represent one of the most exciting discussion spaces on the net, probably the most exciting. What could we do to restart a Golden Age? >>> I remember people saying we were going through a "new golden age" about a year or two ago... I can imagine a group of folks here getting uploaded and then complaining that their virtual universe was so much more interesting and enriching wayyy back ten milliseconds ago... ; ) BillK wrote: > The main difference with the old Extropy list is that everybody got older. > And their sphere of action moved away from the old ways. In some cases > it may be that their 'philosophy' changed and some of their old ways > became an embarrassment that they would rather not discuss. Their new > outlook expresses itself in different ways in different environments. Yes. I agree. I'm attending church once again. John Clark wrote Getting older really sucks, but it beats the alternative. I've been on this list for 15 years but I'm far from one of the original members. From day 1 15 years ago when I was the resident newbe I've been hearing about how much better the list was back in the good old days. It's like a ninety year old man telling us how much happier people were during the Great Depression; well I can easily believe that you personally were happier, back then you were a lusty teenager now you're a decrepit old man. >>> I've been on the list since 1999 (anyone here remember the ancient period known as the 20th century??) and I do remember how we had some peak periods. But the list in my view is still generally going strong and will have many rich years/even decades ahead of it. John, I agree with you! hee Yep, we will all in good time be just like like the Dana Carvey character, "The Grumpy Old Man." "Back before the Singularity we had meat bodies that fell apart on us left and right, and we LIKED it that way, Gosh Darnnitt!!!" ; ) Jeff Davis wrote Mailing lists and to some degree e-mail in general are anachronistic at this point. More often than not lists that were very active in the 1990s are in severe decline at this point. Young people are using e-mail less and less in favor of more immediate forms of communication. >>> I just don't see Twitter-type applications as the answer, but then if we all had truly user friendly keyboards attached to our cell phones, maybe we could make things work. But there is something to be said about thoughtfully written email replies, as compared to a lightning fast tweet that gets shot out into the net. I loved this thread! : ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kat at mindspillage.org Thu Mar 4 01:22:45 2010 From: kat at mindspillage.org (Kat Walsh) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 20:22:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020913h44eb8469k78047c46443b7f1c@mail.gmail.com> <2933A9D10E434718A03CCD3D031A580E@spike> Message-ID: <8e253f561003031722m3b327ac5yf48097ac15bc713d@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/2 Jeffery P. Davis : >> Uhoh, I am sooo not hip. ?Do explain the affluence gap between Facebook >> and >> Myspace. ?I refuse to participate in either, but didn't realize one was >> for >> rich and other for poor. ?Is that what you meant? > > > One can't be expected to know *everything* about internet culture, of > course.? It's > a general ignorance I was lamenting, considering how internet culture is > starting to drive > popular culture. > > Facebook is frequented by a more affluent audience that fled from Myspace > when the former > became open-registration.? Myspace is now primarily frequented by black > urban youth and > poor whites.? You might even argue the Myspace exodus was a form of white > flight as the medium > became more popular with black youth.? Vast simplification, but that's > basically how the cards fall. > You see a lot of upper middle-class folks on Facebook of the kind you almost > never found on myspace. Probably the best site to read on this, if you're interested, is danah boyd's: http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html (If you're impatient with very qualitative research you may not find it satisfying, but you probably won't find a better place to start.) -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:mindspillage IRC(freenode,OFTC):mindspillage * identi.ca:mindspillage * phone:ask From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 03:47:53 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:17:53 +1030 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> On 4 March 2010 03:37, spike wrote: > I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing a legal > means of protecting information as property; in most cases current > intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive. ?I > recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't see a > better way. > > Your turn. > > spike I'm firmly on the free side. I see that people have already made a lot of the standard arguments against intellectual property, good work. I want to offer a longer perspective, a perspective of the playing out of the 21st century. The short version: We are increasingly and will eventually entirely *be* information. If we allow ownership of information, we eventually lose ownership of ourselves. The long version: I think we can probably more or less agree that information and information systems aren't going to become any less important as the century wears on. Particularly, more and more of the infrastructure of our lives is going to be made out of information. We're not going to become less dependent on the global network(s) (in fact clearly we will become very much more dependent, very quickly). For individuals, increasingly all our communications, our purchases, our entertainments, are reliant on the extended internet, and will share the fundamental properties of information; particularly, endless reproduction in full fidelity for a price approaching zero. As time wears on, the bricks & mortar world is going to be increasingly drawn into this, as we gain the ability to "print out" physical objects (and food? clothing? etc etc). And, we will become increasingly dependent on technologies based in massive, ongoing data collection and interpretation (eg: healthcare must go this way). Will we eventually teleport via copying ourselves across the internet? Will we eventually upload ourselves? Before that, our entire social identity will be embedded firmly in the infosphere and at its mercy. In that context, a regime of intellectual property ownership and restriction is intensely political. What is at stake is our ability as individuals to live freely in the world, nothing less than that. Right now, we are seeing books begin their inexorable move into virtual space, and what we see is massive restriction. If you're using a Kindle, you can no longer resell your books, lend them to others, or anything else that relies on the principle of first sale. Furthermore, you cannot do the simple and clearly valuable things that should just be a feature of the environment; transfer them to any other computing device as determined by you, process and transform them as you like (as you could a text file). Now this sucks, and drives a lot of people crazy, but hey, we're not really losing anything that we could do before. However, as we become more dependent on technologies that render everything into information, the ramifications of this kind of closed, locked up approach to information (information as carefully managed real-world object analogues) will begin to really cause serious issues to individuals. What happens when your social network is based in a closed, owned environment, and those with power decide to change things to your detriment (eg: lock you out)? This already happens in the social networking sphere, and for some people real damage (to relationships) occurs. What happens when your health care is based in massive (lifelong) ongoing data collection & mining, but the formats and software used to store and work with that data (or even the data itself) can be owned, and the people that own it decide to act against your interests (eg: legally restricting you from taking that data elsewhere, legally restricting you from using that data in a way that they don't approve of)? What about if our material needs (food, clothing, etc) become dependent on the information infrastructure, closed and restricted, and people who own it decide to act against your interests, so you find you can't eat? What if you are physically and/or mentally augmented, but all your augmentations are based in closed owned information controlled by people who decide to act against your interests (do you want to have to jail-break your metacortex)? What if your lifespan is now augmented beyond what should have "naturally" occurred, but relies on ongoing intervention (implants? monitoring? etc) which is entirely proprietary, such that you cannot change provider? What if you are an upload, and find that not only is the environment you live in privately owned and controlled, not only is your personal data format proprietary, but the data, the pattern which comprises you, is entirely owned by someone else? What if stepping through that teleporter renders you, as a side effect, property of a corporation? This sounds far fetched, but you just have to look at the battle over the ownership of genomic information to see that we are on that trajectory. Transhumanism, from a social individual point of view, to me, is about morphological freedom. It is about establishing the freedom of all individuals to proceed into the future under their own determination, and the laws of the natural world be damned; we will be what we can imagine and will to become. But, that project is clearly tied inexorably and completely into a world where everything important is essentially information. If that world of platonic information is owned and fenced by powers who don't have to respect individual freedoms, then we are moving ourselves into a future of inescapable slavery of the many to the few, a catastrophe. I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this. The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it! -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From nanite1018 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 04:11:26 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 23:11:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Emlyn wrote: > I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking > at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this. > The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is > a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is > very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it! > > -- > Emlyn Every example you gave can be answered with one short answer: own your choices. If you decide to buy a metacortex from a company which does not guarantee complete freedom of use and alteration by you or anyone else, then you have to live with those consequences. If you buy your memory storage, your upload services, your teleportation services, your ebooks, your movies, music, etc. from companies which do not grant you certain rights or priveleges, you chose to pay for them, with those restrictions, and so must abide by those contracts. To have any other answer is to absolve personal responsibility. I do not like massive overuse of patents, copyrights, etc., and so I think I am going to begin to move toward purchasing from companies that allow easy transference of data. Already many media companies are working to develop a type of universal ownership, where you can see any movie or song you've ever purchased, anywhere, whether on the internet, in hotels, or on demand in your home, for free (that is, for no more than the cost of the purchase in the first place). Why are they doing this? Because they realize that their is enormous money to be made by reassuring people that when they buy something, they don't just own the DVD, but they own the right to access that content on any device anywhere, now or in the future. Such a strategy eliminates all these stupid lawsuits, all the bad press, and a major incentive for downloading of pirated materials (that is, you can use them anywhere). The existence of IP doesn't mean it has to be enforced, and you can certainly give your business to those corporations that are more liberal, and work to change the system through market forces and campaigns. But ultimately, you are choosing to enter into these agreements, and so you need to accept the responsibility of your actions. Whether it is the principle of Self-Transformation (versions 2.6 and 3) or the principle of Spontaneous Order (v2.6) or Self-Direction (v3), the principles of extropy have always placed emphasis on personal responsibility. Disliking the consequences of people's bad decisions is no reason to say that they should not be held responsible. Such is my pro-IP response to your argument. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 4 05:08:44 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:08:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com> On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Emlyn wrote: > I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking > at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this. > The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is > a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is > very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it! So I should abandon any hope or expectation of being recompensed for my published writing, because otherwise I'm conniving with the Enemies of the Future. Didn't Stalin have similar opinions along these lines? In fact, I've just about given up any hope of making a living from my work; all my stuff is instantly pirated (not that this deprives me of much, I suppose), the conglomerate hogs only want to publish shit "by" or about celebrities or mashups with ZOMBIES or VAMPIRES at the end of the title, etc etc. Damned if I know what the answer is; I'd personally be happy if everyone in the world agreed to pay a tiny amount whenever they downloaded or borrowed something I created (and I would do the same in turn, of course), but that doesn't seem likely. Australia's Public Lending Right and Educational Lending Right is a device for paying the creators on a sort of rude statistical basis, and could be generalized, but of course in that case Evil Gummints are involved. And while it's very wicked for governments to steal from honest workers, it's apparently virtuous for everyone to steal from me, for example. Because we have to prepare for Pie in the Sky By and By. Damien Broderick From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 05:52:13 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 00:52:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/3 Christopher Luebcke : > Rafal, > If you would like to argue that Bangledeshis are not at high risk if the sea > level rises significantly, or that it is not the case that Arctic ice cover > is drastically falling, do please be my guest. ### I note you didn't check the facts, as I suggested you should do. Well, anyway: Bangladesh has not been losing land surface, in fact, according to Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), it has been gaining about 20 square kilometers per year, despite continued rise in sea levels (which has been going on since the last ice age but this is another story). Obviously then, Bangladeshis are not at risk, despite statistically significant rises in sea levels. World ice cover, including both the Arctic and the Antarctic, is of course more relevant to global climate than the Arctic alone, and it has remained essentially unchanged since 1995, as may be expected given the lack of statistically significant global warming which was confirmed by e.g. Dr Phil Jones. ---------------------------- > The careful reader will in fact note that at no point, not once, during our > lively exchange, have I staked a claim that any particular forecast for > climate change is correct. I have stated only that I believe that > significant climate change over the next several decades is likely. ### It's amazing how much you rely on innuendo. You mention millions of Bangladeshi climate refugees storming our borders, you make claims of precipitous ice loss, right before issuing sky-is-falling predictions ("fairly serious climate disruptions"), then promptly deny staking any claims on Bangladesh or ice cover. Yet, still you believe in "significant climate change" that awaits us - but wait, where is the basis for this prediction? If you don't stake a claim that any particular forecast is correct, if you admit to ignorance of climate science in general, how do you know anything about the future? The simple fact is that nobody, even persons very well versed in climate science (much more than I), can make any well-grounded, specific, reliable predictions of climate. Nobody knows enough about the literally hundreds of forcings that shape climate to peer into the future - not even zettaflop computers could do it. Maybe in twenty or thirty years there will be enough understanding of climate to allow predictions but for now it is, as you might say, "productive", to simply admit ignorance and limit predictions to the general statement that historical conditions, both warmer and colder, will continue reoccurring. In other words, business as usual. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 06:07:57 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:07:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003031252x350ae609sc41c4e722fb81937@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003032207h2535bca3v273b8af3c762e421@mail.gmail.com> Spike wrote: > > - First, do they get the notion of negative feedback system > stabilization in nature? Nature has a bunch of feedback mechanisms that are > not at all obvious, even to those studying the systems. Negative feedback > loops are everywhere in nature. The skies would be safer if aircraft had as > many. > - Secondly, do they recognize that we have a long history which > indicates that huge changes in climate haven't happened in the past? ### Exactly, spike - if climate was unstable in the warming direction due to the presence of positive feedback effects, then significant episodes of warming above current levels would have happened already, simply because of random drift being amplified by the feedbacks - this is the general property of metastable systems with significant positive feedbacks and tipping points, they go on exploring their configuration space. Since such warming did not occur for tens of millions of years, this essentially precludes the existence of strong positive feedbacks capable of warming the planet. We know very well that in the absence of positive feedback CO2 levels would be unable to cause any harmful warming, therefore we also know that CO2 can at most cause slight increases in temperature, which along with its dramatic fertilizing effect on plants would be mildly beneficial for humans. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 06:11:11 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:11:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <4902d9991003031337j665b0e4fmbad482b5f871953f@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <4902d9991003030856t7ececd9dta4991f5b1eb7c50d@mail.gmail.com> <621423.16976.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4902d9991003031337j665b0e4fmbad482b5f871953f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003032211k5149f071vb20926ca9cc4eef9@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/3 Alfio Puglisi : > a global raise of > 1?C/century ### Where did you get *this* canard? Realclimate? Rafal From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 06:52:06 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:22:06 +1030 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003032252p76a1d95cv1c01ca0a71e676ca@mail.gmail.com> On 4 March 2010 15:38, Damien Broderick wrote: > On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Emlyn wrote: > >> I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking >> at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this. >> The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is >> a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is >> very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it! > > So I should abandon any hope or expectation of being recompensed for my > published writing, because otherwise I'm conniving with the Enemies of the > Future. Didn't Stalin have similar opinions along these lines? Comparing my position to Stalin doesn't quite give me a technical win, dammit. I've not mentioned anything about people being paid for work. There are lots of ways to be paid for work, only loosely related to IP laws unless you are actually an IP lawyer. Do you think there is no viable business model for writers that doesn't include inflicting massive restrictions on your readers? > In fact, I've just about given up any hope of making a living from my work; > all my stuff is instantly pirated (not that this deprives me of much, I > suppose), This is key. Is piracy depriving you of income? ie: would those people have bought your work otherwise? Conversely, are some people turned on to your work by reading a pirated copy, who later buy a copy, but never would have otherwise? > the conglomerate hogs only want to publish shit "by" or about > celebrities or mashups with ZOMBIES or VAMPIRES at the end of the title, > etc. Well this sounds more like it; your industry is doing something shit. But is that caused somehow by problems with our intellectual property regime? I've been reading stuff from Cory Doctorow, whose contention is that having his work freely available boosts his sales. He describes paper books and free ebooks as highly complementary; people who have one also want the other. OTOH, he might be selling well because he's famous for his political views, so might be a bad example, idk. > Damned if I know what the answer is; I'd personally be happy if > everyone in the world agreed to pay a tiny amount whenever they downloaded > or borrowed something I created (and I would do the same in turn, of > course), but that doesn't seem likely. I'm starting to come around to that way of thinking; a general creator tax mightn't be the worst thing in the world. After all, we all benefit from creative work being available. > Australia's Public Lending Right and > Educational Lending Right is a device for paying the creators on a sort of > rude statistical basis, and could be generalized, I'm suspicious of that statistical approach, and I think it breaks down online because you can't track who's copying what. Maybe we'd be better off with a voting system (eg: hyperlink in your pdf which says "vote for this work" and points back to a website run by the govt dept in question)? > but of course in that case > Evil Gummints are involved. And while it's very wicked for governments to > steal from honest workers, it's apparently virtuous for everyone to steal > from me, for example. Because we have to prepare for Pie in the Sky By and > By. > > Damien Broderick Well, you'll hate this, but no one's stealing from you, because you still have the thing. They may very well not be paying you, but that's a separate matter, discussed above. As to Pie in the Sky By and By, this shit is here and now. Liberal Democracies are introducing rules that allow individuals to be entirely cut off the net for copying stuff (with very little due process, so in fact its being cut of at the whim of higher powers), to track & log individual's behaviour like never before (in the name of protecting IP, or else to protect the children), and are about to start mandatory "filtering" (ie: censoring) of the internet for entire populations, again in the name of the children although I suspect actually at the behest of the content owners (this is a sore point for me because it's happening here). Again, we're going to be dependent on this infrastructure, and eventually it just will not be possible to opt out. I think the net is the greatest tool for individual liberty ever to be devised, with the proviso that handing total control of it to a massively powerful minority can turn it into the greatest tool for oppression ever devised, or in the best case simply break so that we lose all the gains we've made and can make from what is, well, a social/political/economic revolution unfolding. I contend that this kind of restrictive control, and the increasingly draconian intellectual copyright regime, are parts of the same puzzle. The net lets everyday people richly interact with each other in a way unmediated by powerful third parties. That's not cool if you're invested in the status quo. The quest by goverment and large corporate interests to lock down the net is about maintaining/returning control over all our individual interactions back to those powers. Next time you hear these people harp on about protecting writers and musicians, think about when they've ever given a shit about you any other time. These people would make you use the service entrance of their mansions, don't kid yourself, they couldn't give a flying fuck about hairy bohemians and their meagre incomes. This is about power, you're just a pawn. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 07:13:32 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:43:32 +1030 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> On 4 March 2010 14:41, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > > On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Emlyn wrote: > >> I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking >> at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this. >> The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is >> a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is >> very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it! >> >> -- >> Emlyn > Every example you gave can be answered with one short answer: own your choices. Nice in theory. > > If you decide to buy a metacortex from a company which does not guarantee complete freedom of use and alteration by you or anyone else, then you > have to live with those consequences. If you buy your memory storage, your upload services, your teleportation services, your ebooks, your movies, > music, etc. from companies which do not grant you certain rights or priveleges, you ?chose to pay for them, with those restrictions, and so must abide > by those contracts. Here, different kinds of IP come into play. In the world of copyright, you are right. Don't want to abide by the license restrictions of the copyright owner? Buy a substitute. Now there are other great arguments for getting rid of copyright (specifically, it's a monopoly extended by the state, which doesn't appear to serve any purpose except to make money for people who already have vast amounts of it, to the detriment of the general population of individuals). But patents are a massive issue, because patents will lock up entire areas of innovation. If a metacortex relies on some basic technologies, all of which require permission from a patent holder, then there might not be a way to get a liberated metacortex. In a world where such a thing is available, there's a good chance it is a necessary condition of existence, or at least leaves those without them at a massive disadvantage. Combined with only being able to buy closed commercial products, it's a scary future. > > To have any other answer is to absolve personal responsibility. I do not like massive overuse of patents, copyrights, etc., and so I think I am going to > begin to move toward purchasing from companies that allow easy transference of data. Already many media companies are working to develop a type of > universal ownership, where you can see any movie or song you've ever purchased, anywhere, whether on the internet, in hotels, or on demand in your > home, for free (that is, for no more than the cost of the purchase in the first place). Why are they doing this? Because they realize that their is enormous > money to be made by reassuring people that when they buy something, they don't just own the DVD, but they own the right to access that content on > any device anywhere, now or in the future. Such a strategy eliminates all these stupid lawsuits, all the bad press, and a major incentive for downloading > of pirated materials (that is, you can use them anywhere). > Well, but isn't this an argument against your own position? You're saying here that these companies are developing ubiquitous, relatively open services in response to people going around them and just taking copies. What would have happened if people *couldn't* just duplicate copies amongst themselves? How likely are the above developments in that alternate universe? Note that it has been technically possible for many years to do this stuff; the only reason it hasn't happened is because the content industry have been fighting it tooth and nail. > The existence of IP doesn't mean it has to be enforced, and you can certainly give your business to those corporations that are more liberal, and work to change the system through market forces and campaigns. I try to. They're few and far between. I far prefer to use open source, and consume and produce creative common licensed or public domain information. That's not always practical, unfortunately. > But ultimately, you are choosing to enter into these agreements, and so you need to accept the responsibility of your actions. Whether it is the > principle of Self-Transformation (versions 2.6 and 3) or the principle of Spontaneous Order (v2.6) or Self-Direction (v3), the principles of extropy > have always placed emphasis on personal responsibility. Disliking the consequences of people's bad decisions is no reason to say that they > should not be held responsible. You can say this is an individual's choice, but that doesn't make it so, especially if said individuals are beholden to an intellectual property regime which restricts their choices, in practical terms, to a very small set, laden with boobytraps. I guess people in the eastern bloc had choices - take what the state provides or go without - but we wouldn't call it choice, we'd call it oppression. If I am forced into a situation where I cannot make choices commensurate with my interests, where the other parties are in collusion with the government against me, that's not freedom. And all of this is only one tiny facet of this argument; I haven't even mentioned the massive good that comes to individuals from information being free. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 4 07:18:55 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:18:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003032252p76a1d95cv1c01ca0a71e676ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1003032252p76a1d95cv1c01ca0a71e676ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8F5EDF.7060004@satx.rr.com> On 3/4/2010 12:52 AM, Emlyn wrote: >> > So I should abandon any hope or expectation of being recompensed for my >> > published writing, because otherwise I'm conniving with the Enemies of the >> > Future. Didn't Stalin have similar opinions along these lines? > Comparing my position to Stalin doesn't quite give me a technical win, dammit. I'm glad you appreciated my irony. I've always wanted the chance to scream "The communists are coming! It's all a communist plot!" And being able to do so in Texas makes it irresistable. Damien Broderick [boho, maybe, but not remotely hairy these days, alas] From giulio at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 07:30:12 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 08:30:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: I have enjoyed Damien's books a lot. If Damien is forced to become a full-time truck driver because he cannot make a living with writing, I will not be able to read his books. So, it is in my best interest that Damien is able to make his living as a writer. I think the current IP system is broken and can only become more broken. A new system should be fair and flexible for both creators and consumers. These Australia's Public Lending Right and Educational Lending Right sound interesting, I will do some research. On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 6:08 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Emlyn wrote: > >> I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking >> at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this. >> The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is >> a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is >> very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it! > > So I should abandon any hope or expectation of being recompensed for my > published writing, because otherwise I'm conniving with the Enemies of the > Future. Didn't Stalin have similar opinions along these lines? > > In fact, I've just about given up any hope of making a living from my work; > all my stuff is instantly pirated (not that this deprives me of much, I > suppose), the conglomerate hogs only want to publish shit "by" or about > celebrities or mashups with ZOMBIES or VAMPIRES at the end of the title, etc > etc. Damned if I know what the answer is; I'd personally be happy if > everyone in the world agreed to pay a tiny amount whenever they downloaded > or borrowed something I created (and I would do the same in turn, of > course), but that doesn't seem likely. Australia's Public Lending Right and > Educational Lending Right is a device for paying the creators on a sort of > rude statistical basis, and could be generalized, but of course in that case > Evil Gummints are involved. And while it's very wicked for governments to > steal from honest workers, it's apparently virtuous for everyone to steal > from me, for example. Because we have to prepare for Pie in the Sky By and > By. > > Damien Broderick > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From cluebcke at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 07:31:14 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 23:31:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Rafal, I wasn't arguing with you about the facts as you suggested they would be; I didn't claim to, and said quite clearly that that wasn't what I was responding to. You might be disappointed, but you shouldn't be surprised. Nevertheless, I would expect you to know the following about Bangladesh, in ascending order of importance: 1. There is some disagreement about whether Bangladesh has being gaining land area or holding steady. 2. The land area in Bangladesh is extremely dynamic; it is losing land and gaining land at the same time. Some of the lost land was arable, but pretty much none of the new land, which is new delta accumulations, can be used for anything. 3. It is a glaring fallacy to assume that because Bangladeshis have not been adversely affected by sea level rise to date (which is quite debatable) that they would therefore not be at risk if the sea level continues to rise into the future. That last point is crucial and unassailable. You cannot possibly mean that no change in sea level, no matter how great, would put Bangladeshis at risk, can you? Would one meter per day do it? One meter per year? One meter per decade? Per 50 years? Per century? You may not believe that a sea level rise rapid enough to put them at risk is likely, but to simply state that they are not at risk is careless. Regarding sea ice: It is not at all clear that world sea ice cover is more important than Arctic ice. I don't give a damn about the average temperature of the ocean (or anything else). I care about events that indicate an increased potential for disruptive (read: suffering-generating) climate change. I'm sure you're aware of the significants climatologists place on the more-rapid-than-expected Arctic melt, so I can only assume that you feel that you're right, they're wrong and there's no problem. But it's not like you've uncovered some dark secret that nobody wants to talk about. > You mention millions of Bangladeshi climate refugees storming our borders I was speaking to a general "you" when I said that; "you" in that case would be India or Burma. > you make claims of precipitous ice loss There is a precipitous loss of ice in the Arctic, which is what I said. > then promptly deny staking any claims on Bangladesh or ice cover I didn't make the claims you implied I did. I didn't claim that Bangladesh had already been losing land, and I didn't claim that global sea ice cover had been shrinking. Again, please read carefully. > If you don't stake a claim that any particular forecast is correct, > if you admit to ignorance of climate science in general, how d > you know anything about the future? You gotta play the odds, baby. ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 9:52:13 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled 2010/3/3 Christopher Luebcke : > Rafal, > If you would like to argue that Bangledeshis are not at high risk if the sea > level rises significantly, or that it is not the case that Arctic ice cover > is drastically falling, do please be my guest. ### I note you didn't check the facts, as I suggested you should do. Well, anyway: Bangladesh has not been losing land surface, in fact, according to Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), it has been gaining about 20 square kilometers per year, despite continued rise in sea levels (which has been going on since the last ice age but this is another story). Obviously then, Bangladeshis are not at risk, despite statistically significant rises in sea levels. World ice cover, including both the Arctic and the Antarctic, is of course more relevant to global climate than the Arctic alone, and it has remained essentially unchanged since 1995, as may be expected given the lack of statistically significant global warming which was confirmed by e.g. Dr Phil Jones. ---------------------------- > The careful reader will in fact note that at no point, not once, during our > lively exchange, have I staked a claim that any particular forecast for > climate change is correct. I have stated only that I believe that > significant climate change over the next several decades is likely. ### It's amazing how much you rely on innuendo. You mention millions of Bangladeshi climate refugees storming our borders, you make claims of precipitous ice loss, right before issuing sky-is-falling predictions ("fairly serious climate disruptions"), then promptly deny staking any claims on Bangladesh or ice cover. Yet, still you believe in "significant climate change" that awaits us - but wait, where is the basis for this prediction? If you don't stake a claim that any particular forecast is correct, if you admit to ignorance of climate science in general, how do you know anything about the future? The simple fact is that nobody, even persons very well versed in climate science (much more than I), can make any well-grounded, specific, reliable predictions of climate. Nobody knows enough about the literally hundreds of forcings that shape climate to peer into the future - not even zettaflop computers could do it. Maybe in twenty or thirty years there will be enough understanding of climate to allow predictions but for now it is, as you might say, "productive", to simply admit ignorance and limit predictions to the general statement that historical conditions, both warmer and colder, will continue reoccurring. In other words, business as usual. Rafal _______________________________________________ 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 rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 08:53:27 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 03:53:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/4 Christopher Luebcke : You cannot possibly mean that > no change in sea level, no matter how great, would put Bangladeshis at risk, > can you? Would one meter per day do it? One meter per year? One meter per > decade? Per 50 years? Per century? You may not believe that a sea level rise > rapid enough to put them at risk is likely, but to simply state that they > are not at risk is careless. ### We are talking about realistic scenarios related to manmade climate warming, not about sea level changes caused by lasers fired at the Antarctic by mischievous aliens, or other such situations. In realistic scenarios Bangladesh is not at risk. -------------------- > Regarding sea ice: It is not at all clear that world sea ice cover is more > important than Arctic ice. ### Of course it is. World sea ice cover is more of a global phenomenon, it is better correlated with global temperatures. Arctic ice cover is more likely to be influenced by local phenomena, like prevailing winds. -------------------- >I don't give a damn about the average temperature > of the ocean (or anything else). ### You should. If the ocean warms, it expands and could flood. --------------------- I care about events that indicate an > increased potential for disruptive (read: suffering-generating) climate > change. I'm sure you're aware of the significants climatologists place on > the more-rapid-than-expected Arctic melt, so I can only assume that you feel > that you're right, they're wrong and there's no problem. ### Name the climatologists who claim that changes in Arctic sea ice can cause disruptive rises in sea level. Just give me references to peer-reviewed literature making this claim. You seem care about the wrong events. --------------------------- > I didn't make the claims you implied I did. I didn't claim that Bangladesh > had already been losing land, and I didn't claim that global sea ice cover > had been shrinking. Again, please read carefully. ### Yeah, that's the point of innuendo - not making any clear claims. Rafal From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 09:28:35 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:28:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> We can quite easily reduce mental phenomena >> epistemically without reducing the same phenomena >> ontologically. I mean here that we can understand mental >> phenomena in scientific terms of neurological causes and >> effects without abandoning the common sense notion that >> mental phenomena have an irreducibly subjective ontology. > > We can perhaps. But why ever should we? We should for the sake of saving the notion of "common sense". > Let us take a computer specialised in... examining > Turing-test candidates. Let us say that its performance are equal or > superior to that of human examiners. Let us say that it is instructed > to decide whether it is itself a good candidate or not. If its answer > is "yes", as far as I am concerned it is by definition as conscious > as yourself or myself (see the paradox of philosophical zombies wrongly > persuaded to be conscious, and subvocalising, firing synapses, taking > attitudes, etc., to this effect). > > You have obviously faith-based reasons to believe > otherwise Nah, I have no "faith-based reasons". I just happen to know a little bit about how to program computers to make them look conscious. In pseudo-code: If input equals "Given that your performance seems equal to that of a human, do you have a mind?" then output "Yes indeed, I have a mind just like Stefano has a mind." Call me crazy, Stefano, but somehow I think that code above does not really give the computer a mind like you have a mind. What do you think? PS. Shhh! The subject of conscious minds has become taboo here on ExI. We're not supposed to talk about such things. -gts From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 10:48:44 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 05:48:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003040248k627afdc5u7e8fea96f3b1da8f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:28 AM, Gordon Swobe wrote: > --- On Wed, 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > If input equals "Given that your performance seems equal to that of a > human, do you have a mind?" then output "Yes indeed, I have a mind just like > Stefano has a mind." > Well then Gordon, I will give credence to your views if you can prove to me that you are not such a program. Nobody is calling you crazy for thinking *this* program will not produce a mind, except, I guess, your Straw Man. What you are saying is not being argued, and is in fact obvious. The fact that you can program a fake mind does not in anyway preclude the fact that a real one could be programmed. I do see how you think the brain may have special components which may prevent today's computers from emulating it. This is probably true. I do not see how you believe that the brain will *always* have some inextricable property allowing it consciousness. The very nature of our universe tells us we can mimic anything in that manner. Maybe a mechanism in the brain prevents any large-scale objects from forming a mind because it only takes place at microscopic levels. In this case, we can make our brain out of tiny beer cans. It's a bit hasty of people to say that ANY medium could mimic neurons, because we do not fully comprehend the phenomena involved. However, SOME medium absolutely could. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 11:57:56 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 22:57:56 +1100 Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003040248k627afdc5u7e8fea96f3b1da8f@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4e3a29501003040248k627afdc5u7e8fea96f3b1da8f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/4 Will Steinberg : > On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:28 AM, Gordon Swobe wrote: >> >> --- On Wed, 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> ?If input equals "Given that your performance seems equal to that of a >> human, do you have a mind?" then output "Yes indeed, I have a mind just like >> Stefano has a mind." > > > Well then Gordon, I will give credence to your views if you can prove to me > that you are not such a program. > Nobody is calling you crazy for thinking this program will not produce a > mind, except, I guess, your Straw Man. ?What you are saying is not being > argued, and is in fact obvious. > The fact that you can program a fake mind does not in anyway preclude the > fact that a real one could be programmed. ?I do see how you think the brain > may have special components which may prevent today's computers from > emulating it. ?This is probably true. ?I do not see how you believe that the > brain will always?have some inextricable property allowing it consciousness. > ?The very nature of our universe tells us we can mimic anything in that > manner. ?Maybe a mechanism in the brain prevents any large-scale objects > from forming a mind because it only takes place at microscopic levels. ?In > this case, we can make our brain out of tiny beer cans. ?It's a bit hasty of > people to say that ANY medium could mimic neurons, because we do not fully > comprehend the phenomena involved. ?However, SOME medium absolutely could. A digital computer with enough memory can emulate (perfectly simulate) anything that can be described algorithmically; that is, described in a finite number of instructions. This is the Church-Turing thesis, and generally held to be true. What is less certain is whether everything in the universe can be described algorithmically. Everything we know of so far can, but that does not mean everything can. Maybe the as yet undiscovered theory of quantum gravity is non-algorithmic, and maybe our brains utilise quantum gravity effects in order to do what they do. It's far-fetched - there is in fact no evidence for it - but it's not impossible. If it's the case, it means that the brain is "not computable". A computer program might be able to display some of the behaviour that a human displays, but there will come a point where it fails: it may be unable to match a human in using natural language, for example, and therefore would reveal itself as the computer in a Turing test. Gordon does not have a problem with the emulation, but he has a problem with the associated consciousness. It isn't immediately obvious, but there are several lines of reasoning which lead to the conclusion that an emulation *would* necessarily have the associated consciousness of the brain being emulated. These arguments are unnecessary, but still valid, if one assumes from the start that consciousness is just an epiphenomenon supervening on intelligence. -- Stathis Papaioannou From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 14:04:12 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 06:04:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Emlyn > > I'm firmly on the free side. > I want to offer a longer perspective > > The short version: > We are increasingly and will eventually entirely *be* > information. If > we allow ownership of information, we eventually lose > ownership of > ourselves. etc. Emlyn, that was the best post I've read for a long time. Please accept a Standing Ovation! Ben Zaiboc From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 16:10:40 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 11:10:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Emlyn >> >> I'm firmly on the free side. > >> I want to offer a longer perspective > >> >> The short version: >> We are increasingly and will eventually entirely *be* >> information. If >> we allow ownership of information, we eventually lose >> ownership of >> ourselves. > ### I don't understand. Shouldn't it be "If we forbid the ownership of information, and if we are information, then we forbid the ownership of ourselves."? Without IP we will have, among others, no defense against unauthorized copying of us (i.e. making of slave copies). Rafal From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 4 15:59:41 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 07:59:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <4B8F5EDF.7060004@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com><710b78fc1003032252p76a1d95cv1c01ca0a71e676ca@mail.gmail.com> <4B8F5EDF.7060004@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again > > On 3/4/2010 12:52 AM, Emlyn wrote: > ... > > Comparing my position to Stalin doesn't quite give me a > technical win, dammit. > > I'm glad you appreciated my irony... Using Hitler as an insult is completely worn out, but the concept of comparing people to well-known personalities is a coming wave I fear. I could imagine the terms Gore, Nixon, and Obama becoming insults. >... I've always wanted the > chance to scream "The communists are coming! It's all a > communist plot!" And being able to do so in Texas makes it > irresistable... Damien Broderick Damien having *you* sound that particular alarm would make it simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Hilarious because of the irony, terrifying because you have inherent credibility: would be a lot better than I at recognizing them. {8^D spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 4 17:04:47 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:04:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B8FE82F.4040201@satx.rr.com> On 3/4/2010 10:10 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> The short version: >> We are increasingly and will eventually entirely*be* >> information. If >> we allow ownership of information, we eventually lose >> ownership of ourselves. > ### I don't understand. Shouldn't it be "If we forbid the ownership of > information, and if we are information, then we forbid the ownership > of ourselves."? Without IP we will have, among others, no defense > against unauthorized copying of us (i.e. making of slave copies). That was my thought also. "First they take away ownership of your work product, then they take away ownership of yourself." It really doesn't matter if they are plutocrats, gummints or Stalinist dictators who do it, it's always for the Greater Good. (The bogus "Think of the children!" plea.) Which seems to me a very different proposition from deciding by democratic means (if that's still possible and has any meaning nowadays) to allocate some of our wealth, effort, dedication, cleverness in common ways to maximize our well-being. Damien Broderick From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 17:14:17 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 12:14:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <4B8FE82F.4040201@satx.rr.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <4B8FE82F.4040201@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: >That was my thought also. "First they take away ownership of your work product, then they take away ownership of yourself." It really doesn't matter if they are plutocrats, gummints or Stalinist dictators >who do it, it's always for the Greater Good. (The bogus "Think of the children!" plea.) This recent thread of discussion seems to revolve around the idea that human rights derive from property rights (specifically, self-ownership) which is something I find strange and that I'm not sure I agree with. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cluebcke at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 17:56:55 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 09:56:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> What would you consider a realistic scenario for sea level rise over the next, say, 50-100 years? About 17 percent of Bangladesh is at an elevation of one meter or less; a sea level rise of even have that this century (which is entirely realistic) would still displace millions and destroy a large area of food-producing land. And of course we shouldn't limit that consideration to Bangladesh, it provides the most striking example, but low-lying coastal regions around the world are subject to the same risks. Is it perhaps that you believe that there are no "realistic scenarios related to manmade climate warming" at all, and therefore that which will never exist will pose no threat? Otherwise I really can't understand how you can discount it. > Name the climatologists who claim that changes in Arctic sea ice can cause > disruptive rises in sea level If I had made that claim, I would be happy to provide evidence. Again, please read carefully. > I didn't make the claims you implied I did. I didn't claim that Bangladesh > had already been losing land, and I didn't claim that global sea ice cover > had been shrinking. Again, please read carefully. ### Yeah, that's the point of innuendo - not making any clear claims. No, Rafal, I never implied (or used innuendo to suggest) that global sea ice was already shrinking, or that Bangladesh was already losing land area. It's utterly pointless for you to ascribe to me a position which I have not claimed, argue against it, and insist that I secretly do hold it when I very explicitly explain that I do not. I half-expect you to next start explaining my role in the conspiracy. ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: ExI chat list Sent: Thu, March 4, 2010 12:53:27 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled 2010/3/4 Christopher Luebcke : You cannot possibly mean that > no change in sea level, no matter how great, would put Bangladeshis at risk, > can you? Would one meter per day do it? One meter per year? One meter per > decade? Per 50 years? Per century? You may not believe that a sea level rise > rapid enough to put them at risk is likely, but to simply state that they > are not at risk is careless. ### We are talking about realistic scenarios related to manmade climate warming, not about sea level changes caused by lasers fired at the Antarctic by mischievous aliens, or other such situations. In realistic scenarios Bangladesh is not at risk. -------------------- > Regarding sea ice: It is not at all clear that world sea ice cover is more > important than Arctic ice. ### Of course it is. World sea ice cover is more of a global phenomenon, it is better correlated with global temperatures. Arctic ice cover is more likely to be influenced by local phenomena, like prevailing winds. -------------------- >I don't give a damn about the average temperature > of the ocean (or anything else). ### You should. If the ocean warms, it expands and could flood. --------------------- I care about events that indicate an > increased potential for disruptive (read: suffering-generating) climate > change. I'm sure you're aware of the significants climatologists place on > the more-rapid-than-expected Arctic melt, so I can only assume that you feel > that you're right, they're wrong and there's no problem. ### Name the climatologists who claim that changes in Arctic sea ice can cause disruptive rises in sea level. Just give me references to peer-reviewed literature making this claim. You seem care about the wrong events. --------------------------- > I didn't make the claims you implied I did. I didn't claim that Bangladesh > had already been losing land, and I didn't claim that global sea ice cover > had been shrinking. Again, please read carefully. ### Yeah, that's the point of innuendo - not making any clear claims. Rafal _______________________________________________ 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 jonkc at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 4 17:40:06 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 12:40:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled. In-Reply-To: <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <658705.86279.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011049x145a253fo1c043fb7e4a2d74a@mail.gmail.com> <561175.72992.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003011926h7a76d240lfbf6eb8db2ec9ca7@mail.gmail.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6F5375ED-ED13-456A-8770-EC0A06893F83@bellsouth.net> On Mar 3, 2010, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > I don't believe it's controversial to state that a sea level rise of half a meter over the next 50-100 years is potentially catastrophic I'd say that remark is controversial as hell! Half a meter sea level rise in a century and it's catastrophic? The sea level has risen 410 feet in the last 20 thousand years and far from being catastrophic the human race has thrived as no species in the history of the Earth ever has during that time. > And it's not because people just sit around and die. They get up and move. Exactly, if the sea rises half a meter in the next century then on average people might have to move a hundred feet inland per decade or so, not exactly the end of the world. > I just don't think it's arguable that significant changes in sea level or other climate factors will disrupt farming, fishing, infrastructure and freshwater supplies. If conditions change (and they always do) then people will need to adapt, just as they've always done. It seems to me the climate change thing should be broken down into 4 questions, we can only be certain about one of the answers. 1) Is the world getting warmer? 2) If it is getting warmer are humans the cause for a major part of it? 3) If the world is getting warmer is that a bad thing? 4) If it is a bad thing with today's technology is there any cure that is not worse than the decease? The answers are; probably, possibly, probably not, and no. > The argument can't really be that climate change won't hurt anybody, is it? Climate change is nothing new, climate has never been static, and like any change there will be winners and losers. However I can not find one speck of evidence that the exact temperature the Earth is at right now is the perfect temperature for maximizing human well being. > I don't give a damn about the aggregate mass of living organisms Perhaps you should, it gives a pretty good indication of how productive a ecosystem can be. If you picked any time at random during the last 100 million years the chances are almost certain it would be warmer than now, and pretty good that it would be much warmer; and during that time the aggregate mass of living organisms was at least as large as today. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 4 18:08:20 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 10:08:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] commies are coming! was: RE: intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <4B8F405C.6000907@satx.rr.com><710b78fc1003032252p76a1d95cv1c01ca0a71e676ca@mail.gmail.com><4B8F5EDF.7060004@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of spike > Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again > > > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > ... > >... I've always wanted the > > chance to scream "The communists are coming! It's all a communist > >plot!" ... Damien Broderick I spotted a commie on YouTube! Do listen to him, and pay particular attention to his body language. Very effective. This tuneful commie is performing the Russian pop classic entitled, "I Am So Very Happy Because I Am Back Home In Holy Russia, Even Though My Walls Are Orange and Festooned With Odd Looking Quasi-Decorative Metal Work Made By Happy Russian Laborers Who Work For Fair Wages and Are Not Starving As the Repressed Laborers In Capitalist Nations": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM spike From nanite1018 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 19:01:22 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:01:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <304623C5-57B5-4E7A-B426-341F126CC83E@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 4, 2010, at 2:13 AM, Emlyn wrote: > But patents are a massive issue, because patents will lock up entire > areas of innovation. If a metacortex relies on some basic > technologies, all of which require permission from a patent holder, > then there might not be a way to get a liberated metacortex. In a > world where such a thing is available, there's a good chance it is a > necessary condition of existence, or at least leaves those without > them at a massive disadvantage. Combined with only being able to buy > closed commercial products, it's a scary future. But even given that it will put you at a disadvantage, you still have the option, you can survive without it, just as humans have for thousands of years. You just may not want to. In which case you'll accept the restrictions that come along with your decision. > Well, but isn't this an argument against your own position? You're > saying here that these companies are developing ubiquitous, relatively > open services in response to people going around them and just taking > copies. What would have happened if people *couldn't* just duplicate > copies amongst themselves? How likely are the above developments in > that alternate universe? Note that it has been technically possible > for many years to do this stuff; the only reason it hasn't happened is > because the content industry have been fighting it tooth and nail. Part of it is a result of piracy, but a major incentive is that people don't like being restricted, and are doing everything they can to avoid such restrictions (including simply not buying their products, or only watching shows on Hulu because they don't feel the investment in DVDs is worth it when in a few years they will no longer have access to those, as DVD players may well be defunct, etc.). It doesn't take piracy. Never buying CDs but only listening to radio, or Pandora, or watching videos on Youtube. All those are avenues that are legal, and are at least partially supported by the strict enforcement of IP by companies. People want to buy content, not particular instances of the content, and there is significant public pressure to change to that way of doing things. It is, at least in part, why Hulu has done so well, as I can watch it pretty much anywhere, anytime. And the companies that come out with open services first will get big public support (and make more money). That's why they are all working together (as they realize that if they did it separately, they might end up losing money). > You can say this is an individual's choice, but that doesn't make it > so, especially if said individuals are beholden to an intellectual > property regime which restricts their choices, in practical terms, to > a very small set, laden with boobytraps. I guess people in the eastern > bloc had choices - take what the state provides or go without - but we > wouldn't call it choice, we'd call it oppression. If I am forced into > a situation where I cannot make choices commensurate with my > interests, where the other parties are in collusion with the > government against me, that's not freedom. > > And all of this is only one tiny facet of this argument; I haven't > even mentioned the massive good that comes to individuals from > information being free. My view is informed by my outlook on the origin of property rights (in a person's control over their own mind and body, and their need to produce to survive, and be able to control their actions), which makes IP a requirement. IP is a form of property right, and just because my property rights impede your ability to say, enter my home without permission, that doesn't mean I shouldn't have property rights in the first place. It just means you have no right to enter my home unannounced. People in the eastern bloc were operating under a government which did not respect legitimate rights, and instead made up lots of them, or ignored them completely, thereby initiating force against its people. They didn't have choice, because they were operating under threat of force. IP is not a threat of force, it is the enforcement of a right. Initiation of force is the violation of rights, so enforcement of IP cannot be initiation of force. Which is why I take the position I do. However, this does NOT mean I think everyone should enforce IP all the time. Many, many times it would be better, both for the IP rights holder and for everyone else, if they gave up their right to their intellectual property. Jonas Salk is an example. Apple, now, has been knocked down a lot in my eyes for its filing of lawsuits against HTC for violation of patents, such as on "multi-touch screens". That's a ridiculous patent in the first place, and Apple needs to just get over it. Loss of public support because of a-hole-ish actions are one major reason why many companies should simply ignore infringement on their patents (they lose respect and business, and besmirch their own names). So I fully agree that there are some major benefits of letting a lot of information go free. But ultimately, whether it does or not is up to the creator, and while you can try to convince them it would be better for everyone (including them) if they let it go free out into the world, it is still, ultimately, their decision to make. And we have to respect that it is not our decision to make for them. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From jonkc at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 4 18:41:58 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 13:41:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I noticed that Gordon Swobe has renamed his never ending Chinese Room thread, I believe Max expected a bit more from him than a simple renaming during the 2 week moratorium, after which it is hoped that somebody may actually have something new to say on the subject. Apparently Swobe is so obsessed he just can't stop, I wonder if he really thought a name change would fool people? It is after all Max's list not Swobe's, but Swobe is of course free to start a list of his own. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 19:17:19 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:17:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <304623C5-57B5-4E7A-B426-341F126CC83E@GMAIL.COM> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> <304623C5-57B5-4E7A-B426-341F126CC83E@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: > But even given that it will put you at a disadvantage, you still have the > option, you can survive without it, just as humans have for thousands of > years. You just may not want to. In which case you'll accept the > restrictions that come along with your decision. > That's kind of like saying 'If you don't like the rat race there's always subsistence farming.' Technically a choice, but avoids the heart of the matter. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 19:47:42 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:47:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> <304623C5-57B5-4E7A-B426-341F126CC83E@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: On Mar 4, 2010, at 2:17 PM, Jeffery P. Davis wrote: > That's kind of like saying 'If you don't like the rat race there's always subsistence farming.' Technically a choice, but avoids the heart of the matter. In your example, it is true that if you don't like what is needed to live a certain lifestyle, then you either need to get over it or choose a different one. That is simple logic. In regards to IP, and contracts generally (on which I think this line of discussion is based), if someone agrees to a contract (oh, idk, say a mortgage), and then later they decide they don't like it (because, say, the interest rate goes up), they still have to abide by the contract and accept responsibility for entering into it. Similarly, given the background of IP as a sort of contract (the company informs you at the beginning of the types of restrictions they'll place on their product), you have to abide by it, regardless of whether or not you change your mind later. Agreement with that contract was implicit in the act of purchase. Now, you can try to negotiate your differences, to revise the contract, etc. but that all is voluntary stuff that comes later, and the other party is under no obligation to agree. The alternative is to simply refuse to agree to the proposed contract. It's up to you. That you enter into a contract with terms and conditions upon the purchase of an item plays a fundamental role in IP. Its why they have the messages at the beginning of movies, on CD cases, in user agreements for all sorts of things, etc. "You were duly informed." Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 20:06:50 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:06:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> <304623C5-57B5-4E7A-B426-341F126CC83E@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: > That you enter into a contract with terms and conditions upon the purchase > of an item plays a fundamental role in IP. Its why they have the messages at > the beginning of movies, on CD cases, in user agreements for all sorts of > things, etc. "You were duly informed." > There's a warning on hairdryers too, it says 'Do not use in bathtub.' If I want to take something I've bought and make a copy of it, or tear it apart to see how it works, there's not a lot that can be done to stop me. I don't see where morality enters the picture unless I'm depriving someone of income. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 4 20:19:35 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:19:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Cory on getting the future wrong Message-ID: <4B9015D7.8020700@satx.rr.com> Nothing astonishing here for us, but always worth saying: From scerir at libero.it Thu Mar 4 20:35:59 2010 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 21:35:59 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Josephson Brains was Re: Is the brain a digital computer? Message-ID: <22655120.2385841267734959985.JavaMail.defaultUser@defaultHost> Patrick Crotty, Daniel Schult, Ken Segall (Colgate University) Josephson junction simulation of neurons http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2892 http://physicsandcake.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/quantum-neural-networks-1-the- superconducting-neuron-model/ Stuart: This is actually a very cool idea. I see how Josephson junctions do act a lot like biological neurons. But there are also other features of JJs that are "value added". One thing that springs to mind is that Josephson junctions are also used in super-conducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS) because they are extraordinarily sensitive to minute magnetic fields. SQUIDS can even measure the tiny magnetic fields produced by biological brains. The implications of this ability are quite interesting. Artificial brains that could detect or perhaps even read the thoughts of other brains might be possible. Kind of like built- in ESP. I will have to think about it more, but I wanted to separate it from the noise of the other thread. Thanks Serafino. # See also 'Quasi-Quantum Computing in the Brain?', by Pentti O. A. Haikonen, Cognitive Computation, published online: 23 February 2010, downloadable here http://www.springerlink.com/content/lq0538r831j8m86w/fulltext.pdf http://www. springerlink.com/content/lq0538r831j8m86w/ But, at the end, he writes: "It has been speculated that in the brain, the quantum superposition, entanglement and collapse could play a role as these might improve the computing power of the brain. On the other hand, it has been argued that the brain cannot support the required quantum coherence. The principles of quasi-quantum computing might still be applicable to the brain as these do not call for any exotic physical conditions for their operation. The communication between neurons may rely, in one way or other, on kinds of superposition states that collapse to final states aided by learned entanglement rules. At the moment, this hypothesis remains to be verified by further research. It also remains to be seen if this quasi-quantum approach will have any value for practical applications and for the theory of computing, or if this approach will merely remain an intellectual curiosity." It seems Haikonen has 'hella' informations about conscious machines, and there emotions .... http://personal.inet.fi/cool/pentti.haikonen/ [hella seems to be the new SI prefix meaning 10^27, like in hella-gram] From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 20:47:57 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 13:47:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] free will again Message-ID: ************************* Free will is an illusion, biologist says Physorg.com Mar. 3, 2010 ************************* University of Pennsylvania biologist Anthony Cashmore argues that belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs, since neither complies with the laws of the physical world, representing a continuing belief in vitalism or magic. He says free will is an illusion derived from consciousness, but consciousness has an evolutionary advantage of... http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=11895&m=21115 ********** I think Minsky put it better but the main point is that this isn't a useful subject here or elsewhere. Keith From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 4 20:32:05 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 12:32:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike><942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com><574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com><339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com><225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com><490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke ... Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled >...What would you consider a realistic scenario for sea level rise over the next, say, 50-100 years? About 17 percent of Bangladesh is at an elevation of one meter or less; a sea level rise of even have that this century (which is entirely realistic) would still displace millions and destroy a large area of food-producing land... Isn't there a European nation that is way down there in elevation? The Netherlands? Why could not the people of Bangladesh embrace the technology the Europeans pioneered a long time ago, build dikes, levies, windmills, water handling technology, and so forth. They have plenty of time to get it done. Failing that, they could dig out soil, make the high places higher and give the lower places back to the sea. It isn't so much the Bangladesh people who are at risk, but rather their low-technology lifestyles, a bit like the native Americans when the European agriculturists started showing up in the 17th century. Their style of galloping around twanging arrows at bison was greatly at risk, and whole tepee thing had to go. These were replaced by pickup trucks, rifles and travel trailers, which do the same jobs only better. spike From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 4 22:45:17 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:45:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Cryonics: Comparing Organizations Message-ID: <20100304174517.ft4j73v4gcggg0sg@webmail.natasha.cc> Does anyone have the most recent comparative information* on different cryonics organizations? * Number of members * Use of state-of-the-art technology * Reliability of suspension services * Business knowledge and competitive edge * Company/organization's relationships with personnel * Organization relationship with its members Many thanks, Natasha From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 22:45:52 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:45:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <454572.2655.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No, John, I renamed it because I want to talk about the importance of saving our notion of "common sense". By the way I hope for the sake of those around you that you don't seem as nasty in person as do online. -gts --- On Thu, 3/4/10, John Clark wrote: > From: John Clark > Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) > To: gordon.swobe at yahoo.com, "ExI chat list" > Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010, 1:41 PM > I noticed > that Gordon Swobe has renamed his never ending Chinese Room > thread, I believe Max expected a bit more from him than a > simple renaming during the 2 week moratorium, after which it > is hoped that somebody may actually have something new to > say on the subject. Apparently Swobe is so obsessed he just > can't stop, I wonder if he really thought a name change > would fool people? > It is after all Max's list not Swobe's, > but Swobe is of course free to start a list of his > own. > ?John K Clark > > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From cluebcke at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 22:21:12 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:21:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com><5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike><942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com><574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com><339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com><225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com><490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <718726.7574.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I agree wholeheartedly that the Bangladeshis should be planning now to adapt to further sea level rises (and to some degree so does the Bangladeshi government). Such actions should lower the risks of upheaval and suffering, but I don't believe they'll eliminate the increased risk of such that sea level rise provides. > Their style of galloping around twanging arrows at bison was greatly at risk, and whole> tepee thing had to go. Certainly. Of course the other thing that went was about 4 out of every 5 teepee dwellers, thus significantly reducing the need for travel trailers. ________________________________ From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Thu, March 4, 2010 12:32:05 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled ...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke ... Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled >...What would you consider a realistic scenario for sea level rise over the next, say, 50-100 years? About 17 percent of Bangladesh is at an elevation of one meter or less; a sea level rise of even have that this century (which is entirely realistic) would still displace millions and destroy a large area of food-producing land... Isn't there a European nation that is way down there in elevation? The Netherlands? Why could not the people of Bangladesh embrace the technology the Europeans pioneered a long time ago, build dikes, levies, windmills, water handling technology, and so forth. They have plenty of time to get it done. Failing that, they could dig out soil, make the high places higher and give the lower places back to the sea. It isn't so much the Bangladesh people who are at risk, but rather their low-technology lifestyles, a bit like the native Americans when the European agriculturists started showing up in the 17th century. Their style of galloping around twanging arrows at bison was greatly at risk, and whole tepee thing had to go. These were replaced by pickup trucks, rifles and travel trailers, which do the same jobs only better. spike _______________________________________________ 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 4 22:51:08 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:51:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: References: <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com> John Clark > I noticed that Gordon Swobe has renamed his never ending Chinese Room > thread, I believe Max expected a bit more from him than a simple renaming > during the 2 week moratorium, after which it is hoped that somebody may > actually have something new to say on the subject. Apparently Swobe is so > obsessed he just can't stop, I wonder if he really thought a name change > would fool people? > >>> > I think we should build a transhumanist conference about Mr. Gordon Swobe. ; ) I need to learn website design so I can create a proper parody site... I personally think Gordon should have the right to continue his thread as long as he keeps his postings down to the required 8 entries per 24 hour period. I believe in freedom of speech here, as long as one is at least somewhat on-topic with transhumanism (slander and hate speech of course must not be tolerated). : ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 4 23:14:37 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:14:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I've only over-posted once, and that happened several weeks ago when I took the day off and had nothing better to do. Clark creates the illusion of my over-posting by starting each of his posts (in his own special thread) with "Since my last post Gordon has posted X number of times". He pretends to have a conversation with me in that thread but I have no conversation with him. He talks to himself there like he has some sort of mental illness, but I think it's actually an attempt to falsely characterize my views and slander my name. -gts --- On Thu, 3/4/10, John Grigg wrote: > From: John Grigg > Subject: Re: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) > To: "ExI chat list" > Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010, 5:51 PM > John Clark > > > > > > I noticed that Gordon Swobe has renamed his never > ending Chinese Room thread, I believe Max expected a bit > more from him than a simple renaming during the 2 week > moratorium, after which it is hoped that somebody may > actually have something new to say on the subject. > Apparently Swobe is so obsessed he just can't stop, I > wonder if he really thought a name change would fool > people? > > >>> > > ? > I think we should build a transhumanist conference > about Mr. Gordon Swobe.? ; )? I need to learn website > design so I can create a proper parody site... > ? > I personally think?Gordon should have the right to > continue his thread as long as he keeps his postings down to > the required?8 entries per 24 hour period.? > ? > I believe in freedom of speech here,?as long as one > is at least somewhat on-topic with transhumanism?(slander > and?hate speech of course must not be tolerated).? : > ) > ? > John > > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 00:19:48 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 19:19:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte Message-ID: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> Having chosen Moravec as an entry point, my first impression is that he is to a large extent simply reproducing an entrenched Western narrative about body transcendence & mortification, albeit secularized and couched in languages of efficiency or functionality. Thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lacertilian at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 00:22:31 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:22:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: Ben Zaiboc : > Spencer Campbell : >> I would not consider electrical charge distribution to be a structural >> property. That's an electrical property. > > How can you separate one from the other? ?Think of a bunch of charged amino acids joined together. ?Can you change their charge distribution without changing their structure? ?No. ?The two are inextricably bound together. ?Good thing too, or life wouldn't even exist. It doesn't work on molecular scales! I was talking about cellular scales, which-- ah, forget it. Trying to argue for clear categorization is never a winning proposition. "It's all arbitrary", is always the conclusion. We're already a couple layers of trivia away from the topic, anyway. John Clark : > I'm measuring with the only tool any of us have in detecting other minds, > the way they act; admittedly this tool is not perfect but it's all we have > to work with. So, you observed my behavior. Well of course you observed my behavior! That is, as you say, literally the only way to measure anything. I was interested in what you were looking for *in* my behavior to indicate the presence of mind-like activity. John Clark : > And you sure didn't act like you had a mind on Tuesday, so > with as much confidence as I can say anything about minds other than my own > I can state that objectively your mind did not exist on Tuesday. See, you take for granted that I "sure didn't act" like I had a mind. I had a pulse, didn't I? What could possibly make my heart beat in just that way aside from my mind? (Don't get clever! I know you could just build a machine.) This is why I gave such a broad definition earlier. In other words: John Clark : > ... and a mind can not exist without thoughts ... A mind can exist without thoughts. The brain does more than think, and the mind is the aggregate of all that the brain does. Therefore, the mind is more than thinking. I don't think, "oh, now I'm blinking" every time I blink. That would be a huge waste of processing power. My mind just automatically sends a periodic bare-minimum "blink" signal to my eyelids, based on all kinds of factors that I don't know about (or need to know about). John Clark : > If you changed a biological neuron to a electronic neuron once a second it > would take about 3000 years to change over the entire brain to the > computerized version. That may seem like a long time but it depends entirely > on the time scale used, from a cosmological viewpoint 3000 years would be > virtually instantaneous. And there is no preferred time scale, it's just as > valid to look at natural phenomena at the nanosecond level as the billion > year level. I see nothing to disagree with. This is just one of those "more gradual uploading methods" I was talking about. Syntax dictates that I should have expected an argument, here, which supports the statement: "if mind scanning does not preserve objective continuity, then there must necessarily be a preferred rate of change in the universe". I accept unconditionally that there is no preferred rate of change in the universe, but I also believe mind scanning fails to blah blah blah. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that that statement is false. John Clark : > Spencer Campbell : >> The rate of change doesn't really matter as far as I'm concerned. What >> matters is whether or not the old brain is in constant communication >> with the new "brain" right up until the old brain is completely gone > > I agree, otherwise the new electronic brain would be missing the last > thoughts the old biological brain had. Whoa whoa! Hold on. Not necessarily. The whole premise behind mind scanning is that we can copy thoughts from one medium to another. This would mean that you can copy all the thoughts out of brain 1 and into brain 2, whether or not the two brains are in communication. Maybe you're implying that an operation of that sort would qualify as "communication" in and of itself. That isn't how I was using the word, though. I'm talking about a complex ongoing neural interaction, not a one-way data dump. P.S. I'm responding to a couple three-day-old posts here. Good thing time scales don't matter! From lacertilian at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 00:37:18 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:37:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com> <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Gordon Swobe wrote: > ... illusion ... pretends ... mental illness ... falsely characterize ... slander ... Jeez, Gordon. Simmer down. It's just a bit of friendly libel. Seems like everything you've written the past couple days has been pure unadulterated defensiveness. No one is out to get you. Only your ideas have been under attack. Ideas are expendable. It isn't the end of the world if, facing opposition from all sides, you're forced to give an inch of rhetorical ground. Cut your losses, catch your breath, and figure out some way to repair your good name that doesn't require slandering someone else's. From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Mar 5 00:46:31 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:46:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It would not be my choice at all. Transhumanism is not about robots and bush people. Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview. If you lens is robotics, again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a collection of sciences and technologies through which the transhumanist goal or future could be or has the potential of being established. And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not agree that it is a bad thing. Body transcendence is not the aim of transhumanism - whether a body is used or not is NOT the point! Uploading is not the GOAL of transhumanism! This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap. I oppose Moravec's particular vision, no matter how imaginative it is. We will not forgo the biological body for no body, but transform the biological body for semi and non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic environments. To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more contemporary phrase for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is "whole brain emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is simply not correct. Natasha Quoting Sarah Wood : > Having chosen Moravec as an entry point, my first impression is that > he is to a large extent simply reproducing an entrenched Western > narrative about body transcendence & mortification, albeit secularized > and couched in languages of efficiency or functionality. > > Thoughts? From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 5 01:23:56 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:23:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com> <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Spencer Campbell > ... > ...No one is out to get you... I am! I have reverse paranoia: I am out to get everyone. I fear that regardless of how careful I am, my plot will eventually succeed and I will get all six billion of you. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 01:30:22 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 20:30:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com> <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003041730x3d6ef836j773accc4d6098426@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 8:23 PM, spike wrote: >> ...On Behalf Of Spencer Campbell >> ... >> ...No one is out to get you... > > I am! ?I have reverse paranoia: I am out to get everyone. ?I fear that > regardless of how careful I am, my plot will eventually succeed and I will > get all six billion of you. We're more than that now. What happens to you plan if you develop multiple personalities? "Someone keeps breaking into my house an eating all the food... oh, that someone is me." From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 02:10:59 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:10:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <745622.86673.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No, Spencer, you don't get it. John Clark created that thread of his to stuff the search engines. He falsely characterizes my views while using my name sometimes four or five times or more in a single message. I once saw him use my complete name three times in two sentences! He posts his obnoxious messages to the same thread so it will appear in the search engines when people search on my name. I object to the deplorable behavior that I see here from this character who goes by the name of John K. Clark. I consider it conduct unbecoming an extropian. To your point, Spencer, I have no problem whatsoever with the fact that you and other people here disagree with me. It reminds me of a similar situation from about 10 years ago... I mentioned this to Stathis here recently: In 1999 I exposed some health risks associated with a substance that some people at the time considered a fountain of youth. Some hopeful dreamers on a discussion list like this resisted my contrarian views, but I felt concerned for their health and persisted. The subject took up a lot of bandwidth and so it became temporarily verboten, similar to this situation now. I suppose I manage to get myself into a good row once every 10 years :-) -gts From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 02:34:19 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:04:19 +1030 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> On 5 March 2010 02:40, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> Emlyn >>> >>> I'm firmly on the free side. >> >>> I want to offer a longer perspective >> >>> >>> The short version: >>> We are increasingly and will eventually entirely *be* >>> information. If >>> we allow ownership of information, we eventually lose >>> ownership of >>> ourselves. >> > > ### I don't understand. Shouldn't it be "If we forbid the ownership of > information, and if we are information, ?then we forbid the ownership > of ourselves."? Without IP we will have, among others, no defense > against unauthorized copying of us (i.e. making of slave copies). > > Rafal This is a good, and difficult point that Rafal raises. Rafal's position assumes that our human rights derive from property rights (h/t Jeffery Davis). Is that even supportable from a libertarian perspective? Having a read of this article on self-ownership, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership I don't find myself terribly enlightened. There seems to be a conflation of the idea of self-ownership, and of the sovereign individual, which to me appear to be very different things. I agree that personal sovereignty is desirable. We should have power over ourselves comparable to a sovereign state over its territory (putting aside our feelings about sovereign states for the minute). But, self ownership implies the ability to sell oneself. Does sovereignty require that? Does the rights-based-in-property-rights position require the ability to sell oneself into slavery? I don't want people to have to deconstruct my position here, so I need to state a fundamental principle which I hold, that I don't think libertarians hold, and it is that of assymetric power relations. Simply, i think we are always in a situation where power is distributed unevenly (in many more or less intertwined pareto distributions, no?) and that, unfettered, those with more power will impose their will on those with less. Our social world is an uneven playing field par excellence. To not take this into account is to build a theory naive to the real world. I think the libertarian idea that we can begin with property rights and derive everything else from them is elegant, but doesn't work (from a utilitarian point of view), largely because of its parsimony. It is too simple, and ignores power. I tend much more toward rule utilitarianism. I think we need to enforce a set of more or less inviolable rules that safeguard some basic rights of individuals, directly; these are human rights which together comprise basic individual sovereignty, and whose purpose is to protect the individual from others with more power who would otherwise oppress that individual (violate their sovereignty). Part of that protection is actually to deny individuals the ability to sell themselves into slavery! More precisely, I would say that there should be no ability to enforce a contract that includes servitude of one party to another. Probably many human rights can be framed in terms of classes of unenforceable contracts. I flat out deny that in a landscape of strongly assymetrical power relations, we can simply assume that all contracts are entered into freely. Those with more power will coerce those with less power, in myriad ways, into contracts which run counter to the interests of the less powerful party. This is the very nature of power, it is what it means to have power. Even when more powerful parties don't exercise their power, it still warps the landscape, it is still apparent to the less powerful party and constrains their actions. For example, anyone in a management position should go ask an underling if they think the manager is doing a good job; do you get an honest answer, or a political answer? So back to the matter at hand, I hold sovereignty over the self as basic, not derived from property rights. I don't have to "own" myself to not be enslaveable; rather, it should be impossible for me to enter into a binding contract which causes me to be enslaved, and the state or other equivalent holder of a monopoly on force should intervene on my behalf should I find myself enslaved. Similarly with other breaches of individual sovereignty. So then what of digital copies of uploads? This will depend very strongly on the legal status of a copy. Is it someone else, or is it me? If it is me, then copies made by another party of me, without all of my preexisting copies' consent and that new copy's consent, is a breach of my individual sovereignty and action must be taken if I will it, and there is no prior agreement into which I (or my copies) can enter which will change that fact. On the other hand, if the copy is a new person, then the same considerations apply, but only regarding the sovereignty of the copy; I (the original) have no say in the matter (although sovereignty over reproduction might be covered by basic human rights). Copyright should not apply to copies of oneself, it makes no sense. Even though you are your pattern, are you the creator of your pattern? Not really. It is created by, what, evolution + the transformations imposed by the technical process of uploading + the cultural environment in which you exist + some input by you, but only in a very indirect way. We are not The Lord who mysteriously created Himself :-) . We are not our own creative work in the sense copyright would require. But we do have an expectation of individual sovereignty. This should obtain for any sentient (feeling) creature, be it animal or machine, created or evolved. Individual sovereignty is sufficient to guard our freedom in a world where we are information, I believe. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From sparge at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 02:58:08 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 21:58:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: <745622.86673.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <745622.86673.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:10 PM, Gordon Swobe wrote: > No, Spencer, you don't get it. John Clark created that thread of his to stuff the search engines. You can prove that, right? You're not just slandering John... -Dave From nanite1018 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 02:59:29 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 21:59:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 4, 2010, at 9:34 PM, Emlyn wrote: > I agree that personal sovereignty is desirable. We should have power > over ourselves comparable to a sovereign state over its territory > (putting aside our feelings about sovereign states for the minute). > But, self ownership implies the ability to sell oneself. Does > sovereignty require that? Does the rights-based-in-property-rights > position require the ability to sell oneself into slavery? Ownership is the right to control. Self-ownership is complete control over yourself, which is a given from the nature of human beings, and a requirement of survival. > I tend much more toward rule utilitarianism. Well there is one major difference, I reject utilitarianism as an origin for rights, instead opting with a logical derivation from the the nature of person's (which to some extent I have already given). That is, almost certainly, the root of our differences on this issue. > Part of that protection is actually to deny individuals the ability to sell > themselves into slavery! More precisely, I would say that there should > be no ability to enforce a contract that includes servitude of one > party to another. Probably many human rights can be framed in terms of > classes of unenforceable contracts. You do have the right to enslave yourself. It's stupid as all get-out to do so, but I see no logical reason it should be impossible. If you enter into the contract without threat of physical force, it was your decision. > I flat out deny that in a landscape of strongly assymetrical power > relations, we can simply assume that all contracts are entered into > freely. Those with more power will coerce those with less power, in > myriad ways, into contracts which run counter to the interests of the > less powerful party. How can you coerce someone without actually using coercion, i.e. physical force or threat of force? Saying "I'll fire you if you don't do X" might be one example you might be thinking of (and quite possibly an obvious possible example). But either that is perfectly fine (as X was included under your business contract, or there is a clause saying he can fire you for any reason at all) or it is a violation of your contractual obligation with your employer (that is, it is not in the job description, and according to the contract, you cannot be fired or reprimanded unless you are not meeting job criteria). It isn't coercion if it is within their right to act in that way. Only violations of actual rights (i.e. property rights, personal sovereignty; or put another way, stealing, murder, assault, fraud) are instances of coercion or force. Without actual force, you are always free, at least in any civilized society such as ours, to choose differently than another would like you to. > So back to the matter at hand, I hold sovereignty over the self as > basic, not derived from property rights. I don't have to "own" myself > to not be enslaveable; rather, it should be impossible for me to enter > into a binding contract which causes me to be enslaved, and the state > or other equivalent holder of a monopoly on force should intervene on > my behalf should I find myself enslaved. Similarly with other breaches > of individual sovereignty. Why exactly is it impossible for you to be able to enter into such a contract voluntarily? It is plainly obvious there are ENORMOUS risks involved in doing so, to anyone with half a brain. So if you go ahead and do it anyways (so long as actual force or threat of force wasn't involved), you deserve what you get, in my opinion. The major problem I see with your position, is that you essentially have every conceivable decision as being under duress, as there are always power relations involved (power meaning influence, not force), so all interactions with others are not free. Any boundary between free and not free is meaningless in such a case, so I don't see how contracts could ever be enforced. You get around it by invoking personal sovereignty, but it really seems to me that that is just a teensy-bit limited form of self-ownership, with all it implies. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 5 03:13:53 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 19:13:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: <62c14241003041730x3d6ef836j773accc4d6098426@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com><779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <62c14241003041730x3d6ef836j773accc4d6098426@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty > >> ...On Behalf Of Spencer Campbell > >> ... > >> ...No one is out to get you... > > > > I am! ?I have reverse paranoia: I am out to get everyone. ? > ... > What happens to you plan if you develop multiple personalities? That is normal transhumanist behavior. If we upload, then make multiple copies, the copies diverge eventually because of differing external influences. Anyway, the doctor said I was paranoid schizophrenic because I thought they were out to get me and I had multiple personalities. She gave me pills, told me to take one a day. The pills work really well on the PS, but the major side effect is memory loss. So I took one, which cured the two original maladies. Soon I thought I was just me, and no one was out to get me. I went around with a delightful if somewhat creepy expression, like that singing commie I posted earlier. A problem soon arose however: the memory loss caused me to forget that I had taken my pill, so just to be safe I took another one. Then I didn't take any more that day because the second one caused me to forget that I had any pills. But it also overshot on both the other scales, so I went from cured to actually reverse paranoid and reverse schizophrenic. So now I am out to get everyone and I think a whole bunch of actual different people are really only me. Problem is, now I don't remember who any of my actual people are and who it is that I am supposed to get. The other day, just to be on the safe side, I got somebody. But then I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do to him once I got him, so I had to let him go. Good thing, because he might have been one of me. spike From jonkc at bellsouth.net Fri Mar 5 05:20:12 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 00:20:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Meta: A request for clarification In-Reply-To: <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <82BD16C1-EF64-4421-9924-6C298F217219@bellsouth.net> Gordon Swobe is correct when he says "I have no conversation with him", for months he has refused to talk not only with me but with anybody who asks hard questions about his very naive theories that he can't answer; but that hasn't stopped Swobe from posting an astonishing amount of verbiage in that time. Since I cannot talk to him I was forced to talk about him, or at least his ideas. But now things have changed, despite Max's two week moratorium the man seems determined to keep the good old Swobe gibberish engine going at full throttle. So my question to Max is, does the moratorium apply to everyone except Swobe and must his illogical posts now go unchallenged? I have one more thing to say, it's not a complaint it's just an observation; If I had called a fellow poster "nasty" and "obnoxious" and "deplorable" when I was unable to counter an argument they had made and if I had then said "He talks to himself there like he has some sort of mental illness" howls of protests against me would have been made, protests full of a rather pompous Latin phrase for name calling. Again let me emphasize that I'm not complaining, I'm a big boy and have been called worse, but it would be nice if I were allowed to defend myself. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 06:00:53 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 16:30:53 +1030 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> On 5 March 2010 13:29, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > On Mar 4, 2010, at 9:34 PM, Emlyn wrote: >> I agree that personal sovereignty is desirable. We should have power >> over ourselves comparable to a sovereign state over its territory >> (putting aside our feelings about sovereign states for the minute). >> But, self ownership implies the ability to sell oneself. Does >> sovereignty require that? Does the rights-based-in-property-rights >> position require the ability to sell oneself into slavery? > > Ownership is the right to control. Self-ownership is complete control over yourself, which is a given from the nature of human beings, and a requirement of survival. Well that's definitional, but can you cede this self control irrevocably (ie: without the ability to take it back against the wishes of the entity to whom you ceded it)? > >> I tend much more toward rule utilitarianism. > Well there is one major difference, I reject > utilitarianism as an origin for rights, instead opting > with a logical derivation from the the nature of > person's (which to some extent I have already given). > That is, almost certainly, the root of our differences > on this issue. Definitely, and that's why I went into that territory. btw, I think with regard to self-ownership (in a self-as-property sense) it is a stretch to somehow call it based in nature. It's a socially constructed view of person, for a start, and an arbitrary ideal chosen as a starting point (exactly as human rights are). I think to claim otherwise requires some pretty serious handwaving. However, I wont damn libertarians based on that. You have to start with some principle, the universe gives us nothing but the promise of a bounded existence. > >> ?Part of that protection is actually to deny individuals the ability to sell >> themselves into slavery! More precisely, I would say that there should >> be no ability to enforce a contract that includes servitude of one >> party to another. Probably many human rights can be framed in terms of >> classes of unenforceable contracts. > > You do have the right to enslave yourself. It's stupid > as all get-out to do so, but I see no logical reason it > should be impossible. If you enter into the contract > without threat of physical force, it was your decision. If you deny the existence of asymmetrical power relationships then yes, it's illogical. But I build my position on that assumption, and am willing to offer all of human existence up to this point in time as evidence. (note: don't bother too much to argue this point right here, I'll go into more detail below) > >> I flat out deny that in a landscape of strongly assymetrical power >> relations, we can simply assume that all contracts are entered into >> freely. Those with more power will coerce those with less power, in >> myriad ways, into contracts which run counter to the interests of the >> less powerful party. > How can you coerce someone without actually using > coercion, i.e. physical force or threat of force? Coerce is a contentious word. If you define coerce to mean the threat of force, then sure, you can't coerce without force by definition. What I meant by coerce is something like "strongly influence with extreme prejudice" (someone throw me a more exact word?). > Saying "I'll fire you if you don't do X" might be one > example you might be thinking of (and quite possibly > an obvious possible example). But either that is > perfectly fine (as X was included under your > business contract, or there is a clause saying he can > fire you for any reason at all) or it is a violation of > your contractual obligation with your employer (that > is, it is not in the job description, and according to > the contract, you cannot be fired or reprimanded > unless you are not meeting job criteria). It isn't > coercion if it is within their right to act in that way. > Only violations of actual rights (i.e. property rights, > personal sovereignty; or put another way, stealing, > murder, assault, fraud) are instances of coercion or > force. Without actual force, you are always free, at > least in any civilized society such as ours, to choose > differently than another would like you to. Yes, but this all assumes there is no such thing as power relations. So the example you give above is true for someone who doesn't need the job; they can in principle rationally weigh costs and benefits, and either party can terminate the contract according to its conditions as desired. But the real world is not like this. Much more common is that an employee is quite dependent apon a job. They might be an unskilled worker who will take no transferable skills to the job market. Or they might be indebted and thus be unable to tolerate even a short period without an income. Or they may be highly trained and experienced workers who have highly specialized skills, for which there is a very limited market (perhaps for example a rocket scientist!) Such a person is in an unequal power relationship with an employer who believes they can replace the employee easily. So, although there is no force, it is very easy to imagine scenarios where such employees trade away benefits (holidays? overtime? health insurance? permanent employee status?) simply because their employer "requests" it of them. The request is perceived as an order with which they must comply, because of the power relationship. This person will understand that the change is not in their interest, that they are now worse off. They will feel forced to make the decision they make. That is power being exercised. Similarly, individuals with prized and or rare skills can extort employers, the power relationship running the other way. This happens a lot in software development. Think of the lone developer who is the only person who understands the system, who hides knowledge to that end. If that person asks for a raise, or extra holidays, or whatever, they'll get it, and it'll look like a rational transaction, but their employer may in fact feel forced, they may feel that the employee is holding them hostage (because if the system goes down, they go out of business). They are forced. This is power. I'm not necessarily defending the weaker parties in these situations. Being deep in debt is at least partly the fault of the debter, and the ensuing powerlessness is foreseeable. The company with the all powerful lone developer should have taken steps much earlier to have not been in the situation. And yet the situation obtains, the power is real, and calling people foolish or stupid or whatever doesn't change that reality. >> So back to the matter at hand, I hold sovereignty over the self as >> basic, not derived from property rights. I don't have to "own" myself >> to not be enslaveable; rather, it should be impossible for me to enter >> into a binding contract which causes me to be enslaved, and the state >> or other equivalent holder of a monopoly on force should intervene on >> my behalf should I find myself enslaved. Similarly with other breaches >> of individual sovereignty. > > Why exactly is it impossible for you to be able to > enter into such a contract voluntarily? I think it should probably be possible to enter into such a contract (disingenuous as it may be), but it should not be possible to be bound to that agreement (exactly as is the case now in free societies - you cannot be bound by such a contract). > It is plainly > obvious there are ENORMOUS risks involved in > doing so, to anyone with half a brain. So if you go > ahead and do it anyways (so long as actual force or > threat of force wasn't involved), you deserve what > you get, in my opinion. This is where we differ, and it is because of my contention that we exist in a network of uneven power relations. If you could sell yourself into slavery, very quickly many of the poorer people in the world would be slaves. Why? Because they are dependent in some way or another on some interaction with an entity far more powerful than them (employer? credit agency? loanshark? walmart?), who will merely have to say "Become my slave and I'll waive your debt" or "all employed positions are redundant, but we are taken on slaves, sign up here" or "become a slave and win this iphone!". It doesn't matter, again, if you say these people are somehow bad or foolish for taking up such "offers", the fact remains that it would happen, en-masse, and it would be due to the exercise of power, be it not directly violent, by the powerful over the weak. > > The major problem I see with your position, is that > you essentially have every conceivable decision as > being under duress, as there are always power > relations involved (power meaning influence, not > force), so all interactions with others are not free. Yes! You understand me. Now I don't say that all decisions are under duress. Actors of relatively similar power will have free relations, absent the influence of third parties. Duress, and just as importantly the foreseeable possibility of duress, comes into play where power is radically uneven. To maintain a free society, therefore, the project is to mitigate uneven power relationships. eg: the separation of powers in a democracy is designed to hamstring attempts to wield necessary government powers as general purpose power outside of its intended bounds. > Any boundary between free and not free is > meaningless in such a case, so I don't see how > contracts could ever be enforced. In fact some would agree entirely with this. I think there is nuance here though; there is some range where relative powers are close enough to treat as equal. We can proceed on the assumption that actors are more or less in this range, leave it as the responsibility of individuals that they don't fall into terribly asymmetric situations, and try to rectify egregious examples of power imbalance where they are being obviously abused. But it's always going to be messy and imperfect. > You get around it > by invoking personal sovereignty, but it really seems > to me that that is just a teensy-bit limited form of > self-ownership, with all it implies. It might be, but I think there's significant difference, which is the inability to alienate yourself (or be alienated from) your rights. I think that's a crucial difference because of an asymmetrical power landscape. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 5 06:12:32 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:12:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Meta: A request for clarification Message-ID: <201003050612.o256CfLe007376@andromeda.ziaspace.com> John: Please note that I have *not* (yet) declared a moratorium. What I said was this: >I was about to declare a temporary moratorium on posts related to >the consciousness/identity/Searle discussion. However, it appears to >have died down over the last day or so. If it flares up again, I >*will* be imposing a moratorium of at least two weeks. I haven't seen a flare up -- just a very few posts that I think are within tolerable levels. I cannot agree that Mr. Swobe has since then gone at it "full throttle", though I have noticed a few posts not actually on the topic but addressing his dispute with you. I strongly recommend that you let it drop. If the (fruitless) argument gets going again, I will put the moratorium into effect. (Or, I may put all participants on moderation, but that would be a major pain for your busy moderator...) Max >Gordon Swobe is correct when he says "I have no conversation with >him", for months he has refused to talk not only with me but with >anybody who asks hard questions about his very naive theories that >he can't answer; but that hasn't stopped Swobe from posting an >astonishing amount of verbiage in that time. Since I cannot talk to >him I was forced to talk about him, or at least his ideas. > >But now things have changed, despite Max's two week moratorium the >man seems determined to keep the good old Swobe gibberish engine >going at full throttle. So my question to Max is, does the >moratorium apply to everyone except Swobe and must his illogical >posts now go unchallenged? > >I have one more thing to say, it's not a complaint it's just an >observation; If I had called a fellow poster "nasty" and "obnoxious" >and "deplorable" when I was unable to counter an argument they had >made and if I had then said "He talks to himself there like he has >some sort of mental illness" howls of protests against me would have >been made, protests full of a rather pompous Latin phrase for name >calling. Again let me emphasize that I'm not complaining, I'm a big >boy and have been called worse, but it would be nice if I were >allowed to defend myself. > > John K Clark > > > From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 06:30:52 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 01:30:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Thread renaming (Was: common sense) In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187671003041451r41ad2e04xfe80159a18689125@mail.gmail.com> <779771.5478.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <62c14241003041730x3d6ef836j773accc4d6098426@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003042230u5fb034aao8a60a7b016b4673f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 10:13 PM, spike wrote: > Problem is, now I don't remember who any of my actual people are and who it > is that I am supposed to get. ?The other day, just to be on the safe side, I > got somebody. ?But then I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do to him > once I got him, so I had to let him go. ?Good thing, because he might have > been one of me. That's called Catch & Release If you had left some kind of subdermal RFID chip, it'd be Tag & Release If they re-sign an agreement to stay at your property, that's Lease & ReLease If they resign the agreement, you really should release them from the obligation. From jonkc at bellsouth.net Fri Mar 5 06:07:30 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 01:07:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] free will again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0B78E577-F889-448B-9CC8-3AEEC1DD1095@bellsouth.net> On Mar 4, 2010, Keith Henson wrote: > Anthony Cashmore argues that belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs I disagree, religious beliefs are just wrong but the idea of free will is so bad it's not even wrong. And calling something an illusion adds nothing because illusion, unlike free will, is a perfectly respectable subjective phenomena. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric at m056832107.syzygy.com Fri Mar 5 07:19:15 2010 From: eric at m056832107.syzygy.com (Eric Messick) Date: 5 Mar 2010 07:19:15 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Copying and merging awareness. Message-ID: <20100305071915.5.qmail@syzygy.com> Here are some thoughts on some possibilities provided by uploading technology. I hope they can spawn some interesting discussion. Brief summary: Given uploading, we can split brain power to perform two or more tasks at once, and later rejoin the resulting entities. Medium summary: It's easy to imagine splitting into two parts by copying, and those copies can be given control of different real or virtual bodies to perform two tasks simultaneously. Those two individuals will diverge over time. It would be nice to be able to merge those changes together to rejoin the two individuals into a single entity. Can it be done? I propose that merging the data for synaptic connection strength would merge the long term memories. Merging the electro-chemical activity which represents awareness should be possible as well, though the method may be dependent on the details of how awareness is generated. What would it be like after the merge? Longer discussion: Cognitive function in humans can be divided into various categories based on the timescale of action of the function. At the short end of the time scale, we have awareness and action, which operate continuously during waking states. Senses relay information which we are aware of as it arrives. Intention is translated into action which occurs immediately. Much of our behavior fits within this category. For tasks which require brief storage we have short term memory. Capacity is limited, and it fades quickly unless it is repeated or felt to be important. Example: what phone number am I dialing? We are continuously aware of what is in our short term memory. Certain items fall out of our awareness, yet are retained for a longer period, generally minutes to hours. Unless reinforced these too fade within a day or so. I will refer to this as medium term memory. Example: where did I park the car? When items are reinforced by repetition or emotional impact they enter our long term memory. These can be recalled many years later, and form the basis for the continuity of our identity. Neurons also have functional features which can be categorized by timescale. I propose that these neural functions implement the cognitive functions described above. Again, at the short end of the time scale we have the electro-chemical firing patterns of neurons. These are ephemeral, except as they affect the longer time scale functions below. We know that sense information and action commands are relayed via electro-chemical action potentials traveling along axons. It makes sense that awareness and intent, which must link to the body through action potentials, would be implemented using the same action potentials. Where feedback loops exist, sustained repeated firing patterns may occur. Within the proper structures, these may be the implementation of short term memory. Since we are aware of the contents of our short term memory, it makes sense that it would also be implemented via action potentials, just as we have postulated that awareness is implemented. Where firing patterns persist, chemical changes occur to synapses altering the strength of the connection between neurons. This is called potentiation. These changes involve the binding of small molecules to receptors associated with the synapses, and the changes revert as the molecules diffuse away from their binding sites. Unless other machinery is activated, no lasting change will remain. These types of changes match the features of the medium term memory described above. While there may be no active electro-chemical signal which we would be aware of, if we stimulate part of the circuit it will re-establish the original firing pattern, allowing us to recall the memory. Where reinforcement is strong, more permanent changes occur. More receptors are added to synapses, and additional synapses between the same neurons may be created. These structural changes are permanent, and known to be necessary for the formation of long term memories. So, what can we do with this information? It suggests a plausible scenario for splitting and rejoining awareness. To split, take a snapshot of both the synaptic and electro-chemical states. Copy this information to a new processor, or start a new thread on the same processing system. Electro-chemical states of the two threads are isolated to prevent signals from one instance from intruding on and confusing the other instance. Each thread creates delta records describing the changes to the snapshot state. Those records can later be applied in parallel to the snapshot to create the merged data-set. Synaptic strength updates could either be isolated, to be merged later, or both instances could update and use the same database. One instance could remember what the other instance had done. Just this sharing of data could be enough to keep the instances well synchronized. You can draw the isolation line either at long term memories, or medium term memories. A stronger form of synchronization would merge the electro-chemical data representing awareness. It would probably be best to paralyze the bodies controlled by merging instances to prevent spurious action. Imagine what it would be like to suddenly become aware of what your other self is thinking. At the same time, you become aware of your other self becoming aware of what you were thinking. You transition from remembering one stream of action to remembering two. Fancier possibilities include the ability to edit one data-set to remove undesired pieces. If you spawn a copy to preform some uninteresting task, you can merge back only the briefest impression of doing it, along with any long term learning allowing you to perform it better next time. Care would need to be taken to keep the copy from resenting the not to be remembered drudgery. You don't want to dwell on the thought that you're once again going to be the work copy rather than the pleasure copy. Well, that's enough for now. -eric From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 13:35:55 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 05:35:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <130224.65928.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Spencer Campbell wrote: > See, you take for granted that I "sure didn't act" like I > had a mind. > I had a pulse, didn't I? What could possibly make my heart > beat in > just that way aside from my mind? (Don't get clever! I know > you could > just build a machine.) > The heart beats all by itself. No need to be connected to a brain, the heart only needs a brain to regulate its beating, and that's minimal. Most regulation is through chemical signals in the blood. The heart is pretty independent, really, no need for minds to be involved at all. I doubt that any routine functioning of organs, limbs, etc. is indicative of a mind. Intelligent behaviour is, though. > John Clark : > > ... and a mind can not exist without thoughts ... > > A mind can exist without thoughts. The brain does more than > think, and > the mind is the aggregate of all that the brain does. > Therefore, the > mind is more than thinking. I have to take issue with this. The brain does more than think, yes. It secretes hormones, for instance. But 'thinking' is what a mind *is*. To make an analogy with a car: A car pumps petrol, keeps track of the time, plays music, opens and closes windows, and it also moves. A car's purpose is transport. Moving is what transport *is*. The other things are incidental and while they may support moving they are not essential to transport the way moving is. Transport cannot exist without moving. (Just to be clear, in this analogy, Car = Brain, Moving = Thinking, Transport = Mind) The mind is thinking, and nothing more. I don't see how 'a mind without thoughts' means anything, it's an oxymoron. Ben Zaiboc From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 14:09:26 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 09:09:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Well that's definitional, but can you cede this self control > irrevocably (ie: without the ability to take it back against the > wishes of the entity to whom you ceded it)? > Just to take this a little further, if rights derive from self-ownership, is there any reason under that assumption that I shouldn't be able to sell the right to kill, butcher, and consume my body? -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 14:13:46 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 09:13:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 010/3/5 Jeffery P. Davis : > > Just to take this a little further, if rights derive from self-ownership, is > there > any reason under that assumption that I shouldn't be able to sell the right > to kill, butcher, and consume my body? Nope. But it's against eBay's rules. -Dave From pharos at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 14:35:08 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 14:35:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Yes. Personally, I am a staunch fan, in the order, of some kind or > other of fusion, of space-based solar power, and of very deep > geothermy. > > A conference put on by the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) 01-03 March 2010 was packed with companies exhibiting intriguing approaches to clean energy. See: and Some highlights: Transonic Combustion, based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a gasoline fuel injection system that can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by 50 to 75 percent, beating the fuel economy of hybrid vehicles. American Superconductor, of Devens, MA, is developing massive 10 megawatt wind turbines that are only possible with the use of extremely lightweight superconducting generators. (Today's turbines typically generate around 2 to 3 megawatts.) A group out of Michigan State University is developing a natural gas electricity generator for use in hybrid vehicles. The goal: give natural gas cars the same driving range as conventional gasoline cars, making way for their wide adoption. Oscilla Power, based in Salt Lake City, UT, plans to start testing a novel wave power generator. Wave power is notoriously difficult to harness because of the damage waves can cause to mechanical systems. Oscilla has found a way to use an inexpensive iron-aluminum alloy to generate electrical current, without the need for any moving parts. Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), spun out of Xerox PARC, is developing a new form of refrigeration that could be three times as efficient as existing forms. It's based on thermoacoustics, a technology that works for cooling at extremely low temperatures (such as for liquefying gases), but hasn't been used for cooling at room temperature (what you need for household refrigeration). The company thinks it's found a way around previous limits to the technology. FloDesign Wind Turbines has already received a Department of Energy grant to further develop a wind turbine that uses principles of jet engines to improve turbine performance. Start-up MTPV, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is seeking to commercialize a technology for converting heat into electricity. The idea is to use waste heat from industrial processes, such as making glass or steel, to make electricity. A prototype thermophotovoltaic system uses a chip sandwiched with a traditional solar cell. Heat makes one layer "glow" electromagnetic energy that is then converted into electricity using a photovoltaic cell, Xtreme Energetics is building a solar concentrator that uses glass to concentrate light onto a solar cell to boost the output. Makani Power is developing a system for capturing wind energy at high altitudes. The vision is to put 35-meter-long tethered blades only slightly higher than land wind turbines. Using a "kite" approach provides more area to deploy wind power devices while using less material. Plasma Kinetics is looking to further develop a system that uses disks made mostly from magnesium to store hydrogen molecules. About 10,000 of these disks, which would take up about as much space as a car back seat, would allow for a driving range of over 200 miles Planar Energy, based in Orlando, Fla., is developing a method for manufacturing batteries from thin metal films, which does away with the traditional liquid electrolyte. FastCap Systems and other companies are working on ultracapacitors. These storage devices can't hold as much electrical energy as batteries, but they are able to rapidly discharge and they last longer than chemical batteries. FastCap Systems' design uses a "shag carpet" of nanotubes to store energy placed on top of a conductive substrate General Compression has designed a system that compresses air using wind turbines and pumps it underground. When power is needed, the compressed underground air is released into a gas turbine to make electricity. ------------------------- Lots more ideas asking for funding at the summit! BillK From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Mar 5 14:41:21 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 08:41:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ UK 2010: Call for posters Message-ID: This is a call for poster submissions for the Humanity+ UK 2010 one-day conference, to be held on Saturday April 24th at Conway Hall, London (details below). In addition to the exciting list of speakers listed below, there will be a networking room at the conference with limited space for poster presentations, on topics relevant to the themes of the conference. If you would like to be considered to give such a poster presentation, please send a 100-200 word summary of the work or ideas you would present, to Amon Twyman ( amon @ doctrinezero.com), by 5:00pm on Wednesday March 31st. You will receive confirmation of acceptance or otherwise, with full instructions for poster format, venue and schedule details by Wednesday April 14th. If you have any questions about poster submission, please do not hesitate to contact the address above. For any other questions or registration for the conference, please see our website via the link below. Thanks! The Humanity+ UK Team *************************************************** How will accelerating technological change affect human mental and physical capabilites as well as the environment in which we live? What challenges and opportunities does the human race face in this age of unprecedented change? How can we help shape the future, spread the benefits and mitigate the risks of the coming technological revolutions? Humanity+ UK2010, a one-day conference in London on 24 April 2010, gathers together some leading thinkers to discuss these topics. Speakers include: *) Max More, on "Singularity Skepticism: Exposing Exponential Errors"; *) Anders Sandberg, on "Making humans smarter via cognitive enhancers"; *) Rachel Armstrong, on "The impact of living technology on the future of humanity"; *) Aubrey de Grey, on "Human regenerative engineering ? theory and practice"; *) David Pearce, on "The Abolitionist Project: Can biotechnology abolish suffering throughout the living world?"; *) Amon Twyman, on "Augmented perception and Transhumanist Art"; *) Natasha Vita-More, on "DIY Enhancement"; *) David Orban, on "The Singularity University", and "The Internet of Things"; *) Nick Bostrom, on "Reducing Existential Risks". For more details, including speaker biographies, see http://humanityplus-uk.com PLEASE NOTE: People attending this event need to REGISTER via the event website, http://humanityplus-uk.com. Attendance costs ?25 (or ?15 for non-waged), but is free to registered members of H+ UK. The event website also provides: *) an option to join H+ UK *) an option to register to join some of the speakers for dinner and further conversation in the evening *) blog postings by and about the speakers. For information about the event venue, see http://www.conwayhall.org.uk/where.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 14:59:33 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 09:59:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:35 AM, BillK wrote: > > A conference put on by the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for > Energy (ARPA-E) 01-03 March 2010 was packed with companies exhibiting > intriguing approaches to clean energy. > > See: > > and > > > Some highlights: > Transonic Combustion, based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a gasoline > fuel injection system that can improve the efficiency of gasoline > engines by 50 to 75 percent, beating the fuel economy of hybrid > vehicles. I had a 3-cylinder Geo Metro ten years ago that routinely got better than 55 MPG, so beating the current hybrids doesn't impress me. Looking at Transonics' web site, I can't see what they're doing that's different than any of the current direct injection systems. I'm skeptical that they'll be able to achieve the improvements they claim. I didn't find any of the other possibilities to be very exciting, either. -Dave From sparge at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 15:34:08 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 10:34:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:35 AM, BillK wrote: > > A conference put on by the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for > Energy (ARPA-E) 01-03 March 2010 was packed with companies exhibiting > intriguing approaches to clean energy. > > See: > > and > Here's an ARPA-E project that could be significant: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=shift-happens-will-artificial-photo-2010-03-03 Shift happens: Will artificial photosynthesis power the world? One drinking-water bottle could provide enough energy for an entire household in the developing world if Dan Nocera has his way. A chemist from M.I.T. and founder of the company Sun Catalytix, Nocera has developed a cobalt-based catalyst that allows him to store energy the same way plants do: by splitting water. "Almost all the solar energy is stored in water splitting," Nocera told the inaugural ARPA-E conference on March 2. Solar Catalytix is among five companies awarded government funding to develop "direct solar fuels," dubbed "electrofuels" by ARPA-E, the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for transformational energy technologies. "We emulated photosynthesis for large-scale storage of solar energy." According to Nocera, his new system can work at ambient temperatures and pressures, without corrosion in a simple glass of water, even polluted water. "If you need pure water for energy storage, they'll drink it," Nocera said. "Use puddle water instead." In fact, Nocera has been running his prototype on untreated water from the Charles River in Boston. And it's cheap, not $12,000 per kilowatt like commercial electrolyzers that do the same thing. "That's not going to help the energy situation for the U.S. or poor people of the world." ... -Dave From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 5 15:54:55 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 07:54:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Dave Sill > ... > I had a 3-cylinder Geo Metro ten years ago that routinely got > better than 55 MPG, so beating the current hybrids doesn't impress me. > ... -Dave This is one of the reasons why I don't get too worked up about peak oil. If we are willing to make some not-terribly-painful sacrifices, our transportation oil use can go way down. My brother in law had a metro. His had over 100k miles on it before he got it, but since he was only driving six miles round trip a day, it was adequate. He also could beat 50 mpg, until he broke a piston ring and went from three cylinders to two. Two small pistons. Then it had even less power, but still would get about 40 MPG, so he kept flogging it to work and back. Drove it almost five years with those remaining two cylinders. After the failure it wasn't fast: it would hit about 50 mph on level ground in still air, if you were patient. If we settle for slow, light cars, we can get high fuel economy. Our current Detroits are such comical overkill, our grandchildren will laugh and envy. spike From amon at doctrinezero.com Fri Mar 5 14:13:38 2010 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 14:13:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ UK 2010: Call for posters Message-ID: <5bae33f11003050613y6fce84d3u1ae165e591393c5d@mail.gmail.com> This is a call for poster submissions for the *Humanity+ UK 2010* one-day conference, to be held on Saturday April 24th at Conway Hall, London (details below). In addition to the exciting list of speakers listed below, there will be a networking room at the conference with limited space for poster presentations, on topics relevant to the themes of the conference. If you would like to be considered to give such a poster presentation, please send a 100-200 word summary of the work or ideas you would present, to Amon Twyman (amon @ doctrinezero.com ), by 5:00pm on Wednesday March 31st. You will receive confirmation of acceptance or otherwise, with full instructions for poster format, venue and schedule details by Wednesday April 14th. If you have any questions about poster submission, please do not hesitate to contact the address above. For any other questions or registration for the conference, please see our website via the link below. Thanks! The Humanity+ UK Team *************************************************** How will accelerating technological change affect human mental and physical capabilites as well as the environment in which we live? What challenges and opportunities does the human race face in this age of unprecedented change? How can we help shape the future, spread the benefits and mitigate the risks of the coming technological revolutions? Humanity+ UK2010, a one-day conference in London on 24 April 2010, gathers together some leading thinkers to discuss these topics. Speakers include: *) Max More, on "Singularity Skepticism: Exposing Exponential Errors"; *) Anders Sandberg, on "Making humans smarter via cognitive enhancers"; *) Rachel Armstrong, on "The impact of living technology on the future of humanity"; *) Aubrey de Grey, on "Human regenerative engineering ? theory and practice"; *) David Pearce, on "The Abolitionist Project: Can biotechnology abolish suffering throughout the living world?"; *) Amon Twyman, on "Augmented perception and Transhumanist Art"; *) Natasha Vita-More, on "DIY Enhancement"; *) David Orban, on "The Singularity University", and "The Internet of Things"; *) Nick Bostrom, on "Reducing Existential Risks". For more details, including speaker biographies, see http://humanityplus-uk.com PLEASE NOTE: People attending this event need to REGISTER via the event website, http://humanityplus-uk.com. Attendance costs ?25 (or ?15 for non-waged), but is free to registered members of H+ UK. The event website also provides: *) an option to join H+ UK *) an option to register to join some of the speakers for dinner and further conversation in the evening *) blog postings by and about the speakers. For information about the event venue, see http://www.conwayhall.org.uk/where.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 5 17:27:34 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 09:27:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again Message-ID: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a local guy and author of The Population Bomb, is back in the news. His comments are startling to say the least. These include a concept I mentioned a few days ago: all those who do not buy the entire global warming full meal deal, but who question *any* aspect, are tossed into a huge bucket with creationists and all skeptics, and are labeled "merciless enemies" by Dr. Ehrlich: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/05/climate-scientists-plan-hit-skepti cs/?test=latestnews spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 17:38:43 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:38:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again In-Reply-To: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> References: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> Message-ID: >These include a concept I mentioned a few days ago: all those who do not buy the entire global warming full meal deal, but who question *any* aspect, are tossed into a huge bucket with creationists and >all skeptics, and are labeled "merciless enemies" by Dr. Ehrlich: To be honest it's hard to tell the difference between people that have a legitimate gripe with part of the science, and people that are concern trolling to support an agenda. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at bellsouth.net Fri Mar 5 17:36:20 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:36:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <384574C2-74C8-4A9C-AA0B-8FA21EC776AF@bellsouth.net> On Mar 4, 2010, Spencer Campbell wrote: > > So, you observed my behavior. Well of course you observed my behavior! > That is, as you say, literally the only way to measure anything. I was > interested in what you were looking for *in* my behavior to indicate > the presence of mind-like activity. I was looking for intelligent behavior, and no I don't have a definition of intelligence but I have something much better, examples. > See, you take for granted that I "sure didn't act" like I had a mind. > I had a pulse, didn't I? Who cares? > What could possibly make my heart beat in just that way aside from my mind? Nerve impulses, and not all nerve impulses are involved in mind. If you doubt this then try willing your heart to stop, don't worry it's a perfectly safe activity. > The brain does more than think Yea, it occupies space has mass and although I don't know this from first hand experience it probably has a taste too, but none of these properties are involved when we talk about immortality, it's the ability to think that we want to continue. And anyway I'm not interested in the brain, I'm interested in what the brain does, the mind. > I don't think, "oh, now I'm blinking" every time I blink. That would > be a huge waste of processing power. That's why mind is not involved in blinking, only the brain. > Syntax dictates that I should have expected an argument, here, which > supports the statement: "if mind scanning does not preserve objective > continuity, then there must necessarily be a preferred rate of change > in the universe". I accept unconditionally that there is no preferred rate of change in > the universe, but I also believe mind scanning fails to blah blah > blah. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that that statement is false. That is unclear, if the statement is "I also believe mind scanning fails" then you are correct. > The whole premise behind mind scanning is that we can copy thoughts from one medium to another. This would mean that you can copy all the thoughts out of brain 1 and into brain 2 Yes. > whether or not the two brains are in communication. No. > I'm talking about a complex ongoing neural interaction, not a one-way data dump. I don't understand, an old experienced brain would have lots to say to a brand new blank brain, but what would the blank brain have to say to the old brain that is relevant in this matter? In fact what would a blank brain have to say period? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 18:12:05 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:12:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: <384574C2-74C8-4A9C-AA0B-8FA21EC776AF@bellsouth.net> References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> <384574C2-74C8-4A9C-AA0B-8FA21EC776AF@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: > I don't think, "oh, now I'm blinking" every time I blink. That would > be a huge waste of processing power. > > > That's why mind is not involved in blinking, only the brain. > Couldn't you make a comparison to the subroutines of a program? -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cluebcke at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 18:00:10 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 10:00:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again In-Reply-To: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> References: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> Message-ID: <159210.54584.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > These include a concept I mentioned a few days ago: all those who do not buy the entire global warming full meal deal, but who question *any* aspect, are tossed into a huge bucket with creationists and all skeptics, and are labeled "merciless enemies" by Dr. Ehrlich: Spike, I read the article (the full one at the Washington Times--ugh), and what you're implying, while it may be true, is not in the article. Context is important: ""Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails" Ehrlich (of whom I'm no great fan) is not making the statement you're ascribing to him. Are you aware of him making claims elsewhere that any and all criticism of climate research should be treated exactly the same way? Are you aware of any scientists working in the field who've made such a claim? ________________________________ From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 9:27:34 AM Subject: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a local guy and author of The Population Bomb, is back in the news. His comments are startling to say the least. These include a concept I mentioned a few days ago: all those who do not buy the entire global warming full meal deal, but who question *any* aspect, are tossed into a huge bucket with creationists and all skeptics, and are labeled "merciless enemies" by Dr. Ehrlich: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/05/climate-scientists-plan-hit-skeptics/?test=latestnews spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 18:38:09 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:38:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals Message-ID: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> For one second alight your computronium towers and consider our good friends the *h.p.,* also known as regular people. If we do expect to have something like a singularity within the next century, or at least a turning towards this sort of thing, good old Common Joes must be factored into the equation. Joe is most people. From what I see, there are two major problems regarding a shift to scientific ideals. This is of course assuming that said shift is something we want, which I am assuming for easier progress in the future. I'm sure we could preserve the thing we've got going where common folk use the products of technological progress without understanding them like we have with the internet today, but I fear this would lead straight to a Fahrenheit 451 style 4-wall TV sort of thing. It's the duty of us intellectuals to enlighten the masses and provide fuel for the Rerenaissance. Anyway, here are the two problems. I'm just going to ask the questions as not to make a super-lengthy post, but these are real, serious obstacles to any sort of singularitan future: Problem 1 (The Thinkularity): How do we get from today, where religion is widespread and science is often seen as "the badguy" to a world where people embrace mindnets and space travel and good energy solutions? Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity): Are there unforeseen complications with the entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with positivism? Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? And will the relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From p0stfuturist at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 19:59:27 2010 From: p0stfuturist at yahoo.com (Post Futurist) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 11:59:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <695185.82474.qm@web59902.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Murderers?might live to be 150 or so, rapists can use super-cialis... and so forth. The world is filled not?only with Joes, but with Mansons?as well; and their minds are filled with eons of bad memes. ? ??Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 20:45:23 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 15:45:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity): Are there unforeseen complications with the > entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with > positivism? Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they > are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? And will the > relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion > cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles? > I see a bit of a contradiction here. If people don't make choices, then how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the fiction of free-will? Free will may be a fiction, but it's a useful fiction. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Fri Mar 5 20:49:34 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 14:49:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> I see an overly broad generalization... that of making choices is free will. ---- "Jeffery P. Davis" wrote: > I see a bit of a contradiction here. If people don't make choices, then how > can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the fiction of > free-will? > > Free will may be a fiction, but it's a useful fiction. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 21:06:58 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 16:06:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/5 Jeffery P. Davis > I see a bit of a contradiction here. If people don't make choices, then > how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the > fiction of free-will? > "I'm not choosing to become a murderer, it's just what was fated, so I can't do anything about it and have got to be a murderer." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 20:43:54 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:43:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <432535.63667.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I presume eBay isn't the only place to buy roast leg-of-Davis. Season to taste! :@ Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Dave Sill To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 9:13:46 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again 010/3/5 Jeffery P. Davis : > > Just to take this a little further, if rights derive from self-ownership, is > there > any reason under that assumption that I shouldn't be able to sell the right > to kill, butcher, and consume my body? Nope. But it's against eBay's rules. -Dave From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 21:11:53 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 16:11:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/5 Jeffery P. Davis > > I see a bit of a contradiction here. If people don't make choices, then >> how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the >> fiction of free-will? >> > > "I'm not choosing to become a murderer, it's just what was fated, so I > can't do anything about it and have got to be a murderer." > > Which is why I go to on to say free will may be a fiction, but it's still a useful way of looking the world. :-) -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cluebcke at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 21:15:23 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:15:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> No, that's a description of somebody making an excuse about why they chose to act the way they did. The pointless defense you're looking for is, "I was not, am not, and will never be in control of my actions." Such a person needs to be permanently locked away, so that the rest of us can get on with our illusion-filled, largely homicidal-maniac-free lives. ________________________________ From: Will Steinberg To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 1:06:58 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals 2010/3/5 Jeffery P. Davis I see a bit of a contradiction here. If people don't make choices, then how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the fiction of free-will? > "I'm not choosing to become a murderer, it's just what was fated, so I can't do anything about it and have got to be a murderer." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 21:21:32 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:21:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <107757.56752.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> If it's a fiction, then why is it useful at all? One would think there must be some truth in it. This reminds me of the sort of shallow pragmatism some seem to hold -- as in "I believe X because it works." Well, the next question to ask is Why does X work? -- at least for those who don't just want to sleepwalk through life. :) Regards, Dan ________________________________ From: Jeffery P. Davis To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 4:11:53 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals 2010/3/5 Jeffery P. Davis? > > >I see a bit of a contradiction here.? If people don't make choices, then how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the fiction of free-will? >> > > >"I'm not choosing to become a murderer, it's just what was fated, so I can't do anything about it and have got to be a murderer." > Which is why I go to on to say free will may be a fiction, but it's still a useful way of looking the world.? :-) -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 21:21:33 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 16:21:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mar 5, 2010, at 1:38 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Problem 1 (The Thinkularity): How do we get from today, where religion is widespread and science is often seen as "the badguy" to a world where people embrace mindnets and space travel and good energy solutions? On this question, I think the only real answer is to try to convince people they're wrong, keep trying to publicize extropian and transhumanist ideas, etc. As technology advances, I think that bioluddite vs. transhumanism will come to play as important in a role in politics as views on economics do today. The way I see it is either we, i.e. transhumanists, win the battle for ideas, or humanity dies. The exact strategy, for now, is amorphous, but as these issues come more and more into the forefront of people's minds, it will get more and more obvious. I'm thinking the forming of think tanks, political parties/organizations, lobbying groups, etc. will play a major role. As well as books, tv, and other media. > Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity): Are there unforeseen complications with the entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with positivism? Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? And will the relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles? I don't get why people say free will is a fiction, in any meaningful sense of the word. We deal with people as macroscopic entities, with thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc., and it is literally impossible for us to deal with them, or ourselves, in any other manner. So while physics might be deterministic, viewing people as collections of particles, or synapses (the necessary region where determinism exists), isn't meaningful at all. The world without free will is a world of particles and fields, not of macroscopic entities and things with beliefs, values, ideas, concepts, symbols, knowledge, etc. That "higher" world, the world in which we must operate and exist (and I think always will), is one in which determinism does not exist (do to the abstraction). And in that world, you have free will, are responsible for your actions, and all the rest. That being said, I don't see anything that might go wrong if everyone dumped their religious views, or beliefs in a metaphysical soul, etc. in favor of a naturalist view of themselves, of ideas, concepts, etc. It strikes me as a definite plus. Btw, what exact definition of positivism are you using? There are a number of different ways of looking at the term (logical positivism, Comte's positivism, scientific positivism aka 'scientism', etc.). Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 5 21:28:17 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:28:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again In-Reply-To: <159210.54584.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> <159210.54584.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <79E334D3B0A04921A5D3EF66C23097F8@spike> ...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke ... >...Spike, I read the article (the full one at the Washington Times--ugh), and what you're implying, while it may be true, is not in the article. Context is important: >...""Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails"... Hi Chris, thanks, ja do let us consider the context of the statement and its implications. First of all, I disagree with Dr. Ehrlich, we ARE in a gentlepersons' debate, at least as far as scientists are concerned, for scientists generally are not and should not be political activists. Scientists are poorly suited to...: "...a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies..." Scientists do not work that way, we do not rumble. We study, we think, we model. We generally are not politicians, the class that is far better suited to "...play by entirely different rules..." Political activism is best left to the politicians. Do let us advise, but not get into political street fights. We are gentlepersons, best suited to a gentlepersons' debate. >...Ehrlich (of whom I'm no great fan) is not making the statement you're ascribing to him. Are you aware of him making claims elsewhere that any and all criticism of climate research should be treated exactly the same way? Are you aware of any scientists working in the field who've made such a claim?... Christopher OK I see your point and I agree. My own experience was from a college class in Environment and Man I took in college. Ehrlich's book Population Bomb was on the reading list, but the professor suggested we read that book with an open mind and a critical eye, which I did. By that time the book was about 11 yrs old, and already there were several predictions that clearly were not just wrong but laughable. Regarding Ehrlich's comments, it is the lamestream press that is most guilty of lumping all brands of climate skeptics together, tossing in creationists, truthers, birthers, those who believe climate change is real but beneficial, and those who mostly accept in principle the notion of gradual climate change and only want to benefit humanity while making an honest but outrageously huge buttload of money off of it. spike From cluebcke at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 21:03:41 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:03:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: References: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <595807.11587.qm@web111207.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Will: "Free will" isn't something that you can do away with. If it's real, it's not going to become fictional. If it's unreal, then there's nothing to do away with. What could be a better argument for the existence of free will than to assert that people will behave differently if they believe they don't have one? Seriously, you're proposing that people are going to make decisions because they've decided that they don't make decisions? Jeff: Aside from the problem of defining "will", in what sense one might have "will", what it would mean for one's "will" to be "free", and what it would be for one's "will" not to be "free", anyone can assert that free will is a fiction because that statement, if true, would have absolutely zero consequences for anybody. I can equally assert that free will is a fact, because the statement has an undefined term as its subject and makes no verifiable claims. ________________________________ From: Jeffery P. Davis To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 12:45:23 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals > >Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity): Are there unforeseen complications with the entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with positivism? Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? And will the relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles? > I see a bit of a contradiction here. If people don't make choices, then how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the fiction of free-will? Free will may be a fiction, but it's a useful fiction. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Fri Mar 5 21:37:12 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:37:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100305213712.PGA4V.194796.root@hrndva-web17-z02> Actually you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, you can only drown the nag. What you want to do is get people to question themselves. Even if you get people to admin they were wrong they'll hold you responsible for it. Whatever you were trying to accomplish dies right there. You answer your own question. People don't have free will because they're not willing to question and risk. They're afraid of the unknown. People, all people, are caught in a weird little self-actualizing fantasy. They look around the work with a tinted view, then make decisions based on that view that are self-actualizing, and then look at the consequences and holler about how that's the way the world is. The whole time the vast majority of what they take for a given is their own creation because they don't want to take responsibility for the choice. You can't have free will if you don't want to take responsibility for having the choice. De Omnibus Dubitandum. The funny, ironic aspect is that once you decide to question everything once you can never stop and you realize how little you know and how little you control. At that point you realize that in many things there is no 'free will'. If free will isn't universal then it isn't free. ---- JOSHUA JOB wrote: > On this question, I think the only real answer is to try to convince people they're wrong, > I don't get why people say free will is a fiction, in any meaningful sense of the word. We deal with people as macroscopic entities, with thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc., and it is literally impossible for us to deal with them, or ourselves, in any other manner. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From cluebcke at yahoo.com Fri Mar 5 22:22:51 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 14:22:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again In-Reply-To: <79E334D3B0A04921A5D3EF66C23097F8@spike> References: <37D30A8DEB4C451EBB0FF51D76FE9A1B@spike> <159210.54584.qm@web111204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <79E334D3B0A04921A5D3EF66C23097F8@spike> Message-ID: <613997.92481.qm@web111203.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > scientists generally are not and should not be political activists. I fully agree. However, you must consider, first, that almost all of the arguments against AGW are coming from non-scientists, and second, that there is a marked tendency to personally target the scientists themselves, what with hacking, death threats, and (more commonly) accusations of fraud and general malfeasance, deliberately made in the most public and aggressive way possible. I don't know the full context of what Ehrlich said because the article didn't provide any further quotes from him, but I find it extremely unlikely that he was talking about debating with other scientists. Almost none of the debate (at least measured by volume) is happening within scientific circles, but overlapping circles of popular opinion, cable news and politics. I do agree that scientists are best at science, not PR or policy-making, and I hope that if we can tone down some of the accusations of fraud and conspiracy, and instead have our public figures focus on the merits of the science in question, then maybe they'll be able to spend more time doing what they're cut out for. > it is the lamestream press that is most guiltyof lumping all brands of climate skeptics together, tossing in creationists, truthers, birthers, those who believe climate change is real but beneficial, and those who mostly accept in principle the notion of gradual climate change and only want to benefit humanity while making an honest but outrageously huge buttload of money off of it. Again, I heartily agree. We are biologically inclined to pay attention to loud voices with urgent messages, and "attention" equates to page views and Nelson ratings. ________________________________ From: spike To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 1:28:17 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] paul ehrlich want to hit back at us again ...On Behalf Of Christopher Luebcke ... >...Spike, I read the article (the full one at the Washington Times--ugh), and what you're implying, while it may be true, is not in the article. Context is important: >...""Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails"... Hi Chris, thanks, ja do let us consider the context of the statement and its implications. First of all, I disagree with Dr. Ehrlich, we ARE in a gentlepersons' debate, at least as far as scientists are concerned, for scientists generally are not and should not be political activists. Scientists are poorly suited to...: "...a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies..." Scientists do not work that way, we do not rumble. We study, we think, we model. We generally are not politicians, the class that is far better suited to "...play by entirely different rules..." Political activism is best left to the politicians. Do let us advise, but not get into political street fights. We are gentlepersons, best suited to a gentlepersons' debate. >...Ehrlich (of whom I'm no great fan) is not making the statement you're ascribing to him. Are you aware of him making claims elsewhere that any and all criticism of climate research should be treated exactly the same way? Are you aware of any scientists working in the field who've made such a claim?... Christopher OK I see your point and I agree. My own experience was from a college class in Environment and Man I took in college. Ehrlich's book Population Bomb was on the reading list, but the professor suggested we read that book with an open mind and a critical eye, which I did. By that time the book was about 11 yrs old, and already there were several predictions that clearly were not just wrong but laughable. Regarding Ehrlich's comments, it is the lamestream press that is most guilty of lumping all brands of climate skeptics together, tossing in creationists, truthers, birthers, those who believe climate change is real but beneficial, and those who mostly accept in principle the notion of gradual climate change and only want to benefit humanity while making an honest but outrageously huge buttload of money off of it. spike _______________________________________________ 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Mar 5 23:22:17 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 16:22:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <2d6187671003051522y43ef0ac0m7fcf92a3a5effa22@mail.gmail.com> Natasha wrote: To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more contemporary phrase for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is "whole brain emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is simply not correct. >>> I remember being in a Immortality Institute chatroom where a *19* year-old young man went on and on about how he wanted to "get rid of his damn meat body and be uploaded!" Transhumanist body image problems, anyone?? John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Sat Mar 6 00:36:03 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:36:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Genetic test for most effective diet Message-ID: <201003060036.o260aJq4015397@andromeda.ziaspace.com> The company, Inherent Health, offers several DNA tests. One of these is supposed to show you whether you will lose weight more quickly from a low-carb or a low-fat diet. This is based on differences in three genes, FABP2, PPARG and ADRB2. Although it's clear that some genetic tests are valid, I'm very unsure about this one. I saw only one study cited. Anyone know whether the claimed study is supported or contradicted by other research? The company's info on this is here: http://www.inherenthealth.com/our-tests/weight-management.aspx A story on the test is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35693184/ns/technology_and_science-science/wid/11915773/ Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 00:41:18 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 18:41:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Genetic test for most effective diet In-Reply-To: <201003060036.o260aJq4015397@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003060036.o260aJq4015397@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003051641q741f656kee6b45e92b79ad7c@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 6:36 PM, Max More wrote: > The company, Inherent Health, offers several DNA tests. One of these is > supposed to show you whether you will lose weight more quickly from a > low-carb or a low-fat diet. This is based on differences in three genes, > FABP2, PPARG and ADRB2. > > Although it's clear that some genetic tests are valid, I'm very unsure about > this one. I saw only one study cited. Anyone know whether the claimed study > is supported or contradicted by other research? > > The company's info on this is here: > > http://www.inherenthealth.com/our-tests/weight-management.aspx > > A story on the test is here: > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35693184/ns/technology_and_science-science/wid/11915773/ Another interesting development is Greg Benford and Genescient re: nutrigenomics. I was in an audience of his once: http://designfiles.org/~bryan/hplus-summit-2009/greg-benford.html - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 00:42:21 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P. Davis) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 19:42:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003051522y43ef0ac0m7fcf92a3a5effa22@mail.gmail.com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <2d6187671003051522y43ef0ac0m7fcf92a3a5effa22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > I remember being in a Immortality Institute chatroom where a *19* year-old > young man went on and on about how he wanted to "get rid of his damn meat > body and be uploaded!" Transhumanist body image problems, anyone?? > > I feel the same way and I don't think I have body image problems. I'm reasonably satisfied with my particular body, at least as much as would be expected when having serious health problems. -- "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Mar 6 01:33:59 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:33:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <2d6187671003051522y43ef0ac0m7fcf92a3a5effa22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100305203359.6yjcfyyfwwwgsgcg@webmail.natasha.cc> John wrote: > I remember being in a Immortality Institute chatroom where a *19* year-old > young man went on and on about how he wanted to "get rid of his damn meat > body and be uploaded!" Transhumanist body image problems, anyone?? Not at all! I enjoy sports too much. Sure, I've gotten on in the years and work to retard as much aging as possible, but I have no interest in being a bodiless thingy when there could be so many, many possible alternatives to bodily design - shape, consistency, material, transparency, etc. As a very basic example which are rather mundane but at least are imaginative, just look at some of the marvelous body designs in Section Life. My dear friend Elif Ayiter designs amazing entity forms. www.flickr.com/people/alpha_auer/ www.citrinitas.com/ mutamorphosis.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/elif-ayiter/ visualcomplexity.com While a biological body is so 20th Century, that doesn't mean that a body is passe. Best to you John, Natasha From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Mar 6 01:43:40 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:43:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100305203359.6yjcfyyfwwwgsgcg@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <2d6187671003051522y43ef0ac0m7fcf92a3a5effa22@mail.gmail.com> <20100305203359.6yjcfyyfwwwgsgcg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20100305204340.1x7dynb3kswooo4k@webmail.natasha.cc> I meant to write Second Life (although Section Life could be a term for copying segments of the brain's memory). Quoting natasha at natasha.cc: > John wrote: > > >> I remember being in a Immortality Institute chatroom where a *19* year-old >> young man went on and on about how he wanted to "get rid of his damn meat >> body and be uploaded!" Transhumanist body image problems, anyone?? > > Not at all! I enjoy sports too much. Sure, I've gotten on in the > years and work to retard as much aging as possible, but I have no > interest in being a bodiless thingy when there could be so many, many > possible alternatives to bodily design - shape, consistency, material, > transparency, etc. As a very basic example which are rather mundane > but at least are imaginative, just look at some of the marvelous body > designs in Section Life. My dear friend Elif Ayiter designs amazing > entity forms. > > www.flickr.com/people/alpha_auer/ > www.citrinitas.com/ > mutamorphosis.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/elif-ayiter/ > visualcomplexity.com > > While a biological body is so 20th Century, that doesn't mean that a > body is passe. > > Best to you John, > Natasha > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 02:14:13 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:14:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> Message-ID: <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:54 AM, spike wrote: > If we settle for slow, light cars, we can get high fuel economy. ?Our > current Detroits are such comical overkill, our grandchildren will laugh and > envy. You mean the way we envy our [great-]grandparents who shoveled chunks of coal into boilers to drive steam engines? From sparge at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 02:27:24 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:27:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:14 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > You mean the way we envy our [great-]grandparents who shoveled chunks > of coal into boilers to drive steam engines? No, more like the way we wish we could still flush a turd with a single push of the handle. -Dave From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 02:34:25 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:34:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003051834y2cf7a2cu21c5ea058235517e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:27 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:14 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: >> >> You mean the way we envy our [great-]grandparents who shoveled chunks >> of coal into boilers to drive steam engines? > > No, more like the way we wish we could still flush a turd with a > single push of the handle. My counter analogy was concerned about locomotive power (figuratively and literally) OTOH, your observation is about another type of "going" :) From Frankmac at ripco.com Sat Mar 6 03:31:59 2010 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 22:31:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Peter Thiel Explains How to Invest in the Singularity | Epicenter | Wired.com Message-ID: <000501cabcdd$99abfc20$ad753644@sx28047db9d36c> Ran across this from before the crash of 2008, seems we had a prophet but no one heard him. It's a good read still Frank http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2007/09/peter-thiel-exp/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 03:27:06 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 19:27:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com><57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <12A54B19746F44929513731F6EA07F76@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty > Subject: Re: [ExI] Energy hints > > On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:54 AM, spike wrote: > > If we settle for slow, light cars, we can get high fuel > economy. ?Our > > current Detroits are such comical overkill, our grandchildren will > > laugh and envy. > > You mean the way we envy our [great-]grandparents who > shoveled chunks of coal into boilers to drive steam engines? No not at all. In some ways we may see a generation which will look backward to a time when transportation was better in an important way than it is for them, but in a sense we already do that now. Production cars from 40 years ago are generally faster than modern cars, if measured by quarter mile times at the dragstrip. Modern cars are actually better in so many ways, more comfortable, more reliable, cheaper to run etc, but not faster. Do go hang out at the local dragstrip to see what I mean. I extrapololate that into the future and can foresee cars that can drive themselves to some extent, reconfigure themselves to maximize the comfort of individual drivers, automatically play their favorite music and so forth, be a dream car in all but one important area, speed. They could be really advanced yet be slower than today's cars. There are likely plenty of people on this list who remember grandpa's V8 that would go like a bat outta hell. In my case, he had a '65 Chevy Malabu: lotsa power, light, faster than stink, fun to drive. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 03:35:49 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 19:35:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike><62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Dave Sill > Subject: Re: [ExI] Energy hints > > On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:14 PM, Mike Dougherty > wrote: > > > > You mean the way we envy our [great-]grandparents who > shoveled chunks of coal into boilers to drive steam engines? > > No, more like the way we wish we could still flush a turd > with a single push of the handle. > > -Dave Dave, you know that it is a really easy modification to make your toilet a single flush, ja? You are smart enough to fix computers and such; toilets are about a tenth of a percent as complicated. Look in there, figure out how it works, use your imagination. Get a plastic tube and extend that vertical overflow pipe, then adjust the float that operates the cutoff valve so that the tank fills almost to the top. Then it will become a one-flusher, and stay cleaner. A waste disposal plant operator told me what happened when the lawmakers really got serious about forcing the introduction of the low water use toilets: the effluvient arrived at the plant in a form that was too concentrated to be processed efficiently. Solution: the waste plant added fresh water back into the effluvient before it went into the processing tank. Fresh water costs money of course, so they increased the bills to the customers. Problem solved. Sigh. spike From sparge at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 04:30:08 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 23:30:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <12A54B19746F44929513731F6EA07F76@spike> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <12A54B19746F44929513731F6EA07F76@spike> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:27 PM, spike wrote: > > No not at all. ?In some ways we may see a generation which will look > backward to a time when transportation was better in an important way than > it is for them, but in a sense we already do that now. ?Production cars from > 40 years ago are generally faster than modern cars, if measured by quarter > mile times at the dragstrip. 1970 Corvette 3425 lbs 300-460 HP 390 HP quarter mile: 15.0 s 2010 Corvette 3217 lbs 430-650 HP 430 HP quarter mile: 12.2 s >?Modern cars are actually better in so many > ways, more comfortable, more reliable, cheaper to run etc, but not faster. Not completely true: modern cars handle *much* better than classics due to improved suspensions and better, lower-profile tires. > Do go hang out at the local dragstrip to see what I mean. You're seeing heavily modified, non-roadworthy, dedicated race cars. Of course most these are older because most people can't afford to gut a late model car and make a dragster out of it. > There are likely plenty of people on this list who remember grandpa's V8 > that would go like a bat outta hell. ?In my case, he had a '65 Chevy Malabu: > lotsa power, light, faster than stink, fun to drive. I had a big block '69 Plymouth that was like that, but it doesn't hold a candle to my current car, a 4-cyl turbo sedan that could easily out accelerate and outhandle it--as well as '69 Ferrari. -Dave From sparge at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 04:35:50 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 23:35:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:35 PM, spike wrote: > > Dave, you know that it is a really easy modification to make your toilet a > single flush, ja? Oh, yeah, I've already re-gutted all of my toilets. But I still hear lots of folks pining for the toilets of old. That will soon be replaced by people reminiscing about incandescent bulbs, once they're outlawed--and they're already getting hard to find. -Dave From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 05:06:08 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:06:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike><62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> Message-ID: <9C9044A4ADF644E298BE4450AD704FE7@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Dave Sill > ...That will soon be replaced by people reminiscing about > incandescent bulbs, once they're outlawed--and they're > already getting hard to find. -Dave I went to get incandescent bulbs at WalMart last week, the specialty decorative ones in which the bulb itself is shaped like a candle flame. I found the bulbs but noticed all six bulbs in the package were broken. On the shelf were four more similar packages, all bulbs in all the packages were broken. I had to conclude intentional sabotage. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 04:57:47 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 20:57:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike><62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <12A54B19746F44929513731F6EA07F76@spike> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Dave Sill > Subject: Re: [ExI] Energy hints > > On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:27 PM, spike wrote: > > > > ...? > > Production cars from 40 years ago are generally faster than modern > > cars, if measured by quarter mile times at the dragstrip. > > 1970 Corvette > 3425 lbs > 300-460 HP > 390 HP quarter mile: 15.0 s > > 2010 Corvette > 3217 lbs > 430-650 HP > 430 HP quarter mile: 12.2 s > ... -Dave... Ja, to get into the low twelves requires the supercharged ZR1. http://www.motorauthority.com/blog/1033487_gm-bumps-price-of-2010-corvette-z r1-up-2910-to-107830 Over a hundred thousand bucks! I don't even take that kind of unobtanium into consideration, and Dave if you are anywhere near the price range of that kind of stuff, then clearly I have treated you with insufficient respect. {8^D Regarding my earlier comment: >...Dave, you know that it is a really easy modification to make your toilet a single flush, ja?... For those of us who live in earthquake country, making this mod is a good safety precaution as well. In a really big earthquake it is possible, even likely that the water mains will be shut down for a while, until they can check for and fix breaks, then verify there is no bacteria in the water. Could take a week or more. The water stored in your toilet tank (not the bowl) is perfectly safe to drink or use in cooking after a quake. A lot of people store earthquake food but waaay insufficient stores of water. Stuff that keeps a long time usually needs water with it. Think about it: oatmeal, pasta, condensed soup, most canned goods, pretty much anything that keeps indefinitely. If you live in Taxifornia, the big one is coming, it isn't if but when. If the tank on your toilet is orange and nasty skanky looking, it's probably iron stains, won't hurt you. Clean it! If it grosses you out to think of drinking that, don't worry, it won't anymore after you go a few hours without water. spike From nanite1018 at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 06:23:50 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 01:23:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5B2D87C4-B73E-4531-A74C-A9164A5F9D4D@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 5, 2010, at 1:00 AM, Emlyn wrote: > Well that's definitional, but can you cede this self control > irrevocably (ie: without the ability to take it back against the > wishes of the entity to whom you ceded it)? Not sure, though on the face of it, I would say yes (provided there were legal structures in place to ensure you were not under duress at the time). > btw, I think with regard to self-ownership (in a self-as-property > sense) it is a stretch to somehow call it based in nature. It's a > socially constructed view of person, for a start, and an arbitrary > ideal chosen as a starting point (exactly as human rights are). I > think to claim otherwise requires some pretty serious handwaving. Well, see, I don't necessarily base everything in the idea of self-ownership, though I pretty much end up at that point anyway. I say that man is an animal that must use reason in order to produce the things it needs to survive. A requirement for his life is independent thought, and control of himself and his actions. Without that, he cannot survive (and as a result, anyone who prevents that, by initiating force, is violating the principle upon which their lives are based, and thus, they lose any claim to "rights" derived from what is necessary for man's survival, in principle). Obviously, this is, essentially, the principle of self-ownership. And from this, comes the fact that you own the creations of your mind (your ideas, as they are your creations) and obviously your body (your concrete productions like artwork or computer chips, etc.). That's my basis for IP, and rights in general actually. > Much more common is that an employee is quite dependent apon a job. > They might be an unskilled worker who will take no transferable skills > to the job market. Or they might be indebted and thus be unable to > tolerate even a short period without an income. Or they may be highly > trained and experienced workers who have highly specialized skills, > for which there is a very limited market (perhaps for example a rocket > scientist!) > > Such a person is in an unequal power relationship with an employer who > believes they can replace the employee easily. So, although there is > no force, it is very easy to imagine scenarios where such employees > trade away benefits (holidays? overtime? health insurance? permanent > employee status?) simply because their employer "requests" it of them. > The request is perceived as an order with which they must comply, > because of the power relationship. This person will understand that > the change is not in their interest, that they are now worse off. They > will feel forced to make the decision they make. That is power being > exercised. [And another similar example after that, similar in form, though with roles reversed.] Now, here is the key difference. At least in our society, you can always get a different job, even if it is something you are wont to do, for example, instead of being a rocket scientist, you could mop floors at a local barbershop, live in a small apartment with 6 other people, eat at soup kitchens, etc. Now, I am not saying that is the best of all worlds, but I am saying that your survival is almost certainly not an issue here. And if it ever got to be, usually that was in large part a result of your own bad decisions (and so not something I feel obligated to concern myself with, as it does not interfere with the principle I am trying to outline; they got what they chose). So, what the real source of contention must be here is not that they are forcing your hand in the same way that a person who says "your money or your life" does, as that is no choice at all. But so long as you are still alive, and are not breaching anybody's rights (i.e. initiating force on anyone), then you still have options. And in such a case, what you are really discussing is a sharply tilted cost-benefit analysis, where, via the actions and attitudes of another person, the costs and benefits are heavily skewed in favor of your choosing on course of action over some other option. Force removes you from the realm of choice (as you are no longer in control of your actions, someone else is making you do one thing or another, as death is no choice at all, in any possible way, shape or form). In this case, you still have options, that do not include death, and no one is taking away your property, your life, or your personal sovereignty (by assaulting you, say). By your argument then, having a set of options in which one is obviously the most beneficial choice (by a longshot) is immoral (I'm not sure if you would use that word, but since you are arguing that it can be a violation of rights, I am assuming it is an apt characterization). I don't see anything other than this in the situation at hand- power relations do not involve physical force, rather they involve the manipulation of costs and benefits so as to make a particular option far more attractive (or perhaps just less repulsive) than other options, and thereby "forcing" the hand of a rational person. But isn't this a very odd idea of "force" or "coercion"? After all, we come across such lopsided decisions all the time in our lives- Should I go to college? Should I maintain my integrity rather than forfeiting it for some short-term gain? Should I ask her to marry me (ideally this fits in this category, haha)? Indeed, we are placed in such positions all the time in social situations, even with peers (suddenly stripping naked at the dinner table at your partners parent's house is virtually unthinkable, as it would cost so much and produce very little benefit). People control their own actions, and control their property, and as a result have influence over the world in which you live, thereby influencing your decisions. I don't see a qualitative difference between not stripping naked at the parent-in-law's house and not disobeying a request from your employer. Regardless, if you are a rational person, then you would only agree if the interaction is in your best interest (and if you are not rational, well, I don't feel the need to protect you from your mistake, that's how you learn). So long as you still have personal sovereignty, property rights, and all the rest, I don't see the basis for arguing that you have "no choice" or were "forced" when your decision was a result of your own cost-benefit analysis of the situation, and no actual physical force or threat of it was involved. Such is my first go at trying to demonstrate that these power asymmetries are not essential, and that the essential part of the human landscape is the inviolacy of your own mind, body, and property, in regards to physical force. > I think it should probably be possible to enter into such a contract > (disingenuous as it may be), but it should not be possible to be bound > to that agreement (exactly as is the case now in free societies - you > cannot be bound by such a contract). Then it wasn't a contract in the first place. Now, I'll admit that in such situations as a contract of slavery, it is going to be hard to demonstrate the person was not acting under duress, that is, that there was no force or threat of it involved. The decision is so crazy on the face of it that it seems almost certain that only someone under threat of force would enter into such a contract, and as a result, the contract is invalid. > This is where we differ, and it is because of my contention that we > exist in a network of uneven power relations. If you could sell > yourself into slavery, very quickly many of the poorer people in the > world would be slaves. Why? Because they are dependent in some way or > another on some interaction with an entity far more powerful than them > (employer? credit agency? loanshark? walmart?), who will merely have > to say "Become my slave and I'll waive your debt" or "all employed > positions are redundant, but we are taken on slaves, sign up here" or > "become a slave and win this iphone!". It doesn't matter, again, if > you say these people are somehow bad or foolish for taking up such > "offers", the fact remains that it would happen, en-masse, and it > would be due to the exercise of power, be it not directly violent, by > the powerful over the weak. Okay, now here is the problem I see with this: anyone who would enter into such an arrangement is surely undeserving of my or anyone's sympathies. Becoming a slave is worse than death, it is annihilation of your control over your body, but with you still aware inside it. Such a condition is intolerable, and entering into it so long as there was the chance to live a "free" man (even in jail) is something only someone who is insane, self-destructive, or profoundly irrational would do. In the first case the contract is void anyway, in the latter two, the person does not, in my opinion, deserve our sympathy. I take a similar view to someone who commits suicide (in a non-torture setting) - if you do that, you obviously weren't worth your mass in water, as you obviously didn't think yourself worth that much. Perhaps that is callous, but I don't see why I should care about someone if they don't even care about themselves. > Now I don't say that all decisions are under duress. Actors of > relatively similar power will have free relations, absent the > influence of third parties. Duress, and just as importantly the > foreseeable possibility of duress, comes into play where power is > radically uneven. To maintain a free society, therefore, the project > is to mitigate uneven power relationships. eg: the separation of > powers in a democracy is designed to hamstring attempts to wield > necessary government powers as general purpose power outside of its > intended bounds. Again, I think this depends on a faulty assumption, that power relations are somehow essential to life. What you are really discussing is everyday cost-benefit analyses, and I don't see how one could consistently apply your position, as it essentially bans all "obvious" decisions. If the decision is obvious and any other conclusion essentially inconceivable, then clearly the costs and benefits are too skewed, and your decision was not free, even for something as simply as not stripping at the dinner table. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 06:34:59 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 17:34:59 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> Message-ID: On 6 March 2010 15:35, Dave Sill wrote: > On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:35 PM, spike wrote: >> >> Dave, you know that it is a really easy modification to make your toilet a >> single flush, ja? > > Oh, yeah, I've already re-gutted all of my toilets. But I still hear > lots of folks pining for the toilets of old. That will soon be > replaced by people reminiscing about incandescent bulbs, once they're > outlawed--and they're already getting hard to find. What's the advantage of incandescents over compact fluorescents? -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 6 07:11:23 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:11:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> Message-ID: <4B92001B.2090703@satx.rr.com> On 3/6/2010 12:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > What's the advantage of incandescents over compact fluorescents? Rheostats/dimmers work. From ddraig at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 07:24:12 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 18:24:12 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/6 Christopher Luebcke : > No, that's a description of somebody making an excuse about why they chose > to act the way they did. > The pointless defense you're looking for is, "I was not, am not, and will > never be in control of my actions." Such a person needs to be permanently > locked away, so that the rest of us can get on with our illusion-filled, > largely homicidal-maniac-free lives. I am living with somebody like that right now. Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking out, and when he does, yep, he does whatever he feels like as he feels he is not responsible for his actions. This goes from making a mess, to not paying to anything, right up to declaring the other day that 1: this year he will kill somebody, and 2: he is going to burn down a heap of churches. It is interesting to watch his thought processes manifest themselves. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 07:33:12 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 18:33:12 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: <4B92001B.2090703@satx.rr.com> References: <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> <4B92001B.2090703@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 6 March 2010 18:11, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/6/2010 12:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> What's the advantage of incandescents over compact fluorescents? > > Rheostats/dimmers work. It can be done with compact fluorescents, although at somewhat greater cost: http://www.green-energy-efficient-homes.com/dimmable-compact-fluorescent-bulb.html LED's are even more energy efficient than CFL's: up to twice as much light output for a given power input, and lasting up to ten times as long before needing to be replaced. They can also be electronically dimmed quite easily. However, they are more expensive at present, and they are not as good at rendering colours as incandescents and fluorescents. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 07:37:10 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 18:37:10 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6 March 2010 18:24, ddraig wrote: > 2010/3/6 Christopher Luebcke : >> No, that's a description of somebody making an excuse about why they chose >> to act the way they did. >> The pointless defense you're looking for is, "I was not, am not, and will >> never be in control of my actions." Such a person needs to be permanently >> locked away, so that the rest of us can get on with our illusion-filled, >> largely homicidal-maniac-free lives. > > > I am living with somebody like that right now. > Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking out, and when he > does, yep, he does whatever he feels like as he feels he is not > responsible for his actions. This goes from making a mess, to not > paying to anything, right up to declaring the other day that > > 1: this year he will kill somebody, and > 2: he is going to burn down a heap of churches. > > It is interesting to watch his thought processes manifest themselves. In some jurisdictions you get a longer sentence if you are found not guilty on the grounds of insanity than if you are found guilty. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 10:01:54 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 10:01:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 6:00 AM, Emlyn wrote: > > In fact some would agree entirely with this. I think there is nuance > here though; there is some range where relative powers are close > enough to treat as equal. We can proceed on the assumption that actors > are more or less in this range, leave it as the responsibility of > individuals that they don't fall into terribly asymmetric situations, > and try to rectify egregious examples of power imbalance where they > are being obviously abused. But it's always going to be messy and > imperfect. > Emlyn You are pointing at the fundamental flaw in libertarian theology. (So you've got no chance of reaching agreement). :) All their contracts, fair markets, fair dealing, etc. only works between absolutely equal, mostly honest parties. And, as you say, with the inherent power differences in the world, this system is a non-starter. If I convince a native Indian to sell me Manhattan for a handle of beads of his own free will, that's not a fair contract. It is someone powerful taking advantage of someone weaker. The weakness can be in intelligence, education, general knowledge, physical or mental disability, wealth (being poor and desperate), or even more honest (not accustomed to dealing with a con-man), and so on. Joshua's system assumes a world of identical Joshua's. But that wouldn't work because they would all want to be on the same side of the deal. Catch-22. BillK From giulio at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 14:10:41 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 15:10:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> Message-ID: Transcending the body is not only Western, and I don't find "mortification" in Moravec. I think someday (not soon) sentient beings will have the option to live as software without a permanent physical body, and the universe will be a better place for this. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong in trying to enjoy our current meat bodies. -- Giulio Prisco giulio at gmail.com (39)3387219799 On Mar 5, 2010 1:20 AM, "Sarah Wood" wrote: Having chosen Moravec as an entry point, my first impression is that he is to a large extent simply reproducing an entrenched Western narrative about body transcendence & mortification, albeit secularized and couched in languages of efficiency or functionality. Thoughts? _______________________________________________ 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 sparge at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 14:50:02 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 09:50:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 1:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > What's the advantage of incandescents over compact fluorescents? Cost. No 5-minute warm-up before full brightness is achieved. -Dave From sparge at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 15:02:03 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 10:02:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <188184.45412.qm@web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <12A54B19746F44929513731F6EA07F76@spike> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 11:57 PM, spike wrote: > >> ...On Behalf Of Dave Sill >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Energy hints >> >> 1970 Corvette >> 3425 lbs >> 300-460 HP >> 390 HP quarter mile: 15.0 s >> >> 2010 Corvette >> 3217 lbs >> 430-650 HP >> 430 HP quarter mile: 12.2 s > > Ja, to get into the low twelves requires the supercharged ZR1. No, ZR1 is 11.2, Z06 is 11.6, and the 12.2 I listed was for a stock Grand Sport: http://www.dragtimes.com/Chevrolet-Corvette-ZR1-Timeslip-17249.html http://www.dragtimes.com/Chevrolet-Corvette-Timeslip-13319.html http://www.dragtimes.com/Chevrolet-Corvette-Timeslip-19579.html -Dave From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Mar 6 15:47:21 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 10:47:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals. In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <85F91CC2-E8E3-43B0-B129-6972D69D7D72@bellsouth.net> On Mar 5, 2010, Will Steinberg wrote: > For one second alight your computronium towers and consider our good friends the h.p., also known as regular people. If we do expect to have something like a singularity within the next century, or at least a turning towards this sort of thing, good old Common Joes must be factored into the equation. Joe is most people. Economically if we ever get to the point where Mr. Joe Average expects the singularity to happen in his lifetime then we can expect a huge increase in interest rates, because regardless of whatever crushing debt he takes on, after the singularity one of 2 things is certain to happen: 1) Paying off that huge debt will be easy. 2) The singularity will kill Mr. Joe Average. > Are there unforeseen complications with the entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with positivism? Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? I can't imagine how that could make the slightest difference, free will is not an idea it's just a noise some people like to make with their mouth. Would you like to hang around with serial murderers even if they were (or were not, I'm not even sure which one is supposed to be better or which one we have now) "bound by choice"? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 16:39:46 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 08:39:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals In-Reply-To: References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of ddraig > ... > > > I am living with somebody like that right now. > Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking out, > and when he does, yep, he does whatever he feels like as he > feels he is not responsible for his actions. This goes from > making a mess, to not paying to anything, right up to > declaring the other day that > > 1: this year he will kill somebody, and > 2: he is going to burn down a heap of churches. > > It is interesting to watch his thought processes manifest themselves. > > Dwayne Dwayne, because you posted this on a public forum, you have filled me and a bunch of others here with a sense of secondary responsibility. Now I do insist, you must take action here: make damn sure the appropriate local authorities know about this, that they know what your roommate said. Don't delete this message or laugh it off just because it was me who posted it. I do mean it bud, this is now YOUR responsibility. Take care of this NOW before truly bad consequences take place, do it, do it NOW! spike From nanite1018 at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 17:34:30 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 12:34:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6ACBABC5-26C3-4AC1-AE04-2EB88F1892EF@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 6, 2010, at 5:01 AM, BillK wrote: > All their contracts, fair markets, fair dealing, etc. only works > between absolutely equal, mostly honest parties. Actually, I'd say it just needs a government that prevents punishes the use of force (including fraud). If you have that, you can't have anyone taking advantage of people's stupidity or gullibility, as then they may be liable for fraud. Without that, you are right, I think things might go to hell in a handbasket pretty quick, which is why I insist on it. > If I convince a native Indian to sell me Manhattan for a handle of > beads of his own free will, that's not a fair contract. You are right, as the tribe that sold Manhattan didn't even live on the land, or have any concept of property (though I'm not sure how you should deal with such a population). Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 18:07:17 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:07:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003061007h59892841nc22cc27e502dcbd3@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > What would you consider a realistic scenario for sea level rise over the > next, say, 50-100 years? ### 2.8 to 3.5 cm/decade. ----------------------- > Is it perhaps that you believe that there are no "realistic scenarios > related to manmade?climate warming" at all, and therefore that which will > never exist will pose no threat? ### Exactly. To the best of my knowledge, there is no measurable AGW so far, and no reason to assume there will be any in the future. ---------------------- Otherwise I really can't understand how you > can discount it. >>?Name the climatologists who claim that changes in Arctic sea ice?can >> cause >> disruptive rises in sea level > If I had made that claim, I would be happy to provide evidence. Again, > please read carefully. >> I didn't make the claims you implied I did. I didn't claim that Bangladesh >> had already been losing land, and I didn't claim that global sea ice cover >> had been shrinking. Again, please read carefully. ### OK, let's quote you again: "I care about events that indicate an increased potential for disruptive (read: suffering-generating) climate change. I'm sure you're aware of the significants climatologists place on the more-rapid-than-expected Arctic melt,". You said that in the context of discussing Bangladeshi climate refugees, thus by innuendo connecting Arctic ice melt to rise in sea level. You were trying to appeal to the authority of unnamed "climatologists" to justify a connection between an observed event and dire warnings of future calamity, so as to strengthen the impact of your warning. I called you out, asking exactly what would be the mechanism connecting Arctic ice and putative flooding in Bangladesh and which authority claims to know this mechanism - of course, you retreat, since this is how innuendo works. It's meant to somewhat nebulously convey a message (here, prediction of catastrophe if we don't follow your recipes) but worded so as to assure easy deniability when pressed for details. Rafal From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 6 17:42:06 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 09:42:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <896969.58485.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I second Spike's motion. Dwayne aside from your moral responsibilities you may also have placed yourself in legal jeopardy. I don't have a law degree but it seems to me that if you fail to report these threats to the authorities and this person commits a crime then this message of yours below might find its way into civil or even criminal court as evidence against you. Given that you lived with the perpetrator and had prior knowledge of the crime, someone could try to say that your complacency made you complicit and thus partially responsible (in civil court), or that you aided and abetted or co-conspired (in criminal court), or who knows what. Pick up the phone and call the police. -gts --- On Sat, 3/6/10, spike wrote: > From: spike > Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals > To: ddraig at pobox.com, "'ExI chat list'" > Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010, 11:39 AM > > > > ...On Behalf Of ddraig > > ... > > > > > > I am living with somebody like that right now. > > Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking > out, > > and when he does, yep, he does whatever he feels like > as he > > feels he is not responsible for his actions. This goes > from > > making a mess, to not paying to anything, right up to > > > declaring the other day that > > > > 1: this year he will kill somebody, and > > 2: he is going to burn down a heap of churches. > > > > It is interesting to watch his thought processes > manifest themselves. > > > > Dwayne > > > Dwayne, because you posted this on a public forum, you have > filled me and a > bunch of others here with a sense of secondary > responsibility.? Now I do > insist, you must take action here: make damn sure the > appropriate local > authorities know about this, that they know what your > roommate said.? Don't > delete this message or laugh it off just because it was me > who posted it.? I > do mean it bud, this is now YOUR responsibility.? Take > care of this NOW > before truly bad consequences take place, do it, do it > NOW! > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 18:19:47 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:19:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <4B8FE82F.4040201@satx.rr.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <4B8FE82F.4040201@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003061019k5d3a96b4x965c592e6414d297@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/4/2010 10:10 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > >>> ?The short version: >>> ?We are increasingly and will eventually entirely*be* >>> ?information. If >>> ?we allow ownership of information, we eventually lose >>> ?ownership of ourselves. > >> ### I don't understand. Shouldn't it be "If we forbid the ownership of >> information, and if we are information, ?then we forbid the ownership >> of ourselves."? Without IP we will have, among others, no defense >> against unauthorized copying of us (i.e. making of slave copies). > > That was my thought also. "First they take away ownership of your work > product, then they take away ownership of yourself." It really doesn't > matter if they are plutocrats, gummints or Stalinist dictators who do it, > it's always for the Greater Good. (The bogus "Think of the children!" plea.) > > Which seems to me a very different proposition from deciding by democratic > means (if that's still possible and has any meaning nowadays) to allocate > some of our wealth, effort, dedication, cleverness in common ways to > maximize our well-being. ### I keep plugging for my atrociously long paean to polycentric legal systems, see http://triviallyso.blogspot.com/2010/01/of-beating-hearts-part-2.html Does it make sense to you? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 18:23:32 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:23:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003031947w79e2744anf2392f2f6e7e4538@mail.gmail.com> <2DDF758E-5A90-40F6-9E30-F20B7A7E8E28@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003032313p200f9e79o215822b8f03c96ab@mail.gmail.com> <304623C5-57B5-4E7A-B426-341F126CC83E@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003061023q540763a9qaa6136b6a2c35429@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/4 Jeffery P. Davis : > >> That you enter into a contract with terms and conditions upon the purchase >> of an item plays a fundamental role in IP. Its why they have the messages at >> the beginning of movies, on CD cases, in user agreements for all sorts of >> things, etc. "You were duly informed." > > > There's a warning on hairdryers too, it says 'Do not use in bathtub.' > > If I want to take something I've bought and make a copy of it, or tear it > apart to see how it works, there's not a lot that can be done to stop me.? I > don't see where morality enters the picture unless I'm depriving someone of > income. ### Not everything is reducible to financial loss. "Pacta servanda sunt" means much more than "Thou shalt not steal". Rafal From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Mar 6 18:35:21 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:35:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals. In-Reply-To: References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> On Mar 6, 2010, at 2:24 AM, ddraig wrote: > I am living with somebody like that right now. > Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking out, and when he > does, yep, he does whatever he feels like as he feels he is not > responsible for his actions. This goes from making a mess, to not > paying to anything, right up to declaring the other day that > 1: this year he will kill somebody, and > 2: he is going to burn down a heap of churches. Why are you living with such a creep? Get out now! And then tell somebody who might be able to stop him, that last part probably won't work if he's really serious, but it's your duty to try. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 18:42:46 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:42:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003061042n4bd8e623k1890ae6c71d4f6c3@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Emlyn wrote: > > I think the libertarian idea that we can begin with property rights > and derive everything else from them is elegant, but doesn't work > (from a utilitarian point of view), largely because of its parsimony. > It is too simple, and ignores power. ### I am a bit of a strange libertarian in that I don't recognize property rights as moral primitives from which all else flows. Rather, property rights are contingent on the interactions of embodied minds operating to fulfill desires in the physical world, they emerge because very frequently they work (yes, it's a utilitarian notion, just as what you espouse yourself). Let me plug for my current thinking about polycentric law ( http://triviallyso.blogspot.com/2010/01/of-beating-hearts-part-2.html ) as the generator of rules which, as I imagine, would produce an order most efficiently translating desires into actions in a social setting. It would also most likely in many situations re-discover strong property rights, including IP, yet contingent on the desires of in-group members. The system would not start with property rights and derive everything else from them - instead it would start with a procedure for integrating and weighing human desires and derive from it property rights and other lower-order rules. It's like an all-ass-backwards type of libertarianism, please see the post and don't get put off by its length. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 18:52:51 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 10:52:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] pbs nova online Message-ID: <55E53F5D494446C8BFFFD06BBEA85513@spike> Hey cool! Did you guys know you can get Nova and some other PBS stuff online free? You hafta sit thru a few commercials, but it looks like a bargain, considering a decade ago I was paying 10 bucks per episode for some selected Nova episodes on DVD. http://www.hulu.com/watch/63744/nova-secrets-of-the-parthenon#play-all Oh wait, you already knew about it? Damn I am so tragically not hip. {8-[ I don't get cable TV anymore, but I do get cable internet, so this is important to me. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 18:57:11 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:57:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003061057p783e9045ib0bd78d3bb8047db@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 5:01 AM, BillK wrote: > If I convince a native Indian to sell me Manhattan for a handle of > beads of his own free will, that's not a fair contract. ### That Indian relinquished a minor part of his hunting range, got beads, gave them to squaws and scored. The settlers got a messy, wooded little rock that needed years of backbreaking labor to be transformed into middling-quality farmland (and millions of man-years to build into a financial center), so the transaction was quite equitable. Who are you to tell the Indians what to do with their land? Are you some white-man guru of sorts, who feels he can call the shots with brown people? Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 19:04:43 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 19:04:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] pbs nova online In-Reply-To: <55E53F5D494446C8BFFFD06BBEA85513@spike> References: <55E53F5D494446C8BFFFD06BBEA85513@spike> Message-ID: 2010/3/6 spike wrote: > Hey cool!? Did you guys know you can get Nova and some other PBS stuff > online free?? You hafta sit thru a few commercials, but it looks like a > bargain, considering a decade ago I was paying 10 bucks per episode for some > selected Nova episodes?on DVD. > > http://www.hulu.com/watch/63744/nova-secrets-of-the-parthenon#play-all > > Only works for USA IP addresses. So outsiders have to bounce in via a USA address if they want to watch. As some compensation, did you know that the complete archives of Popular Science magazine can now be browsed for free? BillK From protokol2020 at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 19:35:26 2010 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 20:35:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals. In-Reply-To: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: A little meta or off topic. But if anybody cares for my opinion - John K Clark is the voice of reason. Rare voice of reason even here on this list and here around. It is my advice to everybody to consider almost all of his posts very seriously. 2010/3/6 John Clark > On Mar 6, 2010, at 2:24 AM, ddraig wrote: > > I am living with somebody like that right now. > Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking out, and when he > does, yep, he does whatever he feels like as he feels he is not > responsible for his actions. This goes from making a mess, to not > paying to anything, right up to declaring the other day that > 1: this year he will kill somebody, and > 2: he is going to burn down a heap of churches. > > > Why are you living with such a creep? Get out now! And then tell somebody > who might be able to stop him, that last part probably won't work if he's > really serious, but it's your duty to try. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 6 19:28:04 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 11:28:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Genetic test for most effective diet In-Reply-To: <201003060036.o260aJq4015397@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <728112.5005.qm@web36505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Max, > Although it's clear that some genetic tests are valid, I'm > very unsure about this one. I saw only one study cited. > Anyone know whether the claimed study is supported or > contradicted by other research? I found this pdf of a powerpoint presentation that contains references to a number of studies supporting the research: http://nutrigenomics.ucdavis.edu/ames/downloads/debusk_and_draper_workshop2a.pdf You'll see the relevant studies cited about half-way through the presentation. You could then look for abstracts of the original research in the PubMed database: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ I haven't looked at the abstracts but the concept seems valid to me based on the powerpoint. -gts From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 6 19:48:41 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 11:48:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespreadextropian/positivistideals In-Reply-To: <896969.58485.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <896969.58485.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4DB539212C4944E49BE3B2A5DE98F940@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Gordon Swobe > I second Spike's motion. > ... > Given that you lived with the perpetrator and had prior > knowledge of the crime, someone could try to say that your > complacency made you complicit and thus partially responsible > (in civil court), or that you aided and abetted or > co-conspired (in criminal court), or who knows what. -gts > > > > ...On Behalf Of ddraig > > > ... > > > > > > I am living with somebody like that right now. > > > Well, he has been hospitalised, but he keeps breaking > > out... Dwayne Ja to Gordon's post, and furthermore Dwayne, this term you used "breaking out" caught my full and undivided. If your roommate was committed for some reason and he escaped, then the second call you must make is to the hospital from which he keeps breaking out. Do make sure the director of that hospital knows of her escaped charge's comments. You need not explain her legal accountability, she already knows. Stathis is a mental health professional if I recall correctly. He might be able to advise here, or suggest who to contact, but it is clear to me that timely action is necessary to avert potential tragedy, and I do not mean some-other-timely but rather todayly, right-nowly. spike From cluebcke at yahoo.com Sat Mar 6 21:19:01 2010 From: cluebcke at yahoo.com (Christopher Luebcke) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:19:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003061007h59892841nc22cc27e502dcbd3@mail.gmail.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <425539.16052.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003061007h59892841nc22cc27e502dcbd3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <472583.53450.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Rafal, I am simply not going to engage in an argument with you about what I was or wasn't really trying to say. Your accusation that I intentionally used innuendo to make an unjustifiable claim is one that you cannot prove, and one that I cannot disprove, because intention is not directly observable. Despite this, you've now taken up the project of revealing my hidden intentions, and are essentially accusing me of being dishonest when I inform you that you are incorrect. It is striking that, once again, you have been unable to disagree with a position without attacking the character of the person holding it. If you're now going to start arguing against what you claim I really mean, rather than what I actually say, then there's no need for me to continue to participate in the conversation, because you're having it with yourself. Enjoy, Chris ________________________________ From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: Christopher Luebcke Cc: ExI chat list Sent: Sat, March 6, 2010 10:07:17 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Christopher Luebcke wrote: > What would you consider a realistic scenario for sea level rise over the > next, say, 50-100 years? ### 2.8 to 3.5 cm/decade. ----------------------- > Is it perhaps that you believe that there are no "realistic scenarios > related to manmade climate warming" at all, and therefore that which will > never exist will pose no threat? ### Exactly. To the best of my knowledge, there is no measurable AGW so far, and no reason to assume there will be any in the future. ---------------------- Otherwise I really can't understand how you > can discount it. >> Name the climatologists who claim that changes in Arctic sea ice can >> cause >> disruptive rises in sea level > If I had made that claim, I would be happy to provide evidence. Again, > please read carefully. >> I didn't make the claims you implied I did. I didn't claim that Bangladesh >> had already been losing land, and I didn't claim that global sea ice cover >> had been shrinking. Again, please read carefully. ### OK, let's quote you again: "I care about events that indicate an increased potential for disruptive (read: suffering-generating) climate change. I'm sure you're aware of the significants climatologists place on the more-rapid-than-expected Arctic melt,". You said that in the context of discussing Bangladeshi climate refugees, thus by innuendo connecting Arctic ice melt to rise in sea level. You were trying to appeal to the authority of unnamed "climatologists" to justify a connection between an observed event and dire warnings of future calamity, so as to strengthen the impact of your warning. I called you out, asking exactly what would be the mechanism connecting Arctic ice and putative flooding in Bangladesh and which authority claims to know this mechanism - of course, you retreat, since this is how innuendo works. It's meant to somewhat nebulously convey a message (here, prediction of catastrophe if we don't follow your recipes) but worded so as to assure easy deniability when pressed for details. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Mar 6 22:05:07 2010 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 17:05:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] Energy hints In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030632l4e7a7bf7q646c319579403892@mail.gmail.com> <57B234DACAF24D3A83AEB909DB019ECF@spike> <62c14241003051814i2a4029b1y707fa982298705dc@mail.gmail.com> <173B5D6C0ADE42AAAA3828FADFB993EB@spike> Message-ID: <39117.12.77.168.239.1267913107.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 1:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> What's the advantage of incandescents over compact fluorescents? > They'll keep my snake cages warm. Special "heat" bulbs are very pricey. Regards, MB From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Mar 7 00:52:16 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 19:52:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: <472583.53450.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <339014.22920.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003022146u245f9607ndfedb1abe8aafbd3@mail.gmail.com> <225489.67648.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003032152xd087f1ci3754dc387100b86e@mail.gmail.com> <490029.56109.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040053k10e5176cv149d592b01ecbb75@mail.gmail.com> <390703.80706.qm@web111211.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003061007h59892841nc22cc27e502dcbd3@mail.gmail.com> <472583.53450.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003061652l180d2692q14f39430db37fa26@mail.gmail.com> Funny how you didn't comment on my specific prediction of sea level rise .... as if it was less important for the well-being of humanity than the minutia of your argumentation style. Looks like facts matter less than feelings in this discussion, now hopefully over. Rafal 2010/3/6 Christopher Luebcke : > Rafal, > I am simply not going to engage in an argument with you about what I was or > wasn't?really trying to say. Your accusation that I intentionally used > innuendo to make an unjustifiable claim is one that you cannot prove, and > one that I cannot disprove, because intention is not directly observable. > Despite this, you've now taken up the project of revealing my hidden > intentions, and are essentially accusing me of being dishonest when I inform > you that you are incorrect. > It is striking that, once again, you have been unable to disagree with a > position without attacking the character of the person holding it. > If you're now going to start arguing against what you claim I really mean, > rather than what I actually say, then there's no need for me to continue to > participate in the conversation, because you're having it with yourself. > Enjoy, > Chris From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 7 18:08:12 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:08:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c21003030646m510dd74fx69e948bca6c865b6@mail.gmail.com> <901517.34565.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003071008m7f2365b2wc165a8210bddb74d@mail.gmail.com> On 4 March 2010 10:28, Gordon Swobe wrote: > --- On Wed, 3/3/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > >> We can quite easily reduce mental phenomena > >> epistemically without reducing the same phenomena > >> ontologically. I mean here that we can understand mental > >> phenomena in scientific terms of neurological causes and > >> effects without abandoning the common sense notion that > >> mental phenomena have an irreducibly subjective ontology. > > > > We can perhaps. But why ever should we? > > We should for the sake of saving the notion of "common sense". Common sense is simply a number of assumptions implicit in a (normally collective) worldview. What is "obvious" changes in space and above all in time. Some parts of it have mainly epistemological implications, other are more emotional. Of course, we cannot ever escape having one worldview, but it also evolves through the relativisation of its tenets, which is mostly performed through the deconstruction of its genealogy. Such process is of course resisted in different degrees by any of us owing to our "faith" in the old ways to interpret things. > If input equals "Given that your performance seems equal to that of a human, do you have a mind?" then output "Yes indeed, I have a mind just like Stefano has a mind." > Call me crazy, Stefano, but somehow I think that code above does not really give the computer a mind like you have a mind. What do you think? If that system's abilities were limited to that, I would not call it a system that has any expertise in checking Turing tests results, something which was required by my hypothesis. -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Sun Mar 7 18:21:44 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 10:21:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] verrry small galaxies? Message-ID: There's a good article at Science News about a subject that has puzzled me for decades, how it is that matter around a black hole sheds enough angular momentum to eventually fall in: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/how-black-holes-overcome-cetrifugal-force-to-suck-in-gas/#ixzz0hW3nZ8A9 The article contains what I think is an error: "...At much larger distances???about 30 to 300 light-years from the center???disturbances from collisions with other galaxies and the gravitational interactions of matter within the galaxy can drive gas toward the central black hole..." I think they meant accretion disks of nearby stars, rather than collisions with other galaxies. I can't see immediately how collisions with other galaxies would be a big player in this phenom. Where's Amara these days? She would know the answer. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 7 18:57:52 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 10:57:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <580930c21003071008m7f2365b2wc165a8210bddb74d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <235057.55893.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 3/7/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: >>> We can perhaps. But why ever should we? >> >> We should for the sake of saving the notion of "common sense". > Common sense is simply a number of assumptions implicit in > a (normally collective) worldview. What is "obvious" changes in space > and above all in time. Some parts of it have mainly epistemological > implications, other are more emotional. Of course, we cannot ever > escape having one worldview, but it also evolves through > the relativisation of its tenets, which is mostly performed > through the deconstruction of its genealogy. Such process is of course > resisted in different degrees by any of us owing to our "faith" in the > old ways to interpret things. Yes, I agree, but by "common sense" I mean also something a little more basic and literal. I look around and see some 6 billion or so entities who literally have senses in common with me. Why do you suppose, for example, that we humans like to talk about the weather, especially when we do not know one another well? It seems to me we discuss the weather because it appeals to our common sense of reality, and that our common sense of reality literally has to do with the physical senses that we share in common. We all feel the warmth of the sun, the coldness of snow and ice, the solidity of the earth beneath our feet, the colors of nature, and so on. Our common subjective sense of physical reality unites us as a species and allows us to literally make sense of the world. You asked why ever should we do an epistemic but not an ontological reduction of mental phenomena, and I hope you can see what I meant by my answer: we can reduce mental phenomena epistemically and causally (the job of neuroscience) but we cannot reduce those phenomena ontologically without losing our common sense. It literally makes no sense to reduce subjectivity to something objective, and for this reason I subscribe to a flavor of non-reductive physicalism in the philosophy of mind. -gts From lacertilian at gmail.com Sun Mar 7 20:13:00 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 12:13:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience In-Reply-To: <130224.65928.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <130224.65928.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I don't seem to have enough time to single-handedly support my side of the argument, Swobe-style, so I think I will have to admit defeat for now. Just as well. Stathis and Ben made pretty solid points about six and three days ago, respectively. I don't have any way to counter Stathis, since I already basically agree with him, and I would have a tough time poking a hole in that car analogy. Lesson learned: playing devil's advocate is difficult without backup! From lacertilian at gmail.com Sun Mar 7 20:35:54 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 12:35:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: <384574C2-74C8-4A9C-AA0B-8FA21EC776AF@bellsouth.net> References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> <384574C2-74C8-4A9C-AA0B-8FA21EC776AF@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: John Clark : > I was looking for intelligent behavior, and no I don't have a definition of > intelligence but I have something much better, examples. So: you are proud to point to examples of a thing which you can't define. I don't see the logic. If I realized that I was recognizing a phenomenon that I don't know how to describe, I, personally, would feel pretty strongly compelled to work on articulating it. In short, I would want to know what it is I think I'm seeing. Gut instinct is only the beginning of a whole process of understanding. John Clark : > That is unclear, if the statement is "I also believe mind scanning fails" > then you are correct. But that isn't the statement. I'm disagreeing with an implication, here. I believe "A" and I believe "not B". Therefore, I believe "if A then B" is a false statement. John Clark : > I don't understand, an old experienced brain would have lots to say to a > brand new blank brain, but what would the blank brain have to say to the old > brain that is relevant in this matter? In fact what would a blank brain have > to say period? Maybe I should have said "interaction" instead of "communication". Brains don't "say" anything. They just respond. When I think of a blank brain, I think of a big wad of totally inactive neurons. As soon as you set one of them off, the whole thing activates; it's no longer blank. It responds immediately. Jeffery P. Davis : > John Clark : >> That's why mind is not involved in blinking, only the brain. > > ?Couldn't you make a comparison to the subroutines of a program? I could! I don't have to, since I can blink at will, but I could defend against "try to make your heart stop beating" that way. Very easily. I won't, though, because I resigned from this thread. Yup. Totally done with it. I'm not even here. These very words are an illusion, confabulated by your primitive ape-mind in a desperate ploy to justify its own existence. From lacertilian at gmail.com Sun Mar 7 21:04:31 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 13:04:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <6ACBABC5-26C3-4AC1-AE04-2EB88F1892EF@GMAIL.COM> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <6ACBABC5-26C3-4AC1-AE04-2EB88F1892EF@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: JOSHUA JOB : > Actually, I'd say it just needs a government that prevents punishes the use of force (including fraud). How does the government punish itself for using the force necessary to punish others? "Who polices the police". You may begin groaning. Still, it's a valid point. You can't just whip out a perfect system of law enforcement to solve your problems. The law has to enforce itself. Nothing else works; at least, not well. Sidenote: I actually wrote a 500-600 word post for this thread a few days ago, to the effect that intellectual property is a bad idea. I didn't send it because it was insufficiently elegant. I may try again later on. From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 01:40:03 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 20:40:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <6ACBABC5-26C3-4AC1-AE04-2EB88F1892EF@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <91DB703E-B033-49EA-95E2-99F39369E911@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 7, 2010, at 4:04 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > How does the government punish itself for using the force necessary to > punish others? > > "Who polices the police". You may begin groaning. Still, it's a valid > point. You can't just whip out a perfect system of law enforcement to > solve your problems. The law has to enforce itself. Nothing else > works; at least, not well. Well, the government doesn't have to punish itself, because it isn't initiating force (as it is restricted only to punishing other people's initiation of force, it is, in essence, an institutionalized self-defense for the entire population). Since it can't initiate force, it cannot collect taxes, and can, at best, charge some small fee for certain types of services (like a "right to be enforced" stamp on an official contract, for example) and accept donations, those types of things. And as for my preferred "who watches the watchmen", you'd have to make sure there are a number of internal checks and balances, preferably with a quite decentralized power structure, an ironclad constitution (no "necessary and proper" nonsense), and a way for the population to check the government (probably some form of voting, as well as an armed population, but lets not go into that as apparently that topic is dangerous round these parts). What exactly do you mean "law that enforces itself", do you mean no government at all? Or just more obvious laws? Property rights, even in the "real" world, can be very difficult waters to navigate in the first place; it was a huge topic in the 19th Century (prior to governments claiming the right to regulate/control everything). And there are still issues today which aren't really settled. And as property rights are very important, I should think, any government at all that is involved in them will likely have a time creating laws that simply "enforce themselves", i.e. be so simple there is never any question and it is blatantly obvious to absolutely everyone all the time who is in the right and wrong. As property rights are vital for a government to enforce (if it is going to be concerned with enforcing anything, really), IP doesn't seem that much more complicated than the numerous issues involved in "material" property. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From lacertilian at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 03:31:50 2010 From: lacertilian at gmail.com (Spencer Campbell) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:31:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <91DB703E-B033-49EA-95E2-99F39369E911@GMAIL.COM> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <6ACBABC5-26C3-4AC1-AE04-2EB88F1892EF@GMAIL.COM> <91DB703E-B033-49EA-95E2-99F39369E911@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: JOSHUA JOB : > Well, the government doesn't have to punish itself, because it isn't initiating force (as it is restricted only to punishing other people's initiation of force, it is, in essence, an institutionalized self-defense for the entire population). I don't buy it. The government cannot perform self-defense on behalf of other people. Aside from that, ALMOST ALL instances of self-defense qualify as "force". Certain martial arts can enable you to sidestep this. Aikido, for example. However, if you actually looked at all the aikido practitioners in the world, I expect you would see that the vast majority are still mostly using force even though they're told not to. It takes at least ten years to kick that habit. Even then, we relapse. Frequently. Take it from someone who caught his sensei invisibly devolving into brutality during a demonstration, for no reason at all, just enough to fail at throwing me. JOSHUA JOB : > What exactly do you mean "law that enforces itself", do you mean no government at all? Or just more obvious laws? Out of the two, I would lean towards "more obvious laws". I think it would be better to say "more natural laws", however. Laws which not only aren't arbitrary, but clearly do not *appear* arbitrary. Generally, people drive on the correct side of the road whether or not you tell them to. It just makes visceral sense. If you drive on the wrong side, you will crash into someone. Simple. The same is not true of, say, littering, or loitering. It isn't intuitively *obvious* to people that it isn't in their best interest to do these things, and so it happens a lot. Statistically speaking, you see many orders of magnitude more litterers than you do malicious drivers. The difference is essentially this: an arbitrary law is enforced by consequences imposed by other people, whereas a natural law is enforced by consequences of your own actions. I should stress that this has nothing to do with how "good" the law is; only how easily the population accepts it. The more natural a law is, the fewer resources you need to devote to maintaining it. If the law is good and right in addition to that, implement it. JOSHUA JOB : > As property rights are vital for a government to enforce (if it is going to be concerned with enforcing anything, really), IP doesn't seem that much more complicated than the numerous issues involved in "material" property. And yet it is much, much more complicated, for the simple reason that intellectual property is fundamentally easier to steal. In fact, you can steal it just by looking at it. Nothing can stop you. I don't think it's possible, even in theory, to construct a self-enforcing copyright system. To me, this indicates that we may be looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Indeed, I think you're seeing a problem where there really isn't one. From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 03:59:26 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 22:59:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <6ACBABC5-26C3-4AC1-AE04-2EB88F1892EF@GMAIL.COM> <91DB703E-B033-49EA-95E2-99F39369E911@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <0EBBF174-3D25-42AE-B7EC-F36DF8573413@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 7, 2010, at 10:31 PM, Spencer Campbell wrote: > I don't buy it. The government cannot perform self-defense on behalf > of other people. Aside from that, ALMOST ALL instances of self-defense > qualify as "force". The idea is that government is simply an institution with which people place their right to defend themselves (in part), because the might of many many many people is far better than a single person defending himself alone. You have a right to respond with force when someone initiates force against you (as they are violating your rights and so can no longer claim to have rights of their own, in a limited sense). Having others defend you is also right, since you are not granting anyone a right you do not yourself have. I am NOT saying that you do not have a right to use force under any circumstances. I am saying you ONLY have a right to use force when someone violates your rights (that is, in self-defense or defense of your property), and then, legally, only can do so within certain bounds. So, you can shoot someone who attacks you, but you cannot go and burn down the house of someone who stole from you. Essentially, you retain your right to defend yourself directly in a crisis, but in non-crisis situations you agree to let the government do it (so that people don't run around killing each other claiming their rights were violated without proof). > Out of the two, I would lean towards "more obvious laws". I think it > would be better to say "more natural laws", however. Laws which not > only aren't arbitrary, but clearly do not *appear* arbitrary. > ... > The difference is essentially this: an arbitrary law is enforced by > consequences imposed by other people, whereas a natural law is > enforced by consequences of your own actions. I'm sorry, but I just don't see it. Then all idea of property rights (or at least most of it) goes out the window as arbitrary, since many people will feel it is in their best interests to steal (however irrational that is). Similarly with very well executed murders (that is, little evidence), and all sorts of other things. You NEED laws to be enforced by other people. If you didn't, then everyone would be angels, and that is simply not true. Many many of the morally correct laws that should be imposed would meet your definition of arbitrary (unless everyone was rational and understood where their rights came from, etc., which is unlikely ever to be the case). > And yet it is much, much more complicated, for the simple reason that > intellectual property is fundamentally easier to steal. In fact, you > can steal it just by looking at it. Nothing can stop you. > > I don't think it's possible, even in theory, to construct a > self-enforcing copyright system. To me, this indicates that we may be > looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Indeed, I think you're > seeing a problem where there really isn't one. I agree with you on the latter point, a self-enforcing copyright system is likely impossible. But so is a self-enforcing rights respecting legal system in general. The people who break laws, only do so because they feel the benefits outweigh the costs (even if they're crazy for thinking so). That is why we need police and courts, to take care of the nutjobs of the world. And since we need that anyway, there isn't much more to an IP system. I know of no way to steal someone's intellectual property just by looking at it. You have to DO something with it in order to infringe someone's property rights. If you create a product that exactly matches various architectures or systems created by another company, you can be shown to have infringed on their patent (or not, that's what court/arbitration is for). Similarly, if you copy a book plot, or make an copy of a movie without permission, all of those things can be shown without a doubt. Now, whether it is perfectly enforceable isn't the issue, as most things people do with their content that they purchase that is protected by IP law is something that isn't that big a deal to the companies, and indeed is something everyone wants to be able to do anyway. This is exactly why companies are working to give us access to ALL our media everywhere, anytime, for just the cost of initial purchase. Its why "digital copy" is springing up all over on DVDs, because people want those types of things. They realize that they cannot try to sell people a movie 5 times in order to be able to watch it on their computer, their iPod, their TV, etc. etc. Because people simply won't buy those multiple copies, they'll try everything in their power to get around the protections, and there is virtually no way to prevent it or enforce your IP claims. I'm not saying they don't have them, but that ultimately, in some cases, the cost of enforcement in public discontent, time, and money is simply too high to be profitable. This is similar to how often people will not press charges if someone hits them, for example (like in the case of a fight of some kind). It simply isn't worth it. In some cases, it is, like is the case with many patents, or with a for-profit illegal movie distribution ring, something like that. In fact, there are numerous crimes committed everyday that do not get reported, even though they are perfectly legitimate, for just this reason. So I'd advise not trying the "its unenforceable" argument, as it is simply highly costly to enforce, just as with numerous legitimate crimes that people don't bother reporting every day. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 10:04:44 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:04:44 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals. In-Reply-To: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: > Why are you living with such a creep? Because he is a good friend of mine and he needs people to help him while he is currently mentally ill. And none of his other friends are supporting him. But, the latest round is just a bit much even for me. I have very strong opinions about friendship and loyalty. Perhaps too strong. But I have hit my limit. > Get out now! His sister (who owns the apartment) is evicting the pair of us. Right now I'm unemployed and on the the 1st of next month I shall also be homeless. I have an interesting life, it seems. In the meantime I'm stuck there until I 1: find a job and 2: find a house. Given that I am in the middle of the worst rental crisis in Melbourne's history, #1 is far more likely than #2. > And then tell somebody > who might be able to stop him, that last part probably won't work if he's > really serious, but it's your duty to try. Oh I rang his counsellor up 10 minutes after he told me this. This is why is is back in hospital. Hopefully they will be able to keep him there. I have no faith in this, however, given that since the start of november have has escaped on average twice a week. The hospital seems to be doing a huge effort in blame-shifting. It is my opinion that they are waiting for him to commit a serious crime so he can be part of the criminal justice system and thus no longer their problem. This is a horrible hypothesis, but it fits the facts as I see them, and nothing else I can think of does. I am not on any of the bills and he has had the phone (and internet) cut off, thus the delay in replying. Sorry if it has stressed anyone out. "but it's your duty to try." Yes, of course. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 10:31:16 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 11:31:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] free will again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003080231m3d25cdeewad837e49cd0a4fd9@mail.gmail.com> On 4 March 2010 21:47, Keith Henson wrote: > ************************* > Free will is an illusion, biologist > says > Physorg.com Mar. 3, 2010 > ************************* > University of Pennsylvania > biologist Anthony Cashmore argues > that belief in free will is akin to > religious beliefs, since neither > complies with the laws of the > physical world, representing a > continuing belief in vitalism or > magic. He says free will is an > illusion derived from consciousness, > but consciousness has an > evolutionary advantage of... > http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=11895&m=21115 > > ********** I might be passing for a... wolframist, by now, but the way the NKS founder deals with the subject seems to me quite pertinent and persuasive. See http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-0750-text. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 10:41:45 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:41:45 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals In-Reply-To: <896969.58485.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <896969.58485.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 7 March 2010 04:42, Gordon Swobe wrote: > I second Spike's motion. We can start playing bingo soon :) > Dwayne aside from your moral responsibilities you may also have > placed yourself in legal jeopardy. I don't have a law degree but it > seems to me that if you fail to report these threats to the authorities > and this person commits a crime then this message of yours below > might find its way into civil or even criminal court as evidence against you. I not only know this, I have repeatedly told him this. "I will not lie to the police for you. I will not go to gaol for you" The problem is that anything he wants to be, he feels is so. So he wants me to be on his side and not tell anyone. His desire of course makes it real. So he confides in me. Not being part of his mental universe, I then tell whoever needs to know about this stuff. Aside form anything else (such as the potential for murder), I don't want him out scaring the public, and this info will hopefully keep him inside, taking his medication. > Given that you lived with the perpetrator and had prior > knowledge of the crime, someone could try to say that your > complacency made you complicit and thus partially responsible > (in civil court), or that you aided and abetted or co-conspired > (in criminal court), or who knows what. I actually do not care at all about legal liabilities, I don't want anyone killed, injured, or maimed, and keeping the relevant people informed is the best way of keeping him inside and out of reach of the public (and vice-versa). To my mind people existed before laws. I look after people first, laws second. "Dwayne aside from your moral responsibilities" Oh, yes, that bit :) > Pick up the phone and call the police. Called his counsellor 10 minutes after I spoke to him, about 3 days (I think, time is a bit blurry atm) before I wrote that email. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 10:44:37 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 11:44:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> As somebody coming from "wet" transhumanism, I could not endorse more the following Natasha's statement. In fact, we have just begun to tap into the potential of biotech itself... On 5 March 2010 01:46, wrote: > I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It would not be > my choice at all. ?Transhumanism is not about robots and bush people. > ?Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview. ?If you lens is robotics, > again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a collection of sciences > and technologies through which the transhumanist goal or future could be or > has the potential of being established. > > And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not agree that it > is a bad thing. ?Body transcendence is not the aim of transhumanism - > whether a body is used or not is NOT the point! ?Uploading is not the GOAL > of transhumanism! > > This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap. ?I oppose Moravec's particular > vision, no matter how imaginative it is. ?We will not forgo the biological > body for no body, but transform the biological body for semi and > non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic environments. > > To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more contemporary phrase > for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is "whole brain > emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is > simply not correct. -- Stefano Vaj From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 10:48:23 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:48:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespreadextropian/positivistideals In-Reply-To: <4DB539212C4944E49BE3B2A5DE98F940@spike> References: <896969.58485.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4DB539212C4944E49BE3B2A5DE98F940@spike> Message-ID: On 7 March 2010 06:48, spike wrote: > Ja to Gordon's post, and furthermore Dwayne, this term you used "breaking > out" caught my full and undivided. ?If your roommate was committed for some > reason and he escaped, then the second call you must make is to the hospital > from which he keeps breaking out. Yes, they told me early on in the piece that I am legally required to inform the police the moment I know where he is (such as kicking down our front door, as he has lost his key, for example). Which I do. I also inform him of this as he arrives: "you know I have to call the police. I'm calling the police" I then call the police. I live in one of the wealthiest parts of Melbourne. It is amazing how quickly the police arrive. He escapes twice a week on average. > ?Do make sure the director of that > hospital knows of her escaped charge's comments. ?You need not explain her > legal accountability, she already knows. Well, his treating doctor, the nurse on duty, and his counsellor know. I have absolutely no faith in the hospital to do anything other than cover it's own back. I have never seen a hospital like this. It is horrifying. > Stathis is a mental health professional if I recall correctly. ?He might be > able to advise here, or suggest who to contact, but it is clear to me that > timely action is necessary to avert potential tragedy, and I do not mean > some-other-timely but rather todayly, right-nowly. Oh, don't worry about that, I go out of way to help people (such as my currently-deranged friend), the last thing I am going to do is not make an effort to prevent a possible fatality. I think it is more likely he will be beaten up, actually. I don't want *that* to happen, either. This whole thing just illustrates to me that we need a *lot* more money to treat the mentally ill in Australia. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 11:00:26 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:00:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled In-Reply-To: References: <201002162111.o1GLBY3S004345@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2036C08C6E1F4DB4A3A762F4711CCB4B@spike> <62c14241003012022sf13f323l7067a426d9abe678@mail.gmail.com> <5FCFE6FD1122482EA0370DC0720EE992@spike> <942785.32216.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <574592.72869.qm@web111214.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003030824p4ae428cch75d130691b7982d6@mail.gmail.com> <212824.72698.qm@web111206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <580930c21003031252x350ae609sc41c4e722fb81937@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003080300v67e1008bo337341b9a884a71b@mail.gmail.com> On 3 March 2010 22:51, spike wrote: > ? ? ? ?- First, do they get the notion of negative feedback system > stabilization in nature? Absolutely. But the issue here is hypothetical *positive* feedback mechanisms. In fact, I hear a few doom mongers suggesting that, "for all we know", we might be on the verge of a threshold beyond which no reduction of emission would actually matter, because global warming would become a self-feeding (and possibly self-accelerating) process. If this were true, OTOH, nothing says that we did not go through such threshold, say, five years ago. In such case, any effort aimed at limiting emissions would be futile, and on the contrary the sensible approach would be to ignore all kind of short-term environmental issues and use whatever energy sources we might have at hand to engage in damage control programmes, geo-engineering projects, or "thermophyle" biotech. Thus, the "for all we know" argument does not really dictate per se any specific course of action. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 11:15:48 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:15:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <235057.55893.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c21003071008m7f2365b2wc165a8210bddb74d@mail.gmail.com> <235057.55893.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003080315l174ddd46vb1d60055079ef694@mail.gmail.com> On 7 March 2010 19:57, Gordon Swobe wrote: > You asked why ever should we do an epistemic but not an ontological reduction of mental phenomena, and I hope you can see what I meant by my answer: we can reduce mental phenomena epistemically and causally (the job of neuroscience) but we cannot reduce those phenomena ontologically without losing our common sense. It literally makes no sense to reduce subjectivity to something objective, and for this reason I subscribe to a flavor of non-reductive physicalism in the philosophy of mind. One might well believe that the sky would fall were we to embrace the opposite POV, but after all the idea that all (an indeed qualified "all") human beings and only human beings have some mythical "objective consciousness" is a such well-delimited bias, culturally and historically, that its likely disappearing would probably change very little in the world history. -- Stefano Vaj From giulio at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 11:40:09 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:40:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure software. Of course these options will become available much later than the options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > As somebody coming from "wet" transhumanism, I could not endorse more > the following Natasha's statement. In fact, we have just begun to tap > into the potential of biotech itself... > > On 5 March 2010 01:46, ? wrote: >> I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It would not be >> my choice at all. ?Transhumanism is not about robots and bush people. >> ?Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview. ?If you lens is robotics, >> again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a collection of sciences >> and technologies through which the transhumanist goal or future could be or >> has the potential of being established. >> >> And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not agree that it >> is a bad thing. ?Body transcendence is not the aim of transhumanism - >> whether a body is used or not is NOT the point! ?Uploading is not the GOAL >> of transhumanism! >> >> This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap. ?I oppose Moravec's particular >> vision, no matter how imaginative it is. ?We will not forgo the biological >> body for no body, but transform the biological body for semi and >> non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic environments. >> >> To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more contemporary phrase >> for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is "whole brain >> emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is >> simply not correct. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 8 17:01:01 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:01:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Continuity of experience. In-Reply-To: References: <77429FAC-065F-4447-A4F3-273090F84259@bellsouth.net> <715CB28C-42FF-49C1-8054-C5324BAC62AD@bellsouth.net> <384574C2-74C8-4A9C-AA0B-8FA21EC776AF@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: On Mar 7, 2010, Spencer Campbell wrote: > > you are proud to point to examples of a thing which you can't define. Yes. > I don't see the logic. Examples are much more important and much more fundamental than definitions, it's where we get the information to make our definitions after all, assuming we even have one that's worth a damn; most people have not even opened a dictionary since their fourth grade teacher made them and yet they manage to communicate just fine. When we were infants we learned our native language from examples not by memorizing a lot of grammatical rules and definitions. > If I realized that I was recognizing a phenomenon that I don't know how to describe, I, personally, would feel pretty strongly compelled to work on articulating it. Articulate it with words, all of which are defined in a dictionary with more words that are also defined with yet more words, and round and round we go. This is the point Gordon Swobe has been repeating over and over and over again in his thread (by the way congratulations Gordon, you just reached your 3 month anniversary), but human beings must have managed to break out of this logical dead end, otherwise Evolution would not have allowed us to survive, and they did it by means of examples. They pointed to something in the real world and then they pointed to a squiggle they had just written and their children understood the connection. > I'm disagreeing with an implication, here. > I believe "A" and I believe "not B". Therefore, I believe "if A then > B" is a false statement. No, from the above you don't have nearly enough information to make that logical jump. If you believe in "not B" then you BELIEVE B is false and A has nothing to do with it; but as to the actual truth or falsehood of B there is no way to know. You said: >>> if mind scanning does not preserve objective continuity, then there must necessarily be a preferred rate of change in the universe. I agree with that statement entirely. Then you said >>> I accept unconditionally that there is no preferred rate of change in the universe I agree with that statement too. From that the only logical conclusion is that the statement "mind scanning does not preserve objective continuity" is false. If "A then B" is true then "not B then not A" is also true. And I still don't understand why I should give a tinker's damn if objective continuity is preserved or not. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Mar 8 20:54:10 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:54:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. Morphological Freedom? hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4-photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom , www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, and I could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically incorrect. As an artist, I have been pretty much politically incorrect most my life! :-) and would rather build bridges these days by just trying to be as correct as possible (given my human intellect which is not much to write about) and by being kind-hearted. Best, Natasha Quoting Giulio Prisco : > I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for > me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, > but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, > we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to > modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its > widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure > software. > > Of course these options will become available much later than the > options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by > biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now > politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. > > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> As somebody coming from "wet" transhumanism, I could not endorse more >> the following Natasha's statement. In fact, we have just begun to tap >> into the potential of biotech itself... >> >> On 5 March 2010 01:46, ? wrote: >>> I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It would not be >>> my choice at all. ?Transhumanism is not about robots and bush people. >>> ?Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview. ?If you lens is robotics, >>> again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a collection of sciences >>> and technologies through which the transhumanist goal or future could be or >>> has the potential of being established. >>> >>> And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not agree that it >>> is a bad thing. ?Body transcendence is not the aim of transhumanism - >>> whether a body is used or not is NOT the point! ?Uploading is not the GOAL >>> of transhumanism! >>> >>> This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap. ?I oppose Moravec's particular >>> vision, no matter how imaginative it is. ?We will not forgo the biological >>> body for no body, but transform the biological body for semi and >>> non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic environments. >>> >>> To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more >>> contemporary phrase >>> for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is >>> "whole brain >>> emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is >>> simply not correct. >> >> -- >> Stefano Vaj >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Mon Mar 8 21:05:04 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:05:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20100308210504.WHJEV.464203.root@hrndva-web22-z01> I have two thoughts to share on this exchange... - Sounds like a re-hash of the Schismatrix Shaper-Mechanist dichotomy - There is no real Transhumanist dichotomy, this whole either or (ie wet|soft/dry|hard) discussion is a good example of how none of you have escaped the non-transhumanist patterns in your fundamental mental model. ---- natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning > the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured > and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to > a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests > multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, > identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. > > Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean > that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future > noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. > > Morphological Freedom? > hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4-photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom , > www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf > > Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, > and I could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically > incorrect. As an artist, I have been pretty much politically > incorrect most my life! :-) and would rather build bridges these days > by just trying to be as correct as possible (given my human intellect > which is not much to write about) and by being kind-hearted. > > Best, > Natasha > > > Quoting Giulio Prisco : > > > I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for > > me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, > > but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, > > we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to > > modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its > > widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure > > software. > > > > Of course these options will become available much later than the > > options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by > > biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now > > politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. > > > > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > >> As somebody coming from "wet" transhumanism, I could not endorse more > >> the following Natasha's statement. In fact, we have just begun to tap > >> into the potential of biotech itself... > >> > >> On 5 March 2010 01:46, ? wrote: > >>> I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It would not be > >>> my choice at all. ?Transhumanism is not about robots and bush people. > >>> ?Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview. ?If you lens is robotics, > >>> again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a collection of sciences > >>> and technologies through which the transhumanist goal or future could be or > >>> has the potential of being established. > >>> > >>> And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not agree that it > >>> is a bad thing. ?Body transcendence is not the aim of transhumanism - > >>> whether a body is used or not is NOT the point! ?Uploading is not the GOAL > >>> of transhumanism! > >>> > >>> This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap. ?I oppose Moravec's particular > >>> vision, no matter how imaginative it is. ?We will not forgo the biological > >>> body for no body, but transform the biological body for semi and > >>> non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic environments. > >>> > >>> To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more > >>> contemporary phrase > >>> for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is > >>> "whole brain > >>> emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is > >>> simply not correct. > >> > >> -- > >> Stefano Vaj > >> _______________________________________________ > >> extropy-chat mailing list > >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >> > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 21:19:02 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 16:19:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> > What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning > the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured > and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to > a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests > multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, > identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. > > Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean > that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future > noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. How does the concept of morphological freedom deal with issues like surgical addiction? I ran into a surgical addict on a message board years ago and the pictures he posted of himself are not among my fondest memories. Whether there's a distinction between implanting magnets under your fingertips and cutting chunks out of yourself because of mental illness depends on who you're talking to. "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Mon Mar 8 21:34:25 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:34:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> Message-ID: <20100308213426.JPZQA.464654.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Addiction? You mean behavior outside the -current cultural norm- don't you? If you look at the range of human activities across culture you realize that such discussions and distinctions are really expressions of the current cultural models, whether one realizes it or not. Aztec kings used to regularly push obsidian knives through their penises to collect blood to burn, now that's a surgical addiction. ---- Jeff Davis wrote: > How does the concept of morphological freedom deal with issues like surgical > addiction? > > I ran into a surgical addict on a message board years ago and the pictures > he posted of himself are not among my fondest memories. > > Whether there's a distinction between implanting magnets under your > fingertips and cutting chunks out of yourself because of mental > illness depends on who you're talking to. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Mar 8 21:36:21 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:36:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100308210504.WHJEV.464203.root@hrndva-web22-z01> References: <20100308210504.WHJEV.464203.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Message-ID: <20100308163621.ct9wlnlyosw8sgwc@webmail.natasha.cc> This may very well be quite correct for all of us! And with that in mind (pun here), one design concept I love is the metabrain. I was just in NYC meeting with an NPR producer about transhumanist design (specifically the design of the future human) - should be a meaningful upcoming program. Natasha Quoting jameschoate at austin.rr.com: > I have two thoughts to share on this exchange... > > - Sounds like a re-hash of the Schismatrix Shaper-Mechanist dichotomy > > - There is no real Transhumanist dichotomy, this whole either or (ie > wet|soft/dry|hard) discussion is a good example of how none of you > have escaped the non-transhumanist patterns in your fundamental > mental model. > > ---- natasha at natasha.cc wrote: >> What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning >> the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured >> and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to >> a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests >> multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, >> identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. >> >> Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean >> that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future >> noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. >> >> Morphological Freedom? >> hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4-photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom >> , >> www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf >> >> Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, >> and I could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically >> incorrect. As an artist, I have been pretty much politically >> incorrect most my life! :-) and would rather build bridges these days >> by just trying to be as correct as possible (given my human intellect >> which is not much to write about) and by being kind-hearted. >> >> Best, >> Natasha >> >> >> Quoting Giulio Prisco : >> >> > I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for >> > me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, >> > but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, >> > we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to >> > modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its >> > widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure >> > software. >> > >> > Of course these options will become available much later than the >> > options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by >> > biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now >> > politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. >> > >> > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Stefano Vaj >> wrote: >> >> As somebody coming from "wet" transhumanism, I could not endorse more >> >> the following Natasha's statement. In fact, we have just begun to tap >> >> into the potential of biotech itself... >> >> >> >> On 5 March 2010 01:46, ? wrote: >> >>> I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It >> would not be >> >>> my choice at all. ?Transhumanism is not about robots and bush people. >> >>> ?Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview. ?If you lens is robotics, >> >>> again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a collection >> of sciences >> >>> and technologies through which the transhumanist goal or future >> could be or >> >>> has the potential of being established. >> >>> >> >>> And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not >> agree that it >> >>> is a bad thing. ?Body transcendence is not the aim of transhumanism - >> >>> whether a body is used or not is NOT the point! ?Uploading is >> not the GOAL >> >>> of transhumanism! >> >>> >> >>> This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap. ?I oppose Moravec's particular >> >>> vision, no matter how imaginative it is. ?We will not forgo the >> biological >> >>> body for no body, but transform the biological body for semi and >> >>> non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic environments. >> >>> >> >>> To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more >> >>> contemporary phrase >> >>> for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is >> >>> "whole brain >> >>> emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of transhumanism is >> >>> simply not correct. >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Stefano Vaj >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> extropy-chat mailing list >> >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ >> > extropy-chat mailing list >> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- > -- -- -- -- > Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus > > jameschoate at austin.rr.com > james.choate at g.austincc.edu > james.choate at twcable.com > h: 512-657-1279 > w: 512-845-8989 > www.ssz.com > http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu > http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center > > Adapt, Adopt, Improvise > -- -- -- -- > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Mar 8 21:38:15 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:38:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> Message-ID: <20100308163815.peb6n4xs9kc04c8w@webmail.natasha.cc> Woah! That is really stretching Jeff! Let's reel 'er back in a bit. Max - want to explain morphological freedom, since you are its originator? Natsha Quoting Jeff Davis : > > > >> What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning >> the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured >> and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to >> a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests >> multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, >> identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. >> >> Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean >> that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future >> noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. > > How does the concept of morphological freedom deal with issues like surgical > addiction? > > I ran into a surgical addict on a message board years ago and the pictures > he posted of himself are not among my fondest memories. > > Whether there's a distinction between implanting magnets under your > fingertips and cutting chunks out of yourself because of mental > illness depends on who you're talking to. > > > "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be > other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be > based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. > We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can > oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." > - William S. Burroughs > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 22:01:58 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 17:01:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100308163815.peb6n4xs9kc04c8w@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> <20100308163815.peb6n4xs9kc04c8w@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <000d01cabf0a$fa6965f0$ef3c31d0$@com> > Woah! That is really stretching Jeff! > > Let's reel 'er back in a bit. Max - want to explain morphological > freedom, since you are its originator? I'm not saying *I* don't see the difference, I'm saying your average person might not (and by and large I think it bears remembering that they outnumber us). It took the general public quite some time to even accept a simple navel ring as normative. "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." - William S. Burroughs From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Mar 8 22:15:13 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:15:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <000d01cabf0a$fa6965f0$ef3c31d0$@com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> <20100308163815.peb6n4xs9kc04c8w@webmail.natasha.cc> <000d01cabf0a$fa6965f0$ef3c31d0$@com> Message-ID: <20100308171513.lxy0sphmckwc08ok@webmail.natasha.cc> Sorry - I was not referring to a difference, or your seeing a difference. I was looking at the issue of "addiction", which is not the same as a compulsion or habit or rictualistic act of Aztec kings. Natasha Quoting Jeff Davis : >> Woah! That is really stretching Jeff! >> >> Let's reel 'er back in a bit. Max - want to explain morphological >> freedom, since you are its originator? > > I'm not saying *I* don't see the difference, I'm saying your average person > might not (and by and large I think it bears remembering that they outnumber > us). It took the general public quite some time to even accept a simple > navel ring as normative. > > > > "This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There > may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but > ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. > Winners and losers. > We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can > oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.." > - William S. Burroughs > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 8 22:26:54 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 17:26:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again. In-Reply-To: References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> On Mar 6, 2010, at 5:01 AM, BillK wrote: > All their [libertarian] contracts, fair markets, fair dealing, etc. only works > between absolutely equal, mostly honest parties. There is some truth in that, in the libertarian utopia you can only get perfect justice if the parties involved are honest and equal in power, but even without that restriction the free market can still provide pretty good justice. That's not as good as a system of regulations enforced by a national police force that is infinitely powerful and infinitely ethical, but it's still pretty good, and is rather easier to actually achieve on Planet Earth. As for property rights, if we're talking about objects, some one person is required to control them and I agree entirely with standard libertarian philosophy on who that person should be, but when you're talking about intellectual property things become much more murky. One voice is not required to control intellectual property, and yet if it is not allowed to do so the growth of that very nifty intellectual stuff is likely to decrease. I also feel in my bones that it's true that information wants to be free and everybody should own it, but I also believe that we ourselves are information and we should be the exclusive owner of ourselves. I can't tame these contradictions and don't imagine anyone can until after the singularity. And perhaps not even then; it is not a question of how the universe works but only a question of how we think we should behave, and there is no reason to believe that will be consistent. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 8 23:33:31 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 15:33:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] jeff davis and jeffery davis In-Reply-To: <20100308163815.peb6n4xs9kc04c8w@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com><20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc><580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com><20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc><000c01cabf04$fa827af0$ef8770d0$@com> <20100308163815.peb6n4xs9kc04c8w@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <98BB445FEAFD438EB2C5E00CB53EF3A1@spike> > ...On Behalf Of natasha at natasha.cc > Subject: Re: [ExI] Question from a neophyte > > Woah! That is really stretching Jeff! > > Let's reel 'er back in a bit. Max - want to explain ... Natsha > > Quoting Jeff Davis : > In order to avoid confusion the heavensblade Jeffery Davis has agreed to be referred to always as Jeffery. No harm done. {8-] spike From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 07:33:29 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 08:33:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: I do, indeed, favor unPCness. Our world is becoming too much of a PC nanny-state benevolent dictatorship, and this disturbing trend must be countered with some healthy unPCness. As far as bridges are concerned: I am in favor of building bridges, but they must be built from both sides. Unilaterally building a bridge is always seen as a weakness from the other side, which replies with more and more, less and less reasonable demands. Look at those pathetic ex-transhumanists who have tried to build bridges, and then have been forced into renouncing transhumanism. No, I say we continue to affirm the disruptive, promethean, radical and revolutionary vision of transhumanism, of which this list has been the main, the best, and for many years the only example. I want transhumanism to become a mass movement -- but it must remain transhumanism. We want to win minds and hearts by kicking ass, not by kissing it. G. On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:54 PM, wrote: > What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning the > future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured and > designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to a meat > body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests multiple shapes > and substrates with which to house, if you will, identity for the extension > of personal identity over time and space. > > Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean that I > am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future noosphere-istic type > environment that we have long discussed. > > Morphological Freedom? > ?hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4-photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ > , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom , > www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf > > Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, and I > could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically incorrect. ? As an > artist, I have been pretty much politically incorrect most my life! :-) and > would rather build bridges these days by just trying to be as correct as > possible (given my human intellect which is not much to write about) and by > being kind-hearted. > > Best, > Natasha > > > Quoting Giulio Prisco : > >> I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for >> me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, >> but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, >> we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to >> modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its >> widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure >> software. >> >> Of course these options will become available much later than the >> options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by >> biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now >> politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 14:41:25 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:41:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> On 4 March 2010 01:41, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > I read the article, and I still think that IP is a requirement, in fact I say it is the root of all property rights. So what? :-) I would contend that the best approach, before embarking in ideological discussion upon whether IP is property, and whether property should be considered as a foundational principle, in the libertarian/objectivist sense, of any society we might wish to live in, should be to analyse the *efficiency* - in economic, but above all transhumanist respects - of the current IP system. One would discover, for instance, that copyright, trademarks and patents are more different in nature from one another - for the better and the worse - than one might thing at first view. And that paradoxical effects may exist that defeat in certain, albeit not all, circumstances, the purpose itself of IP (say, when innovation is stifled more than encouraged...). -- Stefano Vaj From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Mar 9 15:46:57 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:46:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com><20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc><580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com><20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> Your post is overtly pedantic and barks up the wrong tree by lecturing to the choir. You don't need to do that here - do it on the WTA list if you want to blast watered-down transhumanism. 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 Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:33 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Question from a neophyte I do, indeed, favor unPCness. Our world is becoming too much of a PC nanny-state benevolent dictatorship, and this disturbing trend must be countered with some healthy unPCness. As far as bridges are concerned: I am in favor of building bridges, but they must be built from both sides. Unilaterally building a bridge is always seen as a weakness from the other side, which replies with more and more, less and less reasonable demands. Look at those pathetic ex-transhumanists who have tried to build bridges, and then have been forced into renouncing transhumanism. No, I say we continue to affirm the disruptive, promethean, radical and revolutionary vision of transhumanism, of which this list has been the main, the best, and for many years the only example. I want transhumanism to become a mass movement -- but it must remain transhumanism. We want to win minds and hearts by kicking ass, not by kissing it. G. On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:54 PM, wrote: > What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning > the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured > and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to > a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests > multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, > identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. > > Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean > that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future > noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. > > Morphological Freedom? > ? > hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4 > -photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ , > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom , > www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf > > Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, > and I could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically > incorrect. ? As an artist, I have been pretty much politically > incorrect most my life! :-) and would rather build bridges these days > by just trying to be as correct as possible (given my human intellect > which is not much to write about) and by being kind-hearted. > > Best, > Natasha > > > Quoting Giulio Prisco : > >> I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for >> me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, >> but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, >> we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to >> modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its >> widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure >> software. >> >> Of course these options will become available much later than the >> options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by >> biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now >> politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 9 15:31:45 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 07:31:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] common sense In-Reply-To: <580930c21003080315l174ddd46vb1d60055079ef694@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <106620.85518.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 3/8/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > One might well believe that the sky would fall were we to > embrace the opposite POV If we embrace the opposite point of view in which we do reduce mental phenomena to nothing but third-person objective physical facts, both epistemically and ontologically, then we have embraced type-type (or its close cousin token-token) physicalism. In the neurology of pain, for example, stimulation of C-fibers correlate with the experience of pain. The type-type physicalist reduces mental phenomena both epistemically and ontologically and declares that C-fiber stimulation IS pain. But common sense tells us that "pain" means something that we actually experience in the first-person. Third-person stories about C-fibers do not explain or capture the subjective first-person experience of what we mean by the word. In effect we lose the concept of pain -- the very thing that interests us in this case -- when we reduce it philosophically to nothing but its objective third-person description. Type-type physicalism defies common sense, literally. One might ask why anyone should want to embrace type-type or token-token physicalism, and the answer seems to be that many philosophers of the materialistic persuasion cannot see that as materialists we can reduce mental phenomena scientifically to third-person descriptions while preserving their subjective reality -- and that we can do this *without* embracing dualism. We can reduce them to third-person causal descriptions without also reducing them ontologically; in this case, we can tell a true scientific story about the neurology of pain while recognizing that our epistemic reduction to objective scientific facts does not entail an ontological reduction. We can and should reduce mental phenomena scientifically in third-person terms, but those phenomena nevertheless have an irreducible first-person ontology. Once we accept that simple fact, the word "pain" and others like it can remain in our philosophical vocabulary. "Pain" represents just one of many possible real subjective experiences, just as common sense informs us. -gts From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 9 15:48:28 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 07:48:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again. In-Reply-To: <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Actually, this is not so -- that libertarian societies, to work, require "absolutely equal, mostly honest parties" --?and not believed to be the case by most libertarian thinkers of note. Instead, what's required is that no one is forced into contracts, markets, etc. In fact, most of the mechanisms at work in a libertarian society are just what people would do when they cannot use force against others: they develop and spread habits to vet who they should deal and how to avoid dishonesty and misunderstanding. A good example of this is how the science community tends to work: findings and theories are usually published for review by all and there is no science czar to determine who's got the correct theory or whose evidence is sound. Instead, any party might examine the evidence and arguments, draw their own conclusions, and submit these for others to scrutinize -- to agree with or disagree with. Regarding intellectual property (IP), there are disagreements amongst libertarians on this, though the more consistent libertarians tend to be anti-IP. Arguments about pragmatics on this -- i.e., what might happen if there's no IP protection in place -- tend to overlook actual evidence. Whole industries seem to flourish with no IP protection today (restaurants, fashion, etc.) and the main driver of IP protection today seems to be not to create new stuff, but to keep competitors out. Regards, Dan From: John Clark To: ExI chat list Sent: Mon, March 8, 2010 5:26:54 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again. On Mar 6, 2010, at 5:01 AM, BillK wrote: All their [libertarian] contracts, fair markets, fair dealing, etc. only works >between absolutely equal, mostly honest parties. > There is some truth in that, in the libertarian utopia you can only get perfect justice if the parties involved are honest and equal in power, but even without that restriction the free market can still provide pretty good justice. That's not as good as a system of regulations enforced by a national police force that is infinitely powerful and infinitely ethical, but it's still pretty good, and is rather easier to actually achieve on Planet Earth. As for property rights, if we're talking about objects, some one person is required to control them and I agree entirely with standard libertarian philosophy on who that person should be, but when you're talking about intellectual property things become much more murky. One voice is not required to control intellectual property, and yet if it is not allowed to do so the growth of that very nifty intellectual stuff is likely to decrease. I also feel in my bones that it's true that information wants to be free and everybody should own it, but I also believe that we ourselves are information and we should be the exclusive owner of ourselves. I can't tame these contradictions and don't imagine anyone can until after the singularity. And perhaps not even then; it is not a question of how the universe works but only a question of how we think we should behave, and there is no reason to believe that will be consistent. ?John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 9 17:17:25 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:17:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] scientific american article on sacred vs secular in the brain Message-ID: <07A5F120CC50421AA588EADC1F5EBEB4@spike> I am seeing more articles regarding which parts of the brain are active when doing various activities. This article claims the same parts of the brain are working during thoughts about secular and sacred. Does this surprise you? Does me. The two sure feel different to me: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=belief-in-the-brain spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 17:22:15 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:22:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again. In-Reply-To: <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003090922k432c133fna8decf0fce17644b@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/9 Dan : > > Regarding intellectual property (IP), there are disagreements amongst > libertarians on this, though the more consistent libertarians tend to be > anti-IP. Arguments about pragmatics on this -- i.e., what might happen if > there's no IP protection in place -- tend to overlook actual evidence. Whole > industries seem to flourish with no IP protection today (restaurants, > fashion, etc.) and the main driver of IP protection today seems to be not to > create new stuff, but to keep competitors out. ### You could have contract-based IP, even in a polycentric law system. If it turned out that most law providers, in service to their customers, offer IP protection, and the only way to avoid it is by patronizing a marginal provider, or by not participating in social interactions at all, would you be against IP? Rafal From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Mar 9 16:58:55 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:58:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again. In-Reply-To: <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62AC875A-073C-442A-8337-96BA81F93AB8@bellsouth.net> On Mar 9, 2010, at 10:48 AM, Dan wrote: > Actually, this is not so -- that libertarian societies, to work, require "absolutely equal, mostly honest parties" -- and not believed to be the case by most libertarian thinkers of note. That's not what I said, for perfect justice you'd need that but even when dealing with real flesh and blood people rather than saints you could still get pretty good justice in a libertarian society. > Regarding intellectual property (IP), there are disagreements amongst libertarians on this, though the more consistent libertarians tend to be anti-IP. Arguments about pragmatics on this -- i.e., what might happen if there's no IP protection in place -- tend to overlook actual evidence. I think you're pretending there is not a problem when there is. It takes about a billion dollars to get a new drug to market and if the people who spent that money couldn't get a patent on it there would be no chance of them ever making that money back and the result would be no new drugs. John K Clark From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 17:58:08 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:58:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Yes Natasha, you are right, most of the people who post frequently to this list do not need this lecture. I don't read the WTA list often, because I find watered-down transhumanism boring. On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > Your post is overtly pedantic and barks up the wrong tree by lecturing to > the choir. ?You don't need to do that here - do it ?on the WTA list if you > want to blast watered-down transhumanism. > > > 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 > Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:33 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Question from a neophyte > > I do, indeed, favor unPCness. Our world is becoming too much of a PC > nanny-state benevolent dictatorship, and this disturbing trend must be > countered with some healthy unPCness. > > As far as bridges are concerned: I am in favor of building bridges, but they > must be built from both sides. Unilaterally building a bridge is always seen > as a weakness from the other side, which replies with more and more, less > and less reasonable demands. Look at those pathetic ex-transhumanists who > have tried to build bridges, and then have been forced into renouncing > transhumanism. > > No, I say we continue to affirm the disruptive, promethean, radical and > revolutionary vision of transhumanism, of which this list has been the main, > the best, and for many years the only example. I want transhumanism to > become a mass movement -- but it must remain transhumanism. We want to win > minds and hearts by kicking ass, not by kissing it. > > G. > > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:54 PM, ? wrote: >> What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning >> the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured >> and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to >> a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests >> multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, >> identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. >> >> Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean >> that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future >> noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. >> >> Morphological Freedom? >> >> hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4 >> -photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ , >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom , >> www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf >> >> Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, >> and I could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically >> incorrect. ? As an artist, I have been pretty much politically >> incorrect most my life! :-) and would rather build bridges these days >> by just trying to be as correct as possible (given my human intellect >> which is not much to write about) and by being kind-hearted. >> >> Best, >> Natasha >> >> >> Quoting Giulio Prisco : >> >>> I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for >>> me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, >>> but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, >>> we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to >>> modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its >>> widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure >>> software. >>> >>> Of course these options will become available much later than the >>> options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by >>> biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now >>> politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 9 17:47:25 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:47:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again. In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003090922k432c133fna8decf0fce17644b@mail.gmail.com> References: <994337.56004.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003090922k432c133fna8decf0fce17644b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <775880.31384.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> But, as you know, contract-based anything would not apply to third parties. The scenario you cook up seems unlikely and would depend on luck: that almost all people in a society concur with a particular IP regime. Add to this, just what constitutes IP is unlikely to be agreed upon in enough cases that my guess is a bona fide free society would not have it or it'd be confined to small groups -- which is the equivalent of not having it. Also, even were many people to agree with this, this would only be them agreeing to something and not a ground for forcing others to comply. And, yes, people can come to consensual arrangements that might look like IP, but they're not the same thing -- just as we can all agree to give away to charity anything we make over, say,?$1 million. But that arrangement would not and should not bind others. Don't you agree? True IP would have to be like physical property: something that does bind third parties -- binds them from interfering in its use and disposal. I think the case against IP from a natural rights perspective -- as given by?libertarians like Kinsella --?is sound. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Rafal Smigrodzki To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 12:22:15 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] intellectual property again. 2010/3/9 Dan : > > Regarding intellectual property (IP), there are disagreements amongst > libertarians on this, though the more consistent libertarians tend to be > anti-IP. Arguments about pragmatics on this -- i.e., what might happen if > there's no IP protection in place -- tend to overlook actual evidence. Whole > industries seem to flourish with no IP protection today (restaurants, > fashion, etc.) and the main driver of IP protection today seems to be not to > create new stuff, but to keep competitors out. ### You could have contract-based IP, even in a polycentric law system. If it turned out that most law providers, in service to their customers, offer IP protection, and the only way to avoid it is by patronizing a marginal provider, or by not participating in social interactions at all, would you be against IP? Rafal _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 19:09:13 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:09:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: The recent discussion doesn't seem cutting edge. I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. I expect to see laws passed within a few years attempting to limit the amount of time people can spend in virtual reality. The laws will fail, traffic will dwindle as people both work from home and spend much of their off time playing games there. There are already a lot of people who average over 12 hours a day in virtual spaces. Eventually nanotechnology based medicine will permit reversible uploading. People will go in and out for a while and then slam the door on physical reality, leaving machines to maintain the physical infrastructure. At most there will be a small remnant physical state population. Keith From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Mar 9 19:13:36 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:13:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <20100309141336.ikz5hxshs00kkwsg@webmail.natasha.cc> By the way, this morning after reading your post, I took in a little George Carlin and some heady politically incorrect fun with Bill Maher. Great with a morning cup of coffee -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h2EYPvQDqE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_bYnvR_fRg Quoting Giulio Prisco : > Yes Natasha, you are right, most of the people who post frequently to > this list do not need this lecture. I don't read the WTA list often, > because I find watered-down transhumanism boring. > > On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> >> Your post is overtly pedantic and barks up the wrong tree by lecturing to >> the choir. ?You don't need to do that here - do it ?on the WTA list if you >> want to blast watered-down transhumanism. >> >> >> 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 >> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:33 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Question from a neophyte >> >> I do, indeed, favor unPCness. Our world is becoming too much of a PC >> nanny-state benevolent dictatorship, and this disturbing trend must be >> countered with some healthy unPCness. >> >> As far as bridges are concerned: I am in favor of building bridges, but they >> must be built from both sides. Unilaterally building a bridge is always seen >> as a weakness from the other side, which replies with more and more, less >> and less reasonable demands. Look at those pathetic ex-transhumanists who >> have tried to build bridges, and then have been forced into renouncing >> transhumanism. >> >> No, I say we continue to affirm the disruptive, promethean, radical and >> revolutionary vision of transhumanism, of which this list has been the main, >> the best, and for many years the only example. I want transhumanism to >> become a mass movement -- but it must remain transhumanism. We want to win >> minds and hearts by kicking ass, not by kissing it. >> >> G. >> >> On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:54 PM, ? wrote: >>> What is quite confusing to me is to have to defend my views concerning >>> the future human after I years in this area and have written, lectured >>> and designed a concept for a future human which is not sequestered to >>> a meat body (but does not denounce *a* body) and in fact, suggests >>> multiple shapes and substrates with which to house, if you will, >>> identity for the extension of personal identity over time and space. >>> >>> Be it that I do not favor Moravec specific design; it does not mean >>> that I am blind to the well-known transhumanist far future >>> noosphere-istic type environment that we have long discussed. >>> >>> Morphological Freedom? >>> >>> hrart.wordpress.com/.../natasha-vita-more-us-?morphological-freedom?-4 >>> -photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/ , >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_freedom , >>> www.natasha.cc/designwar.pdf >>> >>> Anyway, the issue seems to be socio-political. From what I understand, >>> and I could be wrong, Giulio actively favors being politically >>> incorrect. ? As an artist, I have been pretty much politically >>> incorrect most my life! :-) and would rather build bridges these days >>> by just trying to be as correct as possible (given my human intellect >>> which is not much to write about) and by being kind-hearted. >>> >>> Best, >>> Natasha >>> >>> >>> Quoting Giulio Prisco : >>> >>>> I certainly agree that Moravec is not the only entry point. But for >>>> me, he is one of the main entry points. Transhumanism is not _only_, >>>> but _also_ about robots and bush people. As a philosophical position, >>>> we are for self ownership and morphological freedom, the freedom to >>>> modify one's body at will. I interpret morphological freedom in its >>>> widest sense, inclusive of escaping biology, or living as pure >>>> software. >>>> >>>> Of course these options will become available much later than the >>>> options, being developed, for improving our biological bodies by >>>> biotechnology. But for me the ultimate objective is, to use now >>>> politically incorrect words, to escape the meat. >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > 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 Tue Mar 9 19:22:04 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:22:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B969FDC.1010604@satx.rr.com> On 3/9/2010 1:09 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. > > You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. Like: South Korean police have arrested a couple for starving their three-month-old daughter to death while they devoted hours to playing a computer game that involved raising a virtual character of a young girl. The 41-year-old man and 25-year-old woman, who met through a chat website, reportedly left their infant unattended while they went to internet cafes. They only occasionally dropped by to feed her powdered milk. "I am sorry for what I did and hope that my daughter does not suffer any more in heaven," the husband is quoted as saying on the asiaone website. According to the Yonhap news agency, South Korean police said the couple had become obsessed with raising a virtual girl called Anima in the popular role-playing game Prius Online. The game, similar to Second Life, allows players to create another existence for themselves in a virtual world, including getting a job, interacting with other users and earning an extra avatar to nurture once they reach a certain level. "The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," Chung Jin-Won, a police officer, told Yonhap. "They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby." Last September after a 12-hour gaming-session the couple came home in the morning to find their daughter dead. The baby's malnourished body aroused police suspicions of neglect that were was confirmed after an autopsy. The couple fled to the wife's parents' house in Yangju, Gyeonggi province, but were picked up on Monday. The case has shocked South Korea and once again highlighted obsessive behaviour related to the internet. A 22-year-old Korean man was charged last month with murdering his mother because she nagged him for spending too much time playing games. After killing her the man went to a nearby internet cafe and continued with his game, said officials. In 2005 a young man collapsed in an internet cafe in the city of Taegu after playing the game StarCraft almost continuously for 50 hours. He went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital. Lee Joung-sun, an MP from the ruling Grand National party, last month submitted a bill restricting the hours offered to online gamers. Several bills are pending in the national assembly suggesting restrictions on teenagers' use of internet cafes and games. Research published last month in the UK showed evidence of a link between excessive internet use and depression. Leeds University researchers, writing in the Psychopathology journal, said a small proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted users. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 19:22:47 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:22:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <2d6187671003091122g6f62ef0cn875fe719fe320dc3@mail.gmail.com> Natasha Vita-More wrote: Your post is overtly pedantic and barks up the wrong tree by lecturing to the choir. You don't need to do that here - do it on the WTA list if you want to blast watered-down transhumanism. >>> Natasha, I believe the proper term for watered-down transhumanism is "H+." John ; ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 19:59:13 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:59:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals. In-Reply-To: References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> Hello Dwayne, I just wanted to say my heart goes out to you and I definitely don't want you to become homeless. And so I must ask, to what extent can the Australian social services help you to find a job, housing, food, etc.? I have always heard the Aussie system is much better than what the U.S. typically offers. I hope you can find some caring social workers, non-profit church volunteers and gov't employees to point you in the right direction. And perhaps we have some Australian list-members who could give you some advice or even directly intervene. KEEP US POSTED!! Best wishes, John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 9 20:06:31 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:06:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003091122g6f62ef0cn875fe719fe320dc3@mail.gmail.com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com><20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc><580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com><20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc><53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> <2d6187671003091122g6f62ef0cn875fe719fe320dc3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1A1BF4E5D69F45A3B39B00670534673F@spike> Natasha Vita-More wrote: ...do it on the WTA list if you want to blast watered-down transhumanism. >>> >Natasha, I believe the proper term for watered-down transhumanism is "H+." John ; ) John, watered down transhumanism is actually H3O, derived from H+H2O. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 20:12:46 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:12:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Peter Thiel Explains How to Invest in the Singularity | Epicenter | Wired.com In-Reply-To: <000501cabcdd$99abfc20$ad753644@sx28047db9d36c> References: <000501cabcdd$99abfc20$ad753644@sx28047db9d36c> Message-ID: <2d6187671003091212nd4eb638qca33d16118fcd948@mail.gmail.com> Frank McElligott > Ran across this from before the crash of 2008, seems we had a prophet but > no one heard him. > > It's a good read still > > Frank > > > http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2007/09/peter-thiel-exp/ > > >>> But didn't Peter Thiel loses the majority of his personal fortune (a loss of about FOUR AND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS!!!) by betting against the recovery/market? I would say his prophetic powers failed him to say the least. Imagine if besides somewhat helping out the Singularity Institute, he had poured even a *fraction* of that lost money (before it was lost!) into Aubrey de Grey's proposed anti-aging SENS program! What a lost opportunity... I feel sick. John : ( -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 20:14:10 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:14:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again. In-Reply-To: <775880.31384.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <7641ddc61003040810p7cf66c88jde1c04f349b1d19c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc1003041834n18ab062cq6e5ef0660f821eac@mail.gmail.com> <72F6CCB9-DEEB-4F4E-8141-E464740DB444@GMAIL.COM> <710b78fc1003042200u2ea3461ah5b6543434115b244@mail.gmail.com> <70C9FB02-1320-488F-B1F6-DE752254B79D@bellsouth.net> <51939.22862.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc61003090922k432c133fna8decf0fce17644b@mail.gmail.com> <775880.31384.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003091214m30349f5cx8c7e3d9856bf868e@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Dan wrote: > But, as you know, contract-based anything would not apply to third parties. The scenario you cook up seems unlikely and would depend on luck: that almost all people in a society concur with a particular IP regime. Add to this, just what constitutes IP is unlikely to be agreed upon in enough cases that my guess is a bona fide free society would not have it or it'd be confined to small groups -- which is the equivalent of not having it. Also, even were many people to agree with this, this would only be them agreeing to something and not a ground for forcing others to comply. > > And, yes, people can come to consensual arrangements that might look like IP, but they're not the same thing -- just as we can all agree to give away to charity anything we make over, say,?$1 million. But that arrangement would not and should not bind others. Don't you agree? True IP would have to be like physical property: something that does bind third parties -- binds them from interfering in its use and disposal. > > I think the case against IP from a natural rights perspective -- as given by?libertarians like Kinsella --?is sound. ### Have a look at http://triviallyso.blogspot.com/2010/01/of-beating-hearts-part-2.html for some background of my current thinking on polycentric law. Now, regarding the issue at hand: There is not much dependent on pure luck in the evolution of legal systems. Why most systems forbid cutting off your head against your wishes, except in some special circumstances, is not a question of luck but an implicit recognition that this legal standard has desirable consequences. The same should apply to IP: If IP has a positive cost-benefit ratio in terms of satisfying long-term desires of in-group members, then a rational and efficient law discovery system will sooner or later produce IP rules. I reject the notion of natural law, except in the weaker sense of certain rules "naturally" emerging out of the give-and-take of social interactions in a particular situation - and the specific content of this "natural" law strongly depends on the specific desires, physical surroundings, available technologies, etc. Regarding your second paragraph: You don't need to bind third parties by threatening them with physical ingress on their property to induce them to obey some rules. Ostracism is frequently enough, as long as a sufficient fraction of players is willing to ostracize (i.e. refuse to deal with, talk to, trade or allow on their private property) and punish non-ostracizers (if you forgive me a clumsy neologism). To summarize: I believe that IP law is generally efficient (in the sense of having a net positive effect on satisfying human desires under most real-life circumstances - this is an empirical claim which AFAIK is well-supported by a lot of evidence), and compatible with a non-violent, consensual, polycentric society. Rafal From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Mar 9 20:15:33 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:15:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100309151533.n3pbdrlf4owgwk8s@webmail.natasha.cc> And what you say below is cutting edge? Come on Keith! :-) When we stop making claims about what will or will not occur, we might become imaginative. Oscar Wilde's statement: "Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" makes me think of the "means" as being the level of knowledge transhumanist have obtained and that living within that knowledge could prevent furthering imagination. I witness this quite a bit within societies of thinkers who are neatly resting on their laurels. The Donna Haraway crowd of cyborg theorists repeatedly signal their peers and gain a nod by falling neatly in line behind the postmodern feminist cyborg theory. Mark Twain said "Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." The intellectual vitamin of Haraway's cyborg theory, as a consequential source of knowledge on the future human, is a misprint of and on intelligence because it is taking minds away from deeper inquiring of human futures. Okay, so transhumanism has intellectual capital in human futures and cyborg theory expressly ignores transhumanism. What could transhumanists be missing or ignoring right now? I'm not sure. Maybe it is, in spirit, similar to the angst of cyborg feminist theory which kicked the pants of male dominance and which parallels, in part, Giulio's politically incorrect salvo, which kicks the ass of human biology. The bridge is how it is voiced. For me, anyway, I do care that students and the public are given information about their future apart from Fukuyama and Joy and McKibben, et al. I don't really care about academic cliques, but I do darn well care what students are taught and what information is available to them in order for them to question and imagine their own future. Natasha Quoting Keith Henson : > The recent discussion doesn't seem cutting edge. > > I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. > > You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. > > I expect to see laws passed within a few years attempting to limit the > amount of time people can spend in virtual reality. The laws will > fail, traffic will dwindle as people both work from home and spend > much of their off time playing games there. There are already a lot > of people who average over 12 hours a day in virtual spaces. > > Eventually nanotechnology based medicine will permit reversible > uploading. People will go in and out for a while and then slam the > door on physical reality, leaving machines to maintain the physical > infrastructure. > > At most there will be a small remnant physical state population. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 20:15:49 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:15:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <1A1BF4E5D69F45A3B39B00670534673F@spike> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> <2d6187671003091122g6f62ef0cn875fe719fe320dc3@mail.gmail.com> <1A1BF4E5D69F45A3B39B00670534673F@spike> Message-ID: <2d6187671003091215r36e6362ei7eb495e2d6c40213@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 1:06 PM, spike wrote: > > > Natasha Vita-More wrote: > ...do it on the WTA list if you want to blast watered-down > transhumanism. > >>> > > >Natasha, I believe the proper term for watered-down transhumanism > is "H+." John ; ) > > > > John, watered down transhumanism is actually H3O, derived from H+H2O. > > spike > > Very clever! ; ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 20:29:52 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:29:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 9, 2010, at 9:41 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > So what? :-) > > I would contend that the best approach, before embarking in > ideological discussion upon whether IP is property, and whether > property should be considered as a foundational principle, in the > libertarian/objectivist sense, of any society we might wish to live > in, should be to analyse the *efficiency* - in economic, but above all > transhumanist respects - of the current IP system. > > One would discover, for instance, that copyright, trademarks and > patents are more different in nature from one another - for the better > and the worse - than one might thing at first view. > > And that paradoxical effects may exist that defeat in certain, albeit > not all, circumstances, the purpose itself of IP (say, when innovation > is stifled more than encouraged...). Well, efficiency can only be judged in reference to a certain system of values, and so comes after those values. Property is, in my view, a necessary component for human life and all values, and so must come before efficiency. So, ideas of efficiency come after the principles upon which property is based. As I subscribe to an egoist morality, global efficiency is not a factor in the moral basis for property, since it isn't based on any sense of individualism but rather a collectivist viewpoint that what is "best for society" is what should be done. On another note, I have limited knowledge of the IP system in place now, though I think the definition of what can be patented may be too large (for example, "unlocking" a phone that only has a screen by doing something specific on the screen, as in Apple's suit against HTC, which is a self-evident idea which required no real thought to come up with, and would lock out anyone from pretty much ever making a touchscreen based phone ever again). But if you actually create a new idea that was somehow original (and not blitheringly obvious to anyone with half a brain), then you should, in my view, be able to patent it. Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From reasonerkevin at yahoo.com Tue Mar 9 20:14:33 2010 From: reasonerkevin at yahoo.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:14:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> References: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <944334.98817.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Will Steinberg To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 12:38:09 PM Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals For one second alight your computronium towers and consider our good friends the h.p., also known as regular people. If we do expect to have something like a singularity within the next century, or at least a turning towards this sort of thing, good old Common Joes must be factored into the equation. Joe is most people. From what I see, there are two major problems regarding a shift to scientific ideals. This is of course assuming that said shift is something we want, which I am assuming for easier progress in the future. I'm sure we could preserve the thing we've got going where common folk use the products of technological progress without understanding them like we have with the internet today, but I fear this would lead straight to a Fahrenheit 451 style 4-wall TV sort of thing. It's the duty of us intellectuals to enlighten the masses and provide fuel for the Rerenaissance. Anyway, here are the two problems. I'm just going to ask the questions as not to make a super-lengthy post, but these are real, serious obstacles to any sort of singularitan future: Problem 1 (The Thinkularity): How do we get from today, where religion is widespread and science is often seen as "the badguy" to a world where people embrace mindnets and space travel and good energy solutions? Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity): Are there unforeseen complications with the entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with positivism? Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)? And will the relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles? Kevin Freels said: This is a speciation event and just as in other such events, the current species will continue to live on past the point where the new species branches off. It may continue for hundreds or even thousands of years, or it may become extinct quickly. My best guess is that as long as there are resources available for h. sapiens, they will continue to exist along side h. singularis or whatever you want to call them. I would also suspect that there would be a number of different post-singularity species around at the same time. You will have those who shun the meat-body and prefer a mechanical body, and those who choose to live with no body at all. I wonder at times about reproduction run amok when you could have people making multiple copies of themselves at such an enormous rate that there would be civilizations rising and falling, and battles for the limited space within whatever material they were living within would happen in seconds. How that all attaches to the "real" world is just beyond my comprehension. Time would be completely different for such "people". I also suspect that rather than having some amazing "singularity", there will be a number of false starts and failures on the way. Evolutionary dead-ends such as h neanderthalensis or a africanus will come and go before a truly successful singularity takes off. It's funny how I always envisioned the year 2010 as being some shining and glittering computerized world dominated by high technology with very few ties to the past. The reality is much different. The technology is present and widespread, but occasionally you see someone driving a Model T, or a 57 Chevy, many businesses still don't have websites, people still talk in person, and hammers and stones are still used in construction of homes. After the singularity, I really don't expect any of that to go away. Instead they will continue along side and will evolve along their own path just as Chimpanzees do today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From reasonerkevin at yahoo.com Tue Mar 9 20:21:11 2010 From: reasonerkevin at yahoo.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:21:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals In-Reply-To: References: <4e3a29501003051038j4da6a9fdx9414a860faebc832@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44847.85419.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: JOSHUA JOB To: ExI chat list Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 3:21:33 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals On Mar 5, 2010, at 1:38 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Problem 1 (The Thinkularity): How do we get from today, where religion is widespread and science is often seen as "the badguy" to a world where people embrace mindnets and space travel and good energy solutions? Joshua wrote: On this question, I think the only real answer is to try to convince people they're wrong, keep trying to publicize extropian and transhumanist ideas, etc. As technology advances, I think that bioluddite vs. transhumanism will come to play as important in a role in politics as views on economics do today. The way I see it is either we, i.e. transhumanists, win the battle for ideas, or humanity dies. The exact strategy, for now, is amorphous, but as these issues come more and more into the forefront of people's minds, it will get more and more obvious. I'm thinking the forming of think tanks, political parties/organizations, lobbying groups, etc. will play a major role. As well as books, tv, and other media. Kevin Freels responds: One thing that will really get us is the tendency of better educated people to have fewer children. Although I don't foresee anything like "Idiocracy" happening (hilarious movie BTW), I do think that the transhuman movement should embrace a goal of higher reproduction rates. (this also happens to annoy those who have this crazy notion that the world is overpopulated despite a complete lack of evidence.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From reasonerkevin at yahoo.com Tue Mar 9 20:29:05 2010 From: reasonerkevin at yahoo.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:29:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4B969FDC.1010604@satx.rr.com> References: <4B969FDC.1010604@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <747503.72226.qm@web81607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Damien Broderick To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 1:22:04 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies On 3/9/2010 1:09 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. > > You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. I don't think that "virtually all humans" will do this. Instead, I expect that this kind of branching of human evolution will be done by a relatively small segment of the population. In time, that segment will grow, but a suspect that a large majority of the population will simply see this as another religion, or just another unique way of life much as nudists are viewed. With the "God gene" existing in such a large portion of the population and the huge number of people who would believe that such a thing as giving up your meat-body would be the work of the devil, I am certain that there would be lots of violence along the way. The only way that I see "virtually all humans" abandoning physical reality is if those battle result in the death of the rest of the people who don't. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:11:38 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 21:11:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Peter Thiel Explains How to Invest in the Singularity | Epicenter | Wired.com In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003091212nd4eb638qca33d16118fcd948@mail.gmail.com> References: <000501cabcdd$99abfc20$ad753644@sx28047db9d36c> <2d6187671003091212nd4eb638qca33d16118fcd948@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/9 John Grigg wrote: > But didn't Peter Thiel loses the majority of his personal fortune (a loss of > about FOUR AND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS!!!) by betting against the > recovery/market?? I would say his prophetic powers failed him to say the > least.? Imagine if besides somewhat helping out the Singularity Institute, > he had poured even a *fraction* of that lost?money (before it was > lost!)?into Aubrey de Grey's proposed anti-aging?SENS program! > > I'm not sure how much of that loss was his personal fortune. The hedge fund that he runs certainly lost big and investors have been withdrawing their money. And his reasoning about rational markets was exactly correct. Quote from Peter in Sept 28, 2009: "The recovery is not real," he says. "Deep structural problems haven't been solved and it's unclear how we will create jobs and get the economy growing again -- that's long been my thesis and it still is." The contrarian view puts Mr. Thiel among a group of investors with impressive track records who are holding out, unwilling to buy into the notion of the economy's rebound. --------------------- He missed out on the market recovery because he couldn't accept that markets are subject to irrational behaviour. I agree completely with what Peter says. The P/E ratios are unbelievable, company directors are cashing in their shares and the investing public is having nothing to do with this market. Reason - This market recovery has been gamed totally by a flood of free government money from banks too big to fail. They don't care if they lose it all, the government will just have to bail them out again. (And we've all got our bonuses again, haven't we?). The big question is how long they can keep this fake stock market recovery going, while the real economy is collapsing around the nation. Surely reality must bring it all to a halt. But when??????? BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:16:46 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 22:16:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <580930c21003091316p298d6156he245f6504b56481@mail.gmail.com> On 9 March 2010 16:46, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Your post is overtly pedantic and barks up the wrong tree by lecturing to > the choir. ?You don't need to do that here - do it ?on the WTA list if you > want to blast watered-down transhumanism. This might be a reason why this list is after all in a much better shape... :-) But nothing so terribly wrong in remembering ourselves from time to time where we stand, right? ;-) -- Stefano Vaj From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:17:41 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:17:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Damien Broderick > wrote: > On 3/9/2010 1:09 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. >> >> You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. > > Like: > > South Korean police have arrested a couple for starving their > three-month-old daughter to death while they devoted hours to playing a > computer game that involved raising a virtual character of a young girl. snip > The case has shocked South Korea > and once again highlighted obsessive behaviour related to the internet. > > A 22-year-old Korean man was charged last month with murdering his > mother because she nagged him for spending too much time playing games. snip > Lee Joung-sun, an MP from the ruling Grand National party, last month > submitted a bill restricting the hours offered to online gamers. Several > bills are pending in the national assembly suggesting restrictions on > teenagers' use of internet cafes and games. I predicted laws would be passed, but I had no idea it had already gone this far. Oh well, it's not like being able to see into the future does any good. It's like driving at night with bright headlights but no brakes. > Research published last month in the UK showed evidence of a link > between excessive internet use and depression. Leeds University > researchers, writing in the Psychopathology journal, said a small > proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that > people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted > users. Cause and effect could run either direction. Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:20:13 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 22:20:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> On 9 March 2010 21:29, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > Well, efficiency can only be judged in reference to a certain system of values, and so comes after those values. Property is, in my view, a necessary component for human life and all values, and so must come before efficiency. So, ideas of efficiency come after the principles upon which property is based. As I subscribe to an egoist morality, global efficiency is not a factor in the moral basis for property, since it isn't based on any sense of individualism but rather a collectivist viewpoint that what is "best for society" is what should be done. I appreciate that this position exists, but if you could show that (in some circumstances, some forms of) IP is not even efficient from a collectivist viewpoint, this would simply strengthen your position and widen your audience without requiring any compromise on "egoist morality", wouldn't it? -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 9 21:00:26 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:00:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> ...On Behalf Of John Grigg Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals. Hello Dwayne, ...I hope you can find some caring social workers, non-profit church volunteers and gov't employees to point you in the right direction. ...John Grigg And if they let you down, there is always those greedy heartless capitalists who can point you in the right direction. They are the ones who consistently come thru for us in the states. spike From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Mar 9 21:30:23 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:30:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <580930c21003091316p298d6156he245f6504b56481@mail.gmail.com> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> <580930c21003091316p298d6156he245f6504b56481@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100309163023.mbq4utstq8sk0scw@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting Stefano Vaj : > On 9 March 2010 16:46, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> Your post is overtly pedantic and barks up the wrong tree by lecturing to >> the choir. ?You don't need to do that here - do it ?on the WTA list if you >> want to blast watered-down transhumanism. > > This might be a reason why this list is after all in a much better > shape... :-) > > But nothing so terribly wrong in remembering ourselves from time to > time where we stand, right? ;-) And thus spoke my post re "bodies" :-) From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:25:37 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:25:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 25 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 1:30 PM, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > And what you say below is cutting edge? Not really. As Damien pointed out it's already happening. It does trash an awful lot of other visions of the future. :-( Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:34:43 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 22:34:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100309151533.n3pbdrlf4owgwk8s@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <20100309151533.n3pbdrlf4owgwk8s@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <580930c21003091334m4a8b9aacu86d63a6e88ec82f0@mail.gmail.com> On 9 March 2010 21:15, wrote: > I do care that students and the public are given information about their > future apart from Fukuyama and Joy and McKibben, et al. ?I don't really care > about academic cliques, but I do darn well care what students are taught and > what information is available to them in order for them to question and > imagine their own future. I am not really knowledgeable about US academic cliques, and it may well be the case that posthumanist intelligentsia in general is irritating in its snubbing attitude towards organised transhumanism and has after all a relatively limited social impact, but I would be reluctant to put it altogether in the same bag with blatant neoluddites such as the ones you mention. This is one area where I am personally trying to build bridges. Without renouncing one single inch of our own positions, but simply trying to overcome language barriers... -- Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 9 21:35:58 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:35:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B96BF3E.7040201@satx.rr.com> On 3/9/2010 3:17 PM, Keith Henson quoted: >> > Research published last month in the UK showed evidence of a link >> > between excessive internet use and depression. Leeds University >> > researchers, writing in the Psychopathology journal, said a small >> > proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that >> > people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted >> > users. > Cause and effect could run either direction. Of course. It always astonishes me when people ignore this. I *hope* it's just journalists making their typical brainless summaries rather than the researchers. Or it might be that in this case the researchers are doing longitudinal studies from a standardized baseline, but that seems unlikely. Damien Broderick From nanite1018 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:40:39 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:40:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> On Mar 9, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I appreciate that this position exists, but if you could show that (in > some circumstances, some forms of) IP is not even efficient from a > collectivist viewpoint, this would simply strengthen your position and > widen your audience without requiring any compromise on "egoist > morality", wouldn't it? Actually, I think that would weaken my position. Now if I proved it WAS efficient even from a collectivist viewpoint, then THAT might strengthen my position. On that note, I suppose I could give it a try. Let's take the example of a patent on a newly created gene that can be used to produce a certain medicine (doesn't really matter what), that could previously only be produced at high expense in limited quantities, but now can be produced at low cost in giant vats of bacteria, allowing widespread access to the new medication. I do want to stress that this is a designed gene, something novel not originally found in nature (as such genes, themselves, are ambiguous in my mind as to whether they can actually be considered patentable, since they were not "created" by anyone). Such a project likely was not cheap, and cost a significant amount of time and resources for that company to produce. Obviously it is a big bonus to society that such a gene be created. However, if someone could then simply take a sample of the bacterium, or an text document containing the DNA sequence of the gene, and immediately begin production of an identical product without having to undergo almost any of the initial startup costs (the big one being R&D), then while this might increase availability of that one medication (and be a boon for society as a result), it seems highly dubious at best to suggest that people would keep producing these new insights at as high a rate of speed if making a profit on them is almost impossible (as a competitor will simply seize it and get all the benefits without any of the risk). In such an environment, R&D will likely be reduced significantly, and the rate of advance will have significantly decreased. That would certainly produce more harm over all than good. And so the company should be able to patent its new gene, at least for a sizeable amount of time (though perhaps not indefinitely, as eventually their continued control would likely not benefit them much at all, as competitors will have been working on alternatives to get the same end result anyway). Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 9 21:47:15 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:47:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> Message-ID: <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> On 3/9/2010 3:00 PM, spike wrote: > And if they let you down, there is always those greedy heartless capitalists > who can point you in the right direction. They are the ones who > consistently come thru for us in the states. Really? When you've got a rabid madman on your hands, and he's your damaged pal and you don't want to bring in a Xe Services swat team to kill him? What do you have in mind here, Spike? Damien Broderick From sparge at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 21:49:22 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:49:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:40 PM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > > Let's take the example of a patent on a newly created gene that can be used to produce a certain medicine (doesn't really matter what), that could previously only be produced at high expense in limited quantities, but now can be produced at low cost in giant vats of bacteria, allowing widespread access to the new medication. I do want to stress that this is a designed gene, something novel not originally found in nature (as such genes, themselves, are ambiguous in my mind as to whether they can actually be considered patentable, since they were not "created" by anyone). > > Such a project likely was not cheap, and cost a significant amount of time and resources for that company to produce. Obviously it is a big bonus to society that such a gene be created. However, if someone could then simply take a sample of the bacterium, or an text document containing the DNA sequence of the gene... Is there some reason the gene and modified bacterium couldn't be trade secrets? Then all they have to do is not disclose the details of the gene or allow release of the bacterium. -Dave From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Mar 9 21:50:22 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:50:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4B96BF3E.7040201@satx.rr.com> References: <4B96BF3E.7040201@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20100309165022.xr5h6ujl2ccg44ws@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting Damien Broderick : > On 3/9/2010 3:17 PM, Keith Henson quoted: > >>>> Research published last month in the UK showed evidence of a link >>>> between excessive internet use and depression. Leeds University >>>> researchers, writing in the Psychopathology journal, said a small >>>> proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that >>>> people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted >>>> users. > >> Cause and effect could run either direction. > > Of course. It always astonishes me when people ignore this. I *hope* > it's just journalists making their typical brainless summaries rather > than the researchers. Or it might be that in this case the researchers > are doing longitudinal studies from a standardized baseline, but that > seems unlikely. Good point Damien. I wonder what percentage of people are depressed, and what the degree of depression is. Seems that the number is quite high, regardless of Internet use. From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 22:00:43 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P Davis) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:00:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100309165022.xr5h6ujl2ccg44ws@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <4B96BF3E.7040201@satx.rr.com> <20100309165022.xr5h6ujl2ccg44ws@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <005a01cabfd3$f7e38c10$e7aaa430$@com> > Good point Damien. I wonder what percentage of people are depressed, > and what the degree of depression is. Seems that the number is quite > high, regardless of Internet use. It's considerably more complicated than 'internet addiction causes depression.' Maybe in some cases it does, in others already-depressed people are self-medicating With internet use, and in yet others, internet overuse is mimicking the symptoms of depression. I've noticed if I'm not careful about my usage it saps my will to get anything of worth accomplished. There's always some low-investment activity one can be engaged in on the internet and it's tempting for People with attention-span problems. From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 9 22:18:28 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:18:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Social implications ofwidespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications ofwidespread > extropian/positivistideals. > > On 3/9/2010 3:00 PM, spike wrote: > > > And if they let you down, there is always those greedy heartless > > capitalists who can point you in the right direction. They are the > > ones who consistently come thru for us in the states. > > Really? When you've got a rabid madman on your hands, and > he's your damaged pal and you don't want to bring in a Xe > Services swat team to kill him? What do you have in mind here, Spike?... Damien Broderick I recognize the need for the local authorities for the dangerous roommate situation. What I had in mind is that the roommate's sister, who owns the apartment, would soon be inviting Dwayne to seek other accommodations forthwith should the dangerous roommate find himself incarcerated, at which time Dwayne would be ill advised to depend on charitable religioso, non-profiteers, government largesse or social workers, all of whom will likely leave one shivering and hungry on the street, as the cooler weather approaches in Australia. >From Dwayne's writing, I am guessing he is a younger man, so the right answer is to do as the rock band Styx urges the angry young man (whose future looks quite bright to me): "Get up! Get back on your feet! You're the one they can't beat and you know it..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7xKWkHkvOg I love that song. In my own misspent youth it hit all the right notes with me, sounding so delightfully capitalistic in an era which languished in anti-materialistic malaise (1977). Dwayne, flee from the dangerous roommate and his charitable sister! Get back on your feet, me lad! spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 22:48:54 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:48:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003091448u5bd700cfjeb3eb2829ffb372c@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 3:29 PM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > Well, efficiency can only be judged in reference to a certain system of values, and so comes after those values. Property is, in my view, a necessary component for human life and all values, and so must come before efficiency. So, ideas of efficiency come after the principles upon which property is based. ### Isn't this assuming too much? Of course, values come first, efficiency in this context and in the first approximation is just a measure of the degree to which available resources are used to realize values of members of the in-group. But equally obviously, many people do not care much about property, in most extreme situations to the point of not even caring about their own bodies except as means to an end (suicide bombers, religious fanatics and others come to mind). A lot of people do not care about most types of property - yet they are alive and have other values, which means that strongly valuing property is not a necessary component for human life. --------------------------- >As I subscribe to an egoist morality, global efficiency is not a factor in the moral basis for property, since it >isn't based on any sense of individualism but rather a collectivist viewpoint that what is "best for society" is >what should be done. ### If your egoist morality totally discounts my values and the values of everybody else, then of course global efficiency is not important for you. But, then if you don't care about what I want, or what everybody else might want, why should anybody care about what you want, except as a strictly tactical issue? Throwing around the term "collectivist" doesn't help here either, since collectivist thinking is only very tangentially related to efficiency (efficiency in the strictly technical sense I mentioned above). Collectivism is a way of thinking which elevates some aspects of social body (national survival, tribal or religious beliefs, "equity") to a special status, such that desires of many or even most members of that body can or should be dismissed as unimportant. This actually goes against efficiency in the technical sense, since it discards a lot of desires from consideration and limits their fulfillment. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 22:51:55 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:51:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003091451pda81cf6w91c91586ea9679c7@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > Is there some reason the gene and modified bacterium couldn't be trade > secrets? Then all they have to do is not disclose the details of the > gene or allow release of the bacterium. ### This won't help, since you can almost always easily reverse-engineer the gene from the protein. Rafal From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 9 23:00:15 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:00:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Social implications ofwidespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> Message-ID: <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> On 3/9/2010 4:18 PM, spike wrote: >Dwayne would be ill advised to depend on charitable religioso, > non-profiteers, government largesse or social workers, all of whom will > likely leave one shivering and hungry on the street Unlike, you inform him, "those greedy heartless capitalists who can point you in the right direction. They are the ones who consistently come thru for us in the states." I... see... As in--Bob Herbert, NYT today: "The economy shed 36,000 jobs last month, and that was trumpeted in the press as good news. Well, after your house has burned down I suppose it?s good news that the flames may finally be flickering out. But once you realize that it will take 11 million or more new jobs to get us back to where we were when the recession began, you begin to understand that we?re not really making any headway at all. "People... know that the big banks that were bailed out by taxpayers can borrow money at an interest rate of near zero while at the same time charging credit-card holders usurious rates of 20 to 30 percent. "There are many communities across the country in which the effective jobless rate is higher than 50 percent." If the greedy heartless capitalists are the ones who consistently come thru for us, they'd better hurry up. Damien From nanite1018 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 23:31:43 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:31:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003091448u5bd700cfjeb3eb2829ffb372c@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003020935m166691ecx6ed3179c3274c0f8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <7641ddc61003091448u5bd700cfjeb3eb2829ffb372c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mar 9, 2010, at 5:48 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 3:29 PM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > Isn't this assuming too much? Of course, values come first, > efficiency in this context and in the first approximation is just a > measure of the degree to which available resources are used to realize > values of members of the in-group. But equally obviously, many people > do not care much about property, in most extreme situations to the > point of not even caring about their own bodies except as means to an > end (suicide bombers, religious fanatics and others come to mind). A > lot of people do not care about most types of property - yet they are > alive and have other values, which means that strongly valuing > property is not a necessary component for human life. I apologize, I was imprecise. I meant rational values, not just "values" in general. You can value an overdose of heroine, because it might feel amazing, and so you want to do that. But that isn't a "rational" i.e. life-affirming value. So the religious fanatics and suicide bombers obviously don't care about property, as they don't care about life, ultimately. And many people are irrational, and aren't really trying to live the best life they can, but rather aiming to avoid pain, or uphold tradition, or try to be popular, or.... whatever. > If your egoist morality totally discounts my values and the values > of everybody else, then of course global efficiency is not important > for you. But, then if you don't care about what I want, or what > everybody else might want, why should anybody care about what you > want, except as a strictly tactical issue? You shouldn't, though this is more a tangent than anything else. The idea is that rights are a necessity for living life as rational being (that is, a human). Basically, it is based on the fact that as a human you must control your actions and be able to think independently (so no coercion), and must produce things in order to survive (and have to be able to control them in order to be able to control whether he survives or not, i.e. must own them). So, if you initiate force against someone, then you have, necessarily, rejected the basis upon which your life is based, and so cannot claim any rights for yourself. So that is why you shouldn't harm me or take my justly acquired property, because then anyone can do the same to you without doing anything wrong themselves. If that is what you mean by a "tactical" issue, then perhaps that is all there is. Though I think it is a pretty big one. > Throwing around the term "collectivist" doesn't help here either... If you define efficiency as you do, the degree to which resources are used to support values of the people in society, you have already missed the point so to speak. Property is necessary for any values to exist, and so, regardless of any empirical concern, it must be respected fully in order for a just society to exist. And I agree with the whole "trade secret" thing, most if not all patents currently in existence are in existence precisely because without them other companies would quickly be able to reverse engineer the innovation from the final product, and thereby "rob" the companies of profit. However, I am willing to debate the merits of intellectual property even given some notion of "efficiency", as I think it will likely turn out to be more efficient than some other system. Even if not (or at least, if it cannot be demonstrated to be the case), it won't effect my position, as it is ultimately based on principle (so there is no downside to me in doing so). Joshua Job nanite1018 at gmail.com From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 9 23:32:34 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:32:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespread > extropian/positivistideals. > > On 3/9/2010 4:18 PM, spike wrote: > > ...They are the ones > who consistently come thru for us in the states." > > I... see... As in--Bob Herbert, NYT today: > > "The economy shed 36,000 jobs last month, and that was > trumpeted in the press as good news... It wasn't trumpeted as good news by the heartless capitalists, it was trumpeted as good news by Senator Reid, who isn't a genuine heartless capitalist. He is a brainless senator. > ... > "People... know that the big banks that were bailed out by > taxpayers can borrow money at an interest rate of near zero > while at the same time charging credit-card holders usurious > rates of 20 to 30 percent... Ja, bailing out the big banks is an example of abaondoning free market principles to save the free market. During the Vietnam war, villages were burned in order to save them. Bad idea in both cases. > "There are many communities across the country in which the > effective jobless rate is higher than 50 percent." Ja we are suffering the consequences of abandoning free market principles in order to save the free market. > If the greedy heartless capitalists are the ones who > consistently come thru for us, they'd better hurry up... Damien Actually they can't even start until the midterm elections. We will then have the opportunity to hurl the current business-unfriendly government out of office. Until then, one can count on capital sitting still and quiet, holding on to its resources, waiting for better times to come. I am betting on job markets staying depressed until a clear signal is sent in November. Then the voters will finish the job in November 2012. spike From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 23:35:23 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P Davis) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:35:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02><4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <005b01cabfe1$318c3720$94a4a560$@com> > Actually they can't even start until the midterm elections. We will > then have the opportunity to hurl the current business-unfriendly government > out of office. Until then, one can count on capital sitting still and > quiet, holding on to its resources, waiting for better times to come. I'm not sure how much more friendly you can get with someone than handing them wheelbarrows Full of cash. From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 9 23:49:54 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 23:49:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:32 PM, spike wrote: > Actually they can't even start until the midterm elections. ?We will then > have the opportunity to hurl the current business-unfriendly government out > of office. ?Until then, one can count on capital sitting still and quiet, > holding on to its resources, waiting for better times to come. > > I am betting on job markets staying depressed until a clear signal is sent > in November. ?Then the voters will finish the job in November 2012. > > But this current economic collapse was caused under a Republican administration!! Obama has continued the same policies, with the same ex-Wall Street advisors. He is being criticised for going along with the big banks rip-off and ignoring the needs of the people. Changing back to the Republicans won't help. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 00:39:43 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:39:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:32 PM, From: Kevin Freels wrote: > > On 3/9/2010 1:09 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. >> >> You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. > > > I don't think that "virtually all humans" will do this. Instead, I expect that this kind of branching of human evolution will be done by a relatively small segment of the population. I don't think you are aware of how many people are involved *now.* Over a year ago there were 11.5 million people subscribed to WoW. This is amazing considering the really crude interface to the virtual world. > In time, that segment will grow, but a suspect that a large majority of the population will simply see this as another religion, or just another unique way of life much as nudists are viewed. ?With the "God gene" existing in such a large portion of the population and the huge number of people who would believe that such a thing as giving up your meat-body would be the work of the devil, I am certain that there would be lots of violence along the way. The only way that I see "virtually all humans" abandoning physical reality is if those battle result in the death of the rest of the people who don't. I don't think you understand the "boiling a frog" aspect. (The thesis is that you can boil a frog without it jumping out of the pot if you start with cold water and slowly heat it.) As an outgrowth of nanotech based medicine, people will be able to upload into virtual worlds and reverse the process at will. It will only take a few hundred watts to keep your body in cold storage and your memory updated. For a time, years even, people will only spend part time in the virtual state. The problem is, virtual spaces can be and will be made *nicer* than the real world, not to mention less expensive. As people start spending more and more time there, the physical world will be increasingly abandoned. People are *social.* We live at certain densities and stores (for example) will be abandoned when there are too few people for them to make sense. (Automated stores may persist a long time even with very few customers.) Near the end the only things moving on the streets will be police robots. Stored bodies with updated memories may be widespread for hundreds of years, with all the infrastructure in place and being maintained by machines with limited AI capacity. It's going to make a strange world. If you see any way to avoid this fate, let us know. Keith From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 01:38:35 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 20:38:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] scientific american article on sacred vs secular in the brain In-Reply-To: <07A5F120CC50421AA588EADC1F5EBEB4@spike> References: <07A5F120CC50421AA588EADC1F5EBEB4@spike> Message-ID: <62c14241003091738t673d5d72vee6193c51d4bd7ed@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/9 spike : > I am seeing more articles regarding which parts of the brain are active when > doing various activities.? This article claims the same parts of the brain > are working during thoughts about secular and sacred.? Does this surprise > you?? Does me.? The two sure feel different to me: > > http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=belief-in-the-brain I have a similar experiment: Hook up heart monitors to athletes practicing their sport. Also hook up heart monitors to couch potatoes watching racy TV programs. Compare each to their baseline heart rates. I conclude that a 30% increase in heart rate in both populations indicates they are both "exercising." If "thinking" lights up the fMRI, then secular and religious thoughts will light up the machine by the fact of "thought" to say nothing of the content. :) From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 01:48:43 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:18:43 +1030 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003091451pda81cf6w91c91586ea9679c7@mail.gmail.com> References: <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> <7641ddc61003091451pda81cf6w91c91586ea9679c7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003091748s4f11811bscaca80fda1747ff8@mail.gmail.com> On 10 March 2010 09:21, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > >> Is there some reason the gene and modified bacterium couldn't be trade >> secrets? Then all they have to do is not disclose the details of the >> gene or allow release of the bacterium. > > ### This won't help, since you can almost always easily > reverse-engineer the gene from the protein. > > Rafal Plus, the idea of patent laws in the first place was to encourage people to release information into the public sphere about their technological advances, rather than hide them as a trade secret; it was seen that everyone hiding their innovations was stifling progress in aggregate. So the idea was to grant inventors a temporary monopoly on their idea in exchange for making the details. Note that there was no concept of "intellectual property" when those laws were created. That's been a very effective (revisionist) rhetorical trick employed by interested industries mostly over the course of the second half of the 20th century. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 01:49:50 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 20:49:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <7641ddc61003091448u5bd700cfjeb3eb2829ffb372c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003091749k529e45e3jcbe25e163411eb83@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 6:31 PM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > > I apologize, I was imprecise. I meant rational values, not just "values" in general. You can value an overdose of heroine, because it might feel amazing, and so you want to do that. But that isn't a "rational" i.e. life-affirming value. So the religious fanatics and suicide bombers obviously don't care about property, as they don't care about life, ultimately. And many people are irrational, and aren't really trying to live the best life they can, but rather aiming to avoid pain, or uphold tradition, or try to be popular, or.... whatever. ### So upholding tradition, or taking heroin, or wanting to be popular, are all "irrational" by your usage of the word, therefore it is OK to dismiss them and to remove them from moral calculation. Hmmm. I think I heard that one before. ---------------------------- > You shouldn't, though this is more a tangent than anything else. The idea is that rights are a necessity for living life as rational being (that is, a human). Basically, it is based on the fact that as a human you must control your actions and be able to think independently (so no coercion), and must produce things in order to survive (and have to be able to control them in order to be able to control whether he survives or not, i.e. must own them). ### No, not really. You don't need to produce to survive, you only need water, air, food, etc. And you don't need to control anything as long as those in control want you to survive. Rights and laws protecting them are not needed for the individual human, instead they are social constructs needed for the functioning of a society. ------------------------------- So, if you initiate force against someone, then you have, necessarily, rejected the basis upon which your life is based, and so cannot claim any rights for yourself. So that is why you shouldn't harm me or take my justly acquired property, because then anyone can do the same to you without doing anything wrong themselves. If that is what you mean by a "tactical" issue, then perhaps that is all there is. Though I think it is a pretty big one. ### Who decides what is right and wrong, and how? Who defines "justly acquired", "harm", "initiate force"? You? ---------------------- > >> Throwing around the term "collectivist" doesn't help here either... > > If you define efficiency as you do, the degree to which resources are used to support values of the people in society, you have already missed the point so to speak. Property is necessary for any values to exist, and so, regardless of any empirical concern, it must be respected fully in order for a just society to exist. ### We already established that values can exist without the notion of property, although you call such values "irrational". Since you personally define what is and what isn't "rational", you also lay claim to defining what is "just". No? I see it differently: Values are not subject to classification as "rational" or not - only beliefs about methods of realizing them can be called irrational, if such methods in fact do not realize the values to implemented. If a stupid loser of an alcoholic values his state of inebriation, and drinks to get drunk, it is rational (even if by my standards stupid) - but if an American who wants prosperity thinks that restricting trade with China will make Americans materially better off, it's irrational. Thus, I don't get to dismiss other people's desires by calling them "irrational" if I happen to disagree with them, I can only suggest more efficient ways of integrating all values in social decision-making. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 10 02:34:13 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:34:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net><2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike><4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike><4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of BillK ... > ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. > > On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:32 PM, spike wrote: > > Actually they can't even start until the midterm elections. > >...Then the voters will finish the job in November 2012. > > > But this current economic collapse was caused under a > Republican administration!! > Obama has continued the same policies, with the same ex-Wall > Street advisors. > He is being criticised for going along with the big banks > rip-off and ignoring the needs of the people. Changing back > to the Republicans won't help...> BillK Ja, rebublicans aren't the answer either. I don't trust those twin parties, the republicans and democrats. I seldom vote for them. I wasn't assuming changing back to republicans necessarily, but rather tossing pretty much all of the current reprsentatives and getting a new crop that understand the root of the word representative, and preferrably people with business backgrounds. We need free market people in government regardless of party. We need candidates who recognize that business really consists of people working together to create wealth, with the three legged stool of capital, management and labor. Business is not prey for lawyers, it is not a target for lawsuit, not a big bucket of money for politicians to plunder with taxes. Rather, business is teams of people making wealth, the engine of a healthy society. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 10 02:54:19 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:54:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net><2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike><4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike><4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> On 3/9/2010 8:34 PM, spike wrote: > Business is not prey for lawyers, it is not a target > for lawsuit, not a big bucket of money for politicians to plunder with > taxes. Rather, business is teams of people making wealth, the engine of a > healthy society. Stipulating that, how do you get there from here, and stay there? It's not an *accident* that we're where we are. (Oh yes, I realize that this is an invitation for an endless series of libertarian or anarchist sermons, some of them by me no doubt.) Damien Broderick From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 10 04:27:00 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 20:27:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net><2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike><4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike><4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <3C873CCADA5F4083B4D477FA110B4CE6@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] Socialimplications > ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. > > On 3/9/2010 8:34 PM, spike wrote: > > > ...Rather, > > business is teams of people making wealth, the engine of a healthy > > society. > > Stipulating that, how do you get there from here, and stay > there? It's not an *accident* that we're where we are. (Oh > yes, I realize that this is an invitation for an endless > series of libertarian or anarchist sermons, some of them by > me no doubt.)... Damien Broderick Ja point well taken. We have debated this stuff to death years ago, no point in redoing it all. Do let us watch how events unfold, then offer commentary after the fact. spike From nanite1018 at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 05:03:33 2010 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (JOSHUA JOB) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:03:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003091749k529e45e3jcbe25e163411eb83@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <7641ddc61003091448u5bd700cfjeb3eb2829ffb372c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc61003091749k529e45e3jcbe25e163411eb83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5B857914-D42D-4195-9EEC-9FD47365B68C@gmail.com> On Mar 9, 2010, at 8:49 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### No, not really. You don't need to produce to survive, you only > need water, air, food, etc. And you don't need to control anything as > long as those in control want you to survive. Rights and laws > protecting them are not needed for the individual human, instead they > are social constructs needed for the functioning of a society. You need to produce food, clothing, shelter, get water, etc. in order to survive. If you are incapable of doing such things (or doing something which you can trade with others to acquire, as is generally the case in a society), then you are at the mercy of others. Your life is not in your control, even a little bit, at that point. So you cannot be said to be living your life, rather, you are living at other's mercy. Rights and laws are not needed an individual alone, sure. But rights are immediately required in any group of two or more people, so as to mediate their interactions in a way which ensures that each has the capacity to live before, during, and after the interaction, i.e. isn't interfering with the things required for each to control their lives and live independently. > Who decides what is right and wrong, and how? Who defines "justly > acquired", "harm", "initiate force"? You? It is based on principles that can be derived, in principle, by anyone, as it is simply philosophy. As for who decides in general, that would be a government, in any big society. Property rights are codified for all to see in law (so there is no ambiguity on the guiding principles), harm and force are mediated by police and courts, etc. > We already established that values can exist without the notion of > property, although you call such values "irrational". Since you > personally define what is and what isn't "rational", you also lay > claim to defining what is "just". No? Irrational in that they do not support your life. You only have one real choice, which is to live or not. If you choose to live, then there are all sorts of things required for that to happen, and in fact the decision will guide all your actions and is the root of morality, rights, etc. If you choose something else, then it really doesn't matter what as you cannot claim rights or anything else. After all, you don't want to live (and so must necessarily be working towards death, even if unbeknownst to you), and so anything that happens really can't change what happens to you (as you're going to die and in fact are working toward that end). So if you violate rights of someone, you cannot claim rights for yourself, as you have acted in a way which necessarily forsakes all claims to rights (from a logical view). And a society which punishes people who initiate force against others is a just one, as it follows justice, i.e. obeys morality. > I see it differently: Values are not subject to classification as > "rational" or not - only beliefs about methods of realizing them can > be called irrational, if such methods in fact do not realize the > values to implemented. If a stupid loser of an alcoholic values his > state of inebriation, and drinks to get drunk, it is rational (even if > by my standards stupid) - but if an American who wants prosperity > thinks that restricting trade with China will make Americans > materially better off, it's irrational. Thus, I don't get to dismiss > other people's desires by calling them "irrational" if I happen to > disagree with them, I can only suggest more efficient ways of > integrating all values in social decision-making. I don't dismiss others values as irrational if I disagree with them. We are all different and have different interests. But a heroine addict is not working for his life, nor is the town drunk, etc. They are clearly acting in contradiction to that. What they want, then, has no bearing on those who choose to live, and so has no bearing on rights in any way shape or form. Property is necessary for people to live in a society and live independently, which is the only way in which any conception of individual rights makes any sense at all (and the only way in which your life can be secure). Which brings me back to the main argument, of IP. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 06:57:34 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 23:57:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <3C873CCADA5F4083B4D477FA110B4CE6@spike> References: <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> <3C873CCADA5F4083B4D477FA110B4CE6@spike> Message-ID: <2d6187671003092257v173bb74fn82a6131e47830025@mail.gmail.com> Hey everyone, let's get back to the subject of helping out Dwayne. What serious advice would each of you give him at this point in his life? John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 07:02:51 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:02:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Peter Thiel Explains How to Invest in the Singularity | Epicenter | Wired.com In-Reply-To: References: <000501cabcdd$99abfc20$ad753644@sx28047db9d36c> <2d6187671003091212nd4eb638qca33d16118fcd948@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003092302i387fe9b0p477a4fc8455f95b8@mail.gmail.com> > > BillK wrote: > I'm not sure how much of that loss was his personal fortune. > The hedge fund that he runs certainly lost big and investors have been > withdrawing their money. > > And his reasoning about rational markets was exactly correct. > Quote from Peter in Sept 28, 2009: > "The recovery is not real," he says. "Deep structural problems haven't > been solved and it's unclear how we will create jobs and get the > economy growing again -- that's long been my thesis and it still is." > The contrarian view puts Mr. Thiel among a group of investors with > impressive track records who are holding out, unwilling to buy into > the notion of the economy's rebound. > --------------------- > > He missed out on the market recovery because he couldn't accept that > markets are subject to irrational behaviour. > I agree completely with what Peter says. The P/E ratios are > unbelievable, company directors are cashing in their shares and the > investing public is having nothing to do with this market. Reason - > This market recovery has been gamed totally by a flood of free > government money from banks too big to fail. They don't care if they > lose it all, the government will just have to bail them out again. > (And we've all got our bonuses again, haven't we?). > >>> > What I find very ironic is that many extremely wealthy people are very shrewd about human nature, both regarding individuals and also groups/institutions. But Peter Thiel has shown that his "logical" approach to life (invariably coming from a techie/software background) has utterly failed him in dealing with a very human and at times very irrational world. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Wed Mar 10 07:22:18 2010 From: moulton at moulton.com (moulton at moulton.com) Date: 10 Mar 2010 07:22:18 -0000 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again Message-ID: <20100310072218.89270.qmail@moulton.com> On Wed, 2010-03-10 at 00:03 -0500, JOSHUA JOB wrote: On Mar 9, 2010, at 8:49 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > > Who decides what is right and wrong, and how? Who defines "justly > > acquired", "harm", "initiate force"? You? > > It is based on principles that can be derived, in principle, by anyone, > as it is simply philosophy. But being "simply philosophy" does not mean that it is simple. And to make the obvious point different people derive different answers to the big questions about rights, etc. Let us avoid over simplification. > As for who decides in general, that would be a government, in any big society. That is one thing which has been tried but it is certainly not the only possibility. > Property rights are codified for all to see in law (so there is no ambiguity > on the guiding principles), harm and force are mediated by police and courts, > etc. I have read many documents in my life and I can not think of a single one which dealt with complex social issues which did not have some ambiguity. So as I mentioned above let us be careful and void over simplification. Fred From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 08:10:16 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:10:16 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals. In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 10/03/2010, John Grigg wrote: > I just wanted to say my heart goes out to you and I definitely don't want > you to become homeless. Me too! Thanks, though :) > And so I must ask, to what extent can the > Australian social services help you to find a job, housing, food, etc.? Well, we are in the middle of the worst rental crisis in Melbourne, ever, so there's not a lot of available housing. And what there is has something like a 3 year waiting list. So while I have been to see some people about housing, I'm not holding my breath. I had assumed I'd have a job within a week and just rent a place, but the job thing has been a harder slog than I expected (I've been to two interviews in 5 years, I got the job both times, so was possibly waaaaay over-confident). > I > have always heard the Aussie system is much better than what the U.S. > typically offers. Well, I am on the dole, so there is that. As far as housing goes, I have no idea, I've never been in such a position and have never known anyone in such a position, so this is all totally new to me. I assume there's adequate everything, but it is not something I have paid much attention to in the past. > I hope you can find some caring social workers, > non-profit church volunteers and gov't employees to point you in the right > direction. Well, they exist. I totally hate churches as hot-beds of mediaeval superstition, but they do have their uses when they are not repressing people and holding back progress. There are govt programs but I feel kind of funny accessing them being able bodied and fit and healthy. Although I'm beginning to consider the options, the clock is ticking. > And perhaps we have some Australian list-members who could give you some > advice or even directly intervene. I'm not sure what anyone could do other than offer me a place to stay or a job (or rent me a house). I've got a bunch of numbers to call and people to visit etc. But for some really unfathomable reason I seem to attract broken people, so I'm aware of just how grim it can be for a lot of people (such as my housemate) and I feel really funny about making use of the available resources given that there's people out there in far worse situations than mine. Sort of. Maybe I'm just not taking things as seriously as I should, given the situation I have mentioned here (there's other stuff, possibly scarier but I really don't want to freak people out with my life, that's not really what this list is for, I feel). Dunno, in the back of my mind is a little voice "don't panic, it will be fine" Maybe I should panic. Dunno. It's not my style. Things just don't stress me, especially nowadays. > KEEP US POSTED!! Um. Okay. I really just brought this stuff up as an example of "people who feel they are not responsible for their actions can be dangerous/scary" and it has turned into a big discussion about me. We Australians get all squirmy at such points. :-o > Best wishes, Thanks :) I have a job interview tomorrow (*), so fingers crossed Dwayne * - I was actually in the process of starting a business when all of this blew up, with an eye towards employing a bunch of my unemployed friends. Funny how things work out -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 08:17:37 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:17:37 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> Message-ID: On 10/03/2010, spike wrote: > And if they let you down, there is always those greedy heartless capitalists > who can point you in the right direction. They are the ones who > consistently come thru for us in the states. I don't really see where the profit margin would be in helping me out. I don't have the money to rent a house (thus am frantically trying to find a job, any job, don't care what sort of job) at which point, woo woo I can throw some of my capital at some fatbastid and rent their investment property, but between now and then: huh? Glib throw-away long-running extropian joke aside, that is ;p There's employment/exploitation, yes, that would be handy, hoo ray for capitalism etc. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 08:20:35 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:20:35 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> References: <20100305204934.KZ5OW.194258.root@hrndva-web17-z02> <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 10/03/2010, Damien Broderick wrote: > Really? When you've got a rabid madman on your hands, and he's your damaged > pal and you don't want to bring in a Xe Services swat team to kill him? What > do you have in mind here, Spike? I can sell off the body parts of his murder victims? Kill him, claim it was self-defense and sell off his body parts? Do an exclusive with a global megacorp media house? Make a movie? Write a book? I have all of his passwords and access to his bank accounts (it is nice being trusted) but that's extremely naughty. Even if this *is* entirely his fault, it is not his fault he went batshit crazy. I'm all ears. Dwayne (baited breath, cough cough, damned prawns) -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 08:35:41 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:35:41 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications ofwidespread extropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> References: <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com> <296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> Message-ID: On 10/03/2010, spike wrote: > I recognize the need for the local authorities for the dangerous roommate > situation. What I had in mind is that the roommate's sister, who owns the > apartment, would soon be inviting Dwayne to seek other accommodations > forthwith should the dangerous roommate find himself incarcerated, at which > time Dwayne would be ill advised to depend on charitable religioso, > non-profiteers, government largesse or social workers, all of whom will > likely leave one shivering and hungry on the street, as the cooler weather > approaches in Australia. Yes, this is exactly the situation. We were meant to sign a 1 year lease the day after the committed himself (sucky timing) and if we'd done that it would be fine, as his rent would be taken out of his sickness benefit payment, and I could have got the business I was planning off the ground, and everyone would be happy. The other option was learn drupal and admin a site for a couple of months and then get a job in computing instead of the crappy jobs I have been doing lately, but all of that has been curtailed while I find another place to live. It turns out he has not paiud any rent at all for about 9 months now (including the money I gavce him for my rent) so the sister owes on the pace, plus she can rent it out for nearly double what we poay, and she said to me: she is sick of looking after him, he can sort himself out. She sent us 2 month's notice on Feb 1st. This was his 42nd birthday. Oh wow did that not help his state of mind in any way. It's all quite shakespearian, a huge tragedy, and I'm running away from it as fast as I can. I will look after my friends to the limit of my abilities, let alone my family (I grew up reading classics. Most people do not think like me), and the way pretty much everyone but me has dealt with him I find extremely horrifying. > >From Dwayne's writing, I am guessing he is a younger man, so the right > answer is to do as the rock band Styx urges the angry young man (whose > future looks quite bright to me): "Get up! Get back on your feet! You're > the one they can't beat and you know it..." Nah I'm 42. But, yep, for some reason I am relentlessly (annoyingly) cheery, nothing gets me down. This hasn't. Even if I put everything I own into storage and wind up in a tent or under a bridge, well, it won't last and it will be something different. I know a *lot* of people, who I have been out of touch with for a while (looking after yet another broken friend over the last few years), and *they* know a lot of people, and I'm usually held in extremely high regard by the people I know, so I'm sure something will turn up. Or not. We'll see. No point being miserable about it, thought, it just gets in the way. Next time you whine about traffic - look on the bright side, you could be me. :) > I love that song. In my own misspent youth it hit all the right notes with > me, sounding so delightfully capitalistic in an era which languished in > anti-materialistic malaise (1977). I grew up in the 80s. Miserable period of sqeaky dystopian tunes. The 90s were *much* better. > Dwayne, flee from the dangerous roommate > and his charitable sister! On it, chief! The sister is piece of work, omg. > Get back on your feet, me lad! I refuse to get off them! :-) Dwayne (I'm going to hit some posting limit soon. Sorry, can only get online from the library so you'll see a stream of posts from me. They used to refer to 'the Dwaynestream' on the futureculture list when I used to do this) Oh and there may be some delay in replies. Don't panic, I'm indestructible, just lagged :) -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 08:54:31 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:54:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003092257v173bb74fn82a6131e47830025@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> <3C873CCADA5F4083B4D477FA110B4CE6@spike> <2d6187671003092257v173bb74fn82a6131e47830025@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 10/03/2010, John Grigg wrote: > Hey everyone, let's get back to the subject of helping out Dwayne. What > serious advice would each of you give him at this point in his life? "go back in time and have some employable skills" I have been unemployed for a long time, mostly reading and doing research. This hampers me somewhat in my current situation. "stay in touch with your friends" <-- support networks are damned handy. "just because you trust someone does not mean you can trust their family" <-- my friend is mad but a nice guy, sister is venal. I started a business years ago, did not trust my partner but set it up so he could not harm things. His father, the investor, pulled the plug and rendered his son bankrupt. I assumed he could trust his dad. Noooo. "if you are going to be thrown out on the street, make sure it happens over summer" oooh, yes, I like that one. "don't be overly positive" <---- I should have got onto this the moment she was making noises about booting us out, and not assumed I'd walk into a job. Dwayne I'm quite touched by this, I have had very little to do with this list since the early 90s, I just mine it for urls and shake my head at some of the radical capitalist rants. Sorry this has turned into a giant thread about me :-/ -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 10 14:45:13 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:45:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100310144513.POYHD.486590.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Your argument isn't very cutting edge either, further when one actually looks at the concept of 'personality transfer' it isn't as clear cut as you'd make it. Consider that the first examples likely to see light will be destructive. It will require the stabilizing of the brain will require a fixing process like freezing or some sort of transfusion of a chemical through the structure. This requires two points to be recognized: it will require the destruction of the original and at best it would be suicide and in most cases would be considered a form of murder. There is little chance this will be popular. There are some other aspects that will not be copied using this technology as it does not capture the dynamics of the brain. So the copy will be 'fuzzy' at best and very generic most likely. It's applicability will be in understanding the basic structure of human physical architecture and a high level look at the architecture. The next stage is to capture not only the dynamic pattern of activity at some point in time, followed by the destruction of the physical brain to determine structural dependencies (each brain is morphologically unique). That pattern of activity can be copied and used either directly in some emulated virtual brain machine or embedded in a more mobile device. The problem with both of these is the destruction of the original. That makes this approach, while necessary for follow on approaches to be developed, of little practical applicability. I'll call this generic approach 'Destructive Copying'. The fundamental problem is that what survives is a (questionable) copy of the original. That is not long term survival by anybodies definition. The claim the copy is the same as the original is just wrong. What does that leave us with? A little introspection makes it clear that what we want is some form of 'Mental Migration' where we can move the mental process, both dynamic and morphological into another framework (and it can be real or virtual). The first is to copy that to a cache and it becomes available to use in multiple locations. However the original is still open to termination, so we're back to the question of is the copy the same as the original and the answer is again clearly no. The alternate is a 'Direct Migration' where the dynamic and morphological of the original is transfered in real time to another location while at the same removing it from the original body. This again is at best suicide of the original body and many might consider it murder. While this at first blush appears to meet the 'don't destroy the original' upon reflection we see it is a near miss. What are we missing? Re-integration. We take the Mental Migration approach and add a single additional concept, re-integration of the mental models from different instances. When this technology will take off is when I can take a snapshot of my mind and copy it into other instances. Then at a latter time re-integrate the experiences and thoughts of those instances in any combination of original and copy that I choose. This puts us almost at the point of using brain transfer for life extension rather than 'Copy Persistence', which are not the same thing at all. What might that missing element be? Real-time interaction. When besides making those copies we can re-integrate them in real time such that the original mind becomes a component of a hive of minds that are acting in concert at the same time all the time. This also opens up the potential to re-integrate groups of individuals (ala Borg) into a single hive mind. ---- Keith Henson wrote: > The recent discussion doesn't seem cutting edge. > > I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. > > You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From sparge at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 15:15:53 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:15:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Infection_Defense_May_Spur_Alzheimer=92s?= Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/health/09alzh.html "For years, a prevailing theory has been that one of the chief villains in Alzheimer?s disease has no real function other than as a waste product that the brain never properly disposed of. The material, a protein called beta amyloid, or A-beta, piles up into tough plaques that destroy signals between nerves. When that happens, people lose their memory, their personality changes and they stop recognizing friends and family. But now researchers at Harvard suggest that the protein has a real and unexpected function ? it may be part of the brain?s normal defenses against invading bacteria and other microbes." ... "But does that mean Alzheimer?s disease is caused by an overly exuberant brain response to an infection? That?s one possible reason, along with responses to injuries and inflammation and the effects of genes that cause A-beta levels to be higher than normal, Dr. Tanzi said. However, some researchers say that all the pieces of the A-beta innate immune systems hypothesis are not in place." -Dave From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 10 15:34:45 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:34:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <580930c21003091334m4a8b9aacu86d63a6e88ec82f0@mail.gmail.com> References: <20100309151533.n3pbdrlf4owgwk8s@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003091334m4a8b9aacu86d63a6e88ec82f0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Stefano wrote: On 9 March 2010 21:15, wrote: > I do care that students and the public are given information about > their future apart from Fukuyama and Joy and McKibben, et al. ?I don't > really care about academic cliques, but I do darn well care what > students are taught and what information is available to them in order > for them to question and imagine their own future. >I am not really knowledgeable about US academic cliques, I was not speaking about US academic cliques. This is an international issue. >and it may well be the case that posthumanist intelligentsia in general is irritating in its snubbing >attitude towards organised transhumanism and has after all a relatively limited social impact, but I >would be reluctant to put it altogether in the same bag with blatant neoluddites such as the ones you mention. Sure, the posthumanism folks are vying quite strongly for philosophical position and it is very true that transhumanism is ignored, but this links directly to the postmodernist feminists aggressive coursework, which is amazingly organized and smartly by promoting gay and gender studies, etc. which is enormously beneficial to the students. >This is one area where I am personally trying to build bridges. >Without renouncing one single inch of our own positions, but simply trying to overcome language barriers... Natasha From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 10 15:39:05 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:39:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100310144513.POYHD.486590.root@hrndva-web22-z01> References: <20100310144513.POYHD.486590.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Message-ID: <1B184F90FB4447EA8DFFD4BBBE1CC7D3@DFC68LF1> James, Are you combining my response to Keith with Keith's own post? For example, I said that the discussion was not cutting edge (meaning Keith's contribution (however pioneering Keith has been and insightful, etc., but the information he provided was in and of itself not cutting edge); and I said that there is something missing ... I wrote on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 2:16 PM "What could transhumanists be missing or ignoring right now?" 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 jameschoate at austin.rr.com Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 8:45 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies Your argument isn't very cutting edge either, further when one actually looks at the concept of 'personality transfer' it isn't as clear cut as you'd make it. Consider that the first examples likely to see light will be destructive. It will require the stabilizing of the brain will require a fixing process like freezing or some sort of transfusion of a chemical through the structure. This requires two points to be recognized: it will require the destruction of the original and at best it would be suicide and in most cases would be considered a form of murder. There is little chance this will be popular. There are some other aspects that will not be copied using this technology as it does not capture the dynamics of the brain. So the copy will be 'fuzzy' at best and very generic most likely. It's applicability will be in understanding the basic structure of human physical architecture and a high level look at the architecture. The next stage is to capture not only the dynamic pattern of activity at some point in time, followed by the destruction of the physical brain to determine structural dependencies (each brain is morphologically unique). That pattern of activity can be copied and used either directly in some emulated virtual brain machine or embedded in a more mobile device. The problem with both of these is the destruction of the original. That makes this approach, while necessary for follow on approaches to be developed, of little practical applicability. I'll call this generic approach 'Destructive Copying'. The fundamental problem is that what survives is a (questionable) copy of the original. That is not long term survival by anybodies definition. The claim the copy is the same as the original is just wrong. What does that leave us with? A little introspection makes it clear that what we want is some form of 'Mental Migration' where we can move the mental process, both dynamic and morphological into another framework (and it can be real or virtual). The first is to copy that to a cache and it becomes available to use in multiple locations. However the original is still open to termination, so we're back to the question of is the copy the same as the original and the answer is again clearly no. The alternate is a 'Direct Migration' where the dynamic and morphological of the original is transfered in real time to another location while at the same removing it from the original body. This again is at best suicide of the original body and many might consider it murder. While this at first blush appears to meet the 'don't destroy the original' upon reflection we see it is a near miss. What are we missing? Re-integration. We take the Mental Migration approach and add a single additional concept, re-integration of the mental models from different instances. When this technology will take off is when I can take a snapshot of my mind and copy it into other instances. Then at a latter time re-integrate the experiences and thoughts of those instances in any combination of original and copy that I choose. This puts us almost at the point of using brain transfer for life extension rather than 'Copy Persistence', which are not the same thing at all. What might that missing element be? Real-time interaction. When besides making those copies we can re-integrate them in real time such that the original mind becomes a component of a hive of minds that are acting in concert at the same time all the time. This also opens up the potential to re-integrate groups of individuals (ala Borg) into a single hive mind. ---- Keith Henson wrote: > The recent discussion doesn't seem cutting edge. > > I suspect that virtually all humans will abandon physical reality entirely. > > You can see this starting with Second Life and WoW. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 10 15:52:32 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:52:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Social implications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <4e3a29501003051306i9c52df7y32d3c16dca84fa04@mail.gmail.com><296151.87541.qm@web111213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net><2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike><4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> Message-ID: <516F961F22F54F369E8A616984F08086@spike> >...On Behalf Of ddraig >... > > >From Dwayne's writing, I am guessing he is a younger man... > > ...Nah I'm 42... 42 is young! >...But, yep, for some reason I am relentlessly > (annoyingly) cheery, nothing gets me down... Well there ya go! We love the attitude Dwayne. You're the one they can't beat and you know it. > ... > Next time you whine about traffic - look on the bright side, > you could be me. :) ... > > > Get back on your feet, me lad! > > I refuse to get off them! > > :-) What a guy! {8^D One of the things that drew me into Extropian philosophy is its inherent optimism, or dynamic optimism as Max calls it. Dynamic optimism puts the DO in BEST DO IT SO. This world desperately needs more DO, so long as it has with it BEST and IT SO: http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm Dynamic optimism is now called practical optimism. Its the kind of attitude that gets you up and doing something to improve the situation, that gets your energy focused, that makes money, builds up and makes good things happen. > ... > (I'm going to hit some posting limit soon. Sorry, can only > get online from the library so you'll see a stream of posts > from me. They used to refer to 'the Dwaynestream'... With that very reasonable explanation we will tolerate temporary Dwaynestreams. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 16:08:29 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:08:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <5B857914-D42D-4195-9EEC-9FD47365B68C@gmail.com> References: <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <7641ddc61003091448u5bd700cfjeb3eb2829ffb372c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc61003091749k529e45e3jcbe25e163411eb83@mail.gmail.com> <5B857914-D42D-4195-9EEC-9FD47365B68C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003100808q618e495di4d7c15fb56dad44@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 12:03 AM, JOSHUA JOB wrote: So you cannot be said to be living your life, rather, you are living at other's mercy. ### So children and the infirm, who live on our sufferance, are not living their lives? ---------------------------------------- > >> ?Who decides what is right and wrong, and how? Who defines "justly >> acquired", "harm", "initiate force"? You? > > It is based on principles that can be derived, in principle, by anyone, as it is simply philosophy. As for who decides in general, that would be a government, in any big society. Property rights are codified for all to see in law (so there is no ambiguity on the guiding principles), harm and force are mediated by police and courts, etc. ### You have completely glossed over practically all of moral philosophy. Not much discussion is possible at this level of gloss. -------------------------------------- > Irrational in that they do not support your life. ### Wasting your time on exi does not support your life, and that makes you irrational, therefore I don't need to pay attention to your desires. QED A word of advice: Don't abuse terms such as "rational" (for the correct meaning I suggest the wikipedia article on rationality), and never say that moral philosophy or the engineering of legal systems are "simple". Rafal From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 16:20:58 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:20:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Rush Limbaugh announced this morning that if health care passes he will leave the country. "I'll go to Costa Rica!" Message-ID: <2d6187671003100820n33490322p4120dae7319036e4@mail.gmail.com> I was very amused and delighted by this announcement from Rush Limbaugh. If only we could hold him to his word. lol And here is the Care2 petition... http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/seeyarush John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 10 16:22:22 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:22:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] intellectual property again In-Reply-To: <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> References: <580930c21003030625nb564482gb6a692ff60a14f75@mail.gmail.com> <511313.19535.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003090641v4f28bc07l47d603ad6885666a@mail.gmail.com> <3CAF4239-DA12-4565-A400-F4DFFF32AD14@GMAIL.COM> <580930c21003091320q2dc91186p376399183a3d4a22@mail.gmail.com> <80D06665-0821-4EBB-B3DD-7BF780664D63@GMAIL.COM> Message-ID: <580930c21003100822i44e646c7ie8b3936dbfaa535a@mail.gmail.com> On 9 March 2010 22:40, JOSHUA JOB wrote: > On Mar 9, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > >> I appreciate that this position exists, but if you could show that (in >> some circumstances, some forms of) IP is not even efficient from a >> collectivist viewpoint, this would simply strengthen your position and >> widen your audience without requiring any compromise on "egoist >> morality", wouldn't it? > > Actually, I think that would weaken my position. Now if I proved it WAS efficient even from a collectivist viewpoint, then THAT might strengthen my position. Please clarify. Does a libertarian have reasons to oppose legal systems which increase the overall wealth, all other things being equal?! :-/ > Let's take the example of a patent on a newly created gene that can be used to produce a certain medicine (doesn't really matter what), that could previously only be produced at high expense in limited quantities, but now can be produced at low cost in giant vats of bacteria, allowing widespread access to the new medication. Yes. This is a good and concise presentation of the traditional rationale behind IP systems. But the devil is in the details. One could for instance consider the amount of money, energy and time wasted on "inventing around", that is in seeking alternative, unprotected techs that are barely equivalent, instead of devoting the same resources to more deserving targets. Another issue is that a relatively long-term monopoly on a barring technology may dissuade people from investing in R&D aimed at its improvement - certainly those who would require a licence, but possibly the owner thereof as well, unless the improvement actually provides net margins over the existing version. Etc. etc. -- Stefano Vaj From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 10 17:50:42 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:50:42 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <1B184F90FB4447EA8DFFD4BBBE1CC7D3@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <20100310175043.MY7ER.489493.root@hrndva-web22-z01> No, I don't think I saw your commentary. My time is very limited right now and what I've been doing is hunting and pecking at threads until I see something that's interesting and then track it for a few replies, then go back and add a reply to the original post that seems to cover points nobody else may have. The question you pose as to what transhumanist might be missing doesn't seem to be the same question as to what are mind transfer discussions missing. That was what I was addressing. Egan and others have written about it but most discussions about it tend to become mental pablum pretty quickly with generalizations like it will become universal. To address your question, transhumanist are missing the point that they're not. They see the potential but that's different than practicing the potential. The Buddhist have a koan that seems apropos... One speaks of what one doesn't understand. ---- Natasha Vita-More wrote: > James, Are you combining my response to Keith with Keith's own post? For > example, I said that the discussion was not cutting edge (meaning Keith's > contribution (however pioneering Keith has been and insightful, etc., but > the information he provided was in and of itself not cutting edge); and I > said that there is something missing ... > > I wrote on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 2:16 PM > > "What could transhumanists be missing or ignoring right now?" -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 10 18:13:18 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:13:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100310175043.MY7ER.489493.root@hrndva-web22-z01> References: <1B184F90FB4447EA8DFFD4BBBE1CC7D3@DFC68LF1> <20100310175043.MY7ER.489493.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Message-ID: Okay ... Anyway, I agree with your last statement. Experience design through immersivity might be a darn good way to "bridge" this gap of "missing the point that they're not". 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 jameschoate at austin.rr.com Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 11:51 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies No, I don't think I saw your commentary. My time is very limited right now and what I've been doing is hunting and pecking at threads until I see something that's interesting and then track it for a few replies, then go back and add a reply to the original post that seems to cover points nobody else may have. The question you pose as to what transhumanist might be missing doesn't seem to be the same question as to what are mind transfer discussions missing. That was what I was addressing. Egan and others have written about it but most discussions about it tend to become mental pablum pretty quickly with generalizations like it will become universal. To address your question, transhumanist are missing the point that they're not. They see the potential but that's different than practicing the potential. The Buddhist have a koan that seems apropos... One speaks of what one doesn't understand. ---- Natasha Vita-More wrote: > James, Are you combining my response to Keith with Keith's own post? > For example, I said that the discussion was not cutting edge (meaning > Keith's contribution (however pioneering Keith has been and > insightful, etc., but the information he provided was in and of itself > not cutting edge); and I said that there is something missing ... > > I wrote on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 2:16 PM > > "What could transhumanists be missing or ignoring right now?" -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 10 19:25:56 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:25:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100310192556.YQS7X.258324.root@hrndva-web19-z02> It's rather ironic from my perspective as my MBTI [1] is INT... But, yes, it would be more effective for more Transhumanist to try experiments and lifestyle changes to see what the potential is. Rather than rehash mental models over and over. One of the problems with those models is that they are generalized and so they lose a lot of lower level complexity that makes things look simpler and cleaner than they really are. Back in the mid 80's I help start a hands-on science museum called Discovery Hall. After it failed I got involved in the Cypherpunks trying to figure out ways to use technology to change the power politic status quo. In the early 00's I started an Open Source technology company called Open Forge, LLC that turned out to be a neat way to blow $250k. Now I'm looking at doing a distributed hackerspace... http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Confusion_Research_Center. Maybe practice makes perfect ;) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator ---- Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Anyway, I agree with your last statement. Experience design through > immersivity might be a darn good way to "bridge" this gap of "missing the > point that they're not". -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 01:16:12 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:46:12 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> > Stored bodies with updated memories may be widespread for hundreds of > years, with all the infrastructure in place and being maintained by > machines with limited AI capacity. ?It's going to make a strange > world. > > If you see any way to avoid this fate, let us know. > > Keith I dunno, I don't think it's a dystopia, in fact it sounds damned cool. After all, people would largely be moving into the virtual sphere because it's better (although many late movers might feel they are doing it because it's the best of a set of bad choices; staying in the physical world becomes worse than not). btw, if we can move in and out of meat bodies (sorry, I know people hate that term), then surely fully artificial physical bodies will also be available, with superior features. I wouldn't expect the meat bodies to stick around; I think people would be more likely to grab a physical "robot" body as needed if an when they need to run around in the physical world, and even then only until they no longer care about embodiment; after that, you'd just be looking for appropriate sensors and manipulators to whatever real world task you wanted to perform, and that might not always or even usually correspond to a body. btw, I just want to state clearly that I agree with Keith on this. WoW, the social network sites and games, and to a lesser extent Second Life, prove to me that at least a very large minority, and probably in fact a large majority of people will move into the virtual realm as soon as it is possible, and live their permanently. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From ddraig at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 01:30:27 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:30:27 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social implications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <516F961F22F54F369E8A616984F08086@spike> References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net> <2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com> <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <516F961F22F54F369E8A616984F08086@spike> Message-ID: On 11/03/2010, spike wrote: > > 42 is young! Yes, this is my attitude. I feel about 22 internally, but my licence disagrees. Dammit. > Well there ya go! We love the attitude Dwayne. You're the one they can't > beat and you know it. It's funny, I say to people that the only thing that can make you unhappy is the inside of your head (I'm one of those poor souls that people who are miserable talk to to cheer them up) and here I am putting it to good use. > One of the things that drew me into Extropian philosophy > is its inherent optimism, or dynamic optimism as Max calls it. Yes, same here. Even if the world is going to hell in a handbasket, you can either wring your hands and whine, take drugs/watch TV/switch off and cover your eyes,. or go and either fix the problem or go somewhere less catastrophic. I see this list and people like it as doing either of the last two. If anyone is going to save the world it is people like extropians. Or someone from the extropians list will transcend and consume the entire planet for raw materials. Errrrrr. Yeah. :-) > Dynamic > optimism puts the DO in BEST DO IT SO. This world desperately needs more > DO, so long as it has with it BEST and IT SO: I agree. At started an ISP in the middle of the 90s, and at the same time was involved in third world networking (it all fell apart, long story *) and I found that there was vast gobs of money being splashed about, because there's lots of peoepl who want to do something, there's lots of money, but very very few good ideas. And it is ideas that drive absolutely everything else. You can point at greed as a motivator but without an idea of what to do, that greed is just jealousy, basically. > Dynamic optimism is now called practical optimism. Its the kind of attitude > that gets you up and doing something to improve the situation, that gets > your energy focused, that makes money, builds up and makes good things > happen. My main problem is that I have far too many options and tend to dither between them. I don't lack for ideas but I do lack focus in a huge way. > With that very reasonable explanation we will tolerate temporary > Dwaynestreams. Thanks. :-) Job interview in a couple of hours. Wish me luck! Dwayne * http://www.koan.net/?p=2 -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 11 02:12:04 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:12:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn > ... > probably in fact a large majority of people > will move into the virtual realm as soon as it is possible, > and live there permanently... Emlyn You mean we will kiss our asses goodbye? B 3^8} spike From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 11 02:30:35 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:30:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100310213035.h9jc989tcskkgwc4@webmail.natasha.cc> Haha Good one Spike! (More like kiss our tits and asses good-bye!) In the design world there is some arguing between which is more cool for the future humans - evolution of the Metaverse or VR. Bty, if anyone didn't see Guilio's article on the virtual immersionists and augmentationists, it's a good read. I posted it a couple of weeks ago but it seemed to go unnoticed (maybe because everyone has already read it). Anyway, here it is again: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Giulio+AND+augmentationists&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= http://10.10.2.51:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=1107538183 http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/prisco20070812/ Quoting spike : > > >> ...On Behalf Of Emlyn >> ... >> probably in fact a large majority of people >> will move into the virtual realm as soon as it is possible, >> and live there permanently... Emlyn > > You mean we will kiss our asses goodbye? > > B 3^8} > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 11 03:16:28 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:16:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Social implicationsofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net><2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike><4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike><516F961F22F54F369E8A616984F08086@spike> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of ddraig > > On 11/03/2010, spike wrote: > > > > ...You're the one they > > can't beat and you know it. > > ...(I'm one of those > poor souls that people who are miserable talk to to cheer > them up)... Ja me too. {8-] >...Even if the world is going to hell in a > handbasket, you can either wring your hands and whine, take > drugs/watch TV/switch off and cover your eyes... Denial works too, because it is so plausible. The world really isn't going to hell in a handbasket. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer, even if not as quickly (ref. China). Sure we have wars but we don't really have anything analogous to the 20th century European wars, and it is unlikely we will see anything like that again soon. We have starving people, but a lower percentage of humanity is hungry now than before. We have an ever increasing percentage of humans with sufficient clean water, food and HVAC, so we are actually becoming a more comfortable species. Sure we have an entire basket case continent, but that one has always been that way, and even that one has a few bright spots on it (Kenya is sorta making progess in some areas). If we as a species are so far down on our list of needs that we have time to worry about theoretical global warming, that to me is a sign of well being, very well being. ... > Or someone from the extropians list will transcend and > consume the entire planet for raw materials... Well, the term consume could be replaced with the term convert. Given sufficient heat and pressure, diamond could be made from manure. Technically we would be consuming the manure, but I prefer to think of it as converting it to another more valuable form. > ...because there's lots of > people who want to do something, there's lots of money, but > very very few good ideas... People throwing around (their own) money helps determine which ideas are good and which are not. > And it is ideas that drive absolutely everything else. You > can point at greed as a motivator but without an idea of what > to do, that greed is just jealousy, basically... Sure but that makes it sound like a bad thing. Check this: "...for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God..."(Exodus 20:5) and "...you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God..." (Exodus 34:14) so the religioso would say that if greed is jealousy, then god is greedy, so it must be a good thing. Or something. {8^D Surprisingly, we have never heard of Jealous' Witnesses. Now I gotta tell this one story that happened Monday, then I can stop laughing finally. The doorbell rang, I looked out and saw it was Jehovah's Witnesses, so I didn't answer. My three year old wanted to know why, so I told him I knew who it was and didn't want to talk to them. Out the window he saw them walking away. About an hour later, I was out for a walk with him, and around the corner comes the Witnesses, four of them, and he points and shouts "There's the bad guys, and we don't want to talk to them!" {8^D > ... > > Job interview in a couple of hours. Wish me luck! > > Dwayne Good for you pal, and good luck! spike From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 03:29:38 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:29:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100311032939.6ATYK.279185.root@hrndva-web16-z02> Can you articulate more clearly why you believe this? I suspect that I already know but I'd like to see your arguments in support of your thesis. ---- Emlyn wrote: > btw, I just want to state clearly that I agree with Keith on this. > WoW, the social network sites and games, and to a lesser extent Second > Life, prove to me that at least a very large minority, and probably in > fact a large majority of people will move into the virtual realm as > soon as it is possible, and live their permanently. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 03:31:28 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:01:28 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100310213035.h9jc989tcskkgwc4@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> <20100310213035.h9jc989tcskkgwc4@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003101931o697e0aebv26d2b61d34daf579@mail.gmail.com> On 11 March 2010 13:00, wrote: > Haha Good one Spike! ?(More like kiss our tits and asses good-bye!) > > In the design world there is some arguing between which is more cool for the > future humans - evolution of the Metaverse or VR. At the risk of sounding smug, I've been finding the 3D worlds boring. There's already a rich environment, brimming with possibilities for human life and expression on the internet - it's called "the internet". It's just hard to recognise it as such, because it's not like the physical world at all. That people then go and implement a 3D walled garden in a little corner of the 'net, is nice for a playground, but I wouldn't want to live there. When I upload, I want to be native to the raw 'net, leave the physical world analogues for the n00bs. > > Bty, if anyone didn't see Guilio's article on the virtual immersionists and > augmentationists, it's a good read. ?I posted it a couple of weeks ago but > it seemed to go unnoticed (maybe because everyone has already read it). > ?Anyway, here it is again: > > http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Giulio+AND+augmentationists&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= > > http://10.10.2.51:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=1107538183 > > http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/prisco20070812/ > Interesting article, although it did make me think "really? they are only just now adding voice to SL?" We had to deal with this in WoW quite some years back, and (*spoiler alert*) the augmentationists win. -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 03:31:47 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 3:31:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100310213035.h9jc989tcskkgwc4@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20100311033148.3SELP.279209.root@hrndva-web16-z02> I think it's reasonably easy to demonstrate the answer is neither. But I'm going to wait for Emlyn to answer my challenge before I get into that aspect. ---- natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > In the design world there is some arguing between which is more cool > for the future humans - evolution of the Metaverse or VR. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 03:39:53 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:09:53 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100311032939.6ATYK.279185.root@hrndva-web16-z02> References: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> <20100311032939.6ATYK.279185.root@hrndva-web16-z02> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003101939w7f0e426brcd89b1c4c2245797@mail.gmail.com> On 11 March 2010 13:59, wrote: > Can you articulate more clearly why you believe this? I suspect that I already know but I'd like to see your arguments in > support of your thesis. I can't find the source, but I saw stats saying that 25% of americans now play multiplayer online games (or is that 25% of internet using americans?) That includes dross like farmville of course. You just need to see how people play World of Warcraft. It's more than immersive; it's utterly compelling to very normal people. And compared to what we imagine for an upload universe, it's primitive; it is to that world as graffiti tagging is to Shakespeare. People are willing to invest massive amounts of time into it (comparable to their work life, for instance), and clearly (if you know any WoW players) they would invest a lot more if they didn't have to deal with RL concerns. WoW players don't play WoW every so often, they enter RL every so often (and come running back to WoW as soon as humanly possible). I think the quality of life will be so high compared to the real world that people will flood in; it'll cheaper to live in, might require little or no income, will be easier (no disease! no aging! no banging your toe on a concrete step!) To the extent that the uploaded world is a 3D virtual environment (the first ones will be, the transitional environments), it'll be a 3D world with the constraints removed (we can fly! wheeee!). And past a certain point, the network effect will pull everyone else in, because that's where their friends and family are. > > ---- Emlyn wrote: > >> btw, I just want to state clearly that I agree with Keith on this. >> WoW, the social network sites and games, and to a lesser extent Second >> Life, prove to me that at least a very large minority, and probably in >> fact a large majority of people will move into the virtual realm as >> soon as it is possible, and live their permanently. > > -- > ?-- -- -- -- > Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus > > jameschoate at austin.rr.com > james.choate at g.austincc.edu > james.choate at twcable.com > h: 512-657-1279 > w: 512-845-8989 > www.ssz.com > http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu > http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center > > Adapt, Adopt, Improvise > ?-- -- -- -- > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 04:28:43 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:28:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Political Ponerology- A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes Message-ID: <2d6187671003102028k6c60bd3an268325a38df65533@mail.gmail.com> I have been reading about how psychopaths have infiltrated society and for millennia have caused terrible disruption, suffering and even war. I am fascinated by the classic work "Political Ponerology" and wondered how many of you were familiar with it. http://ponerology.com/psychopaths_1.html http://www.sott.net/articles/show/152452-Political-Ponerology-A-Science-of-Evil-Applied-for-Political-Purposes This is a video that shows the MRI results of a psychopath as compared to a normal human... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaTfdKYbudk What does this bode for the future? John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 04:53:48 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:23:48 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003101939w7f0e426brcd89b1c4c2245797@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc1003101716g2a318303y7277327333bed7d4@mail.gmail.com> <20100311032939.6ATYK.279185.root@hrndva-web16-z02> <710b78fc1003101939w7f0e426brcd89b1c4c2245797@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003102053j10898429m6ccc90268944e78e@mail.gmail.com> > I can't find the source, but I saw stats saying that 25% of americans > now play multiplayer online games (or is that 25% of internet using > americans?) Yes I can, here it is. 25% of Americans play MMOs: http://www.gamesindustry.com/about-newzoo/todaysgamers_graphs_USA -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 04:55:13 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:25:13 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Rush Limbaugh announced this morning that if health care passes he will leave the country. "I'll go to Costa Rica!" In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003100820n33490322p4120dae7319036e4@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187671003100820n33490322p4120dae7319036e4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003102055r6f6204f3hd61318ce3c99116e@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/11 John Grigg : > I was very amused and delighted by this announcement?from Rush Limbaugh.? If > only we could hold him to his word. lol > > And here is the Care2 petition... > > http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/seeyarush > > John? : ) Cool. Now healthcare reform can pass on the platform of "yeah, it's a bit crap, but Limbaugh will leave if we do it." -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Mar 11 05:54:10 2010 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:54:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003102053j10898429m6ccc90268944e78e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <827725.2350.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 3/10/10, Emlyn wrote: > > I can't find the source, but I > saw stats saying that 25% of americans > > now play multiplayer online games (or is that 25% of > internet using > > americans?) > > Yes I can, here it is. 25% of Americans play MMOs: > > http://www.gamesindustry.com/about-newzoo/todaysgamers_graphs_USA 22% of Internet using Americans, if you read the fine print. (The distribution looks a little suspect, though...) From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 08:46:16 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:46:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Infection_Defense_May_Spur_Alzheimer=92s?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003110046n5de439fh1bda4471a2bcca8c@mail.gmail.com> On 10 March 2010 16:15, Dave Sill wrote: > That?s one possible reason, along with responses to injuries and > inflammation and the effects of genes that cause A-beta levels to be > higher than normal, Dr. Tanzi said. However, some researchers say that > all the pieces of the A-beta innate immune systems hypothesis are not > in place." I remember to have recently read that the amyloid-based disease etiology might be wrong itself... -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 09:53:07 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:53:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <827725.2350.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <710b78fc1003102053j10898429m6ccc90268944e78e@mail.gmail.com> <827725.2350.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 5:54 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > 22% of Internet using Americans, if you read the fine > print. ?(The distribution looks a little suspect, > though...) > Gamasutra has just published their 2009 stats. March 9, 2010 Study: U.S. Gamers Spent $3.8 Billion On MMOs in 2009 U.S. gamers spent $3.8 billion on massively multiplayer online games in 2009, almost 15 times more than other substantial MMO markets in Europe, according to a new study. Consumer data from Today's Gamers MMO Focus Report by Gamesindustry.com and TNS indicates that the number of MMO players in the U.S. has reached 46 million, 46 percent (21 million) of which paid to play online games; the rest, around 25 million gamers, play MMOs without spending any money. The average paying MMO player spent around $15.10 per month on their games. The report points out that Blizzard's World of Warcraft has the most number of players in the U.S. out of all the MMOs it tracked, just in front of NeoPets and Club Penguin. Other MMOs in the top five include Disney ToonTown and RuneScape. ------------------------ I make 46 million to be around 15% of the US population, about half of whom play free games only. I think I'd link the popularity of MMOs with the depression and unemployment. BillK From sparge at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 11:53:55 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:53:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Infection_Defense_May_Spur_Alzheimer=92s?= In-Reply-To: <580930c21003110046n5de439fh1bda4471a2bcca8c@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c21003110046n5de439fh1bda4471a2bcca8c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 3:46 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 10 March 2010 16:15, Dave Sill wrote: >> That?s one possible reason, along with responses to injuries and >> inflammation and the effects of genes that cause A-beta levels to be >> higher than normal, Dr. Tanzi said. However, some researchers say that >> all the pieces of the A-beta innate immune systems hypothesis are not >> in place." > > I remember to have recently read that the amyloid-based disease > etiology might be wrong itself... Did you read the article? That's pretty much the point of it. -Dave From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 12:49:40 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:49:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Political Ponerology- A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003102028k6c60bd3an268325a38df65533@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187671003102028k6c60bd3an268325a38df65533@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003110449q56e3f515s963181b79626ffba@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/11 John Grigg : > I have been reading about how psychopaths have infiltrated society and for > millennia have caused terrible disruption, suffering and even war. Successful infiltration by somebody in a given society would show that they are not disfunctional in the least according to the parameters required to succeed in the same society, so that the definition of "psychopaths" sounds unwarranted... Of course, this may tell us something on the sanity of the society concerned. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 14:33:10 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:33:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003101939w7f0e426brcd89b1c4c2245797@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100311143310.Z7046.467879.root@hrndva-web08-z01> As I thought, quality of life. That was exactly the term I was hoping you'd use. This is demonstrative of why Transhumanist don't get it. They see the pieces but not the whole. First let me start with the 'spike', it isn't and never will be. It's a world view of Transhumanist who don't fundamentally understand physics or cosmology. To borrow from Heinz Pagels: The first law says you never get ahead The second law says you can never break even The third law says the first two always apply There are entirely too many impossibility and exclusion principles to support the thesis of exponential growth, even over the short term. At best what you have is a tanh() curve of "current knowledge v total possible knowledge over time". At some point you asymptotically approach all that is possible to know. There are some calculus of variations issues related to the actual parameters of that curve for a given brain morphology but I'll forgo that discussion here. We're not interested in comparative intelligence. Imagine the world when some kid, let's say the coming out is 12 years old or so, is given a generic set of nanobots at birth and at some point inherits the 'bots from both parents, and maybe other family and friends. They'll then work with those over their life whittling here and there to try and optimize their functionality and utility. You mention work, pay? Step away from the crack pipe junior. There is no work or pay in that world. You're hungry? Order your gray goo to go to some area, say an empty pasture and assemble a nice plate and a steaming rib eye stake at your feet. When you're done the 'bots internal to your body parallel process the food and waste, converting and transporting the rejuvenated waste back into your blood stream for your cells to use. It's nearly a closed system, think of a re-breather if you want a pre-Wave (I call it The Wave because that will be what it's like, if you ever surf you'll understand) example. Whatever is left over they recreate in that same pasture as some other construct (could be plants, animals, physical structures, etc.).. Intellectual property, physical property, conventional economics? Won't exist, it will become more akin to playing the IPD than a convention economic exchange. Why? Because the false layer of scarcity that human society has applied won't be utilitarian. Remember, economics and government are just technologies; really no different than a light bulb. We're just so ingrained to them we ignore them as something fundamental and necessary. They're not. Reality? In that world the distinction you make is moot. You'll be walking around in the real world and the virtual world through immersive VR/augmented reality all the time. And you'll likely be doing it from multiple locations and the sensory and ideation streams of those instances will be combined, mixed, and mashed like a piece of Boudin sausage, and hopefully you'll be a good enough cook to make it taste as good. You'll live in a world of direct sense stimulation (like we live in solely at the moment) and a world of visual, aural, tactile, haptic, etc. augmentations. In that sort of connected world each individual won't die a single death, they'll experience death after death as the instances come to grief over time. The totality of the experience pool however will be nearly indestructible. As to what that psychology will be like? Insane by any and all frames of reference we can imagine to use. People are social animals, they'll aggregate with those they share similar views and goals with. You can see that know by numerous studies of how neighborhoods change over time to be more homogeneous. What does this mean? Transhumanist culture has two term for this that I think are spot on. Arcology and Zaibatsu. This will become more important, see Brin's Transparent Society for a more in depth discussion of those factors. Like minded people (and I use that term in a much broader sense than what you initially read that as, refer to Brin's Uplift Series) will get together and pool their resources and defend the world views they hold near and dear from the other arcologies/zaibatsu who have conflicting views. The interface between those organizations will be very dynamic and quite confrontational in a non-war sort of way. War as we know it has no real context there, but I'll leave that aside as well since it's not germane to the main thread. So, what does that give us? Groups of individuals and their constructs, actually using technology nearly at the limit of what is possible in theory, looking for means to increase their knowledge pool (you can think of traditional IP here as a good parallel) along with their natural resource pool. Stop reading here and sit back and think about this question. Rheingold asked quite a while back as to what it would mean when each individual person was walking around with a smart phone that was the interface to a super computing cluster all inter-linked with database of facts, figures, and 'knowledge'? A parallel question becomes what does it mean when a group of people have such a level of --individual-- control of the physical and the imagined that they can make it happen --if-- it is possible to be done in theory? The answer is they ask how they can change what is possible? Fermi's Paradox is the key question here. Does the set of possible applications of current natural laws allow the creation of a pocket universe? If so, does it allow a suitable range of parameter setting of initial conditions and potential emergence paths (think of refutations of Newtonian - Laplacian Clockwork Universes here) that the resultant would be utilitarian? Now consider the cosmological time line. Billions of years, billions of light years, billions of galaxies, billions of stars in those galaxies. However small the chance of multiple life, it will happen. The fact that it happened once means the odds are non-zero. How long does it take a typical sentient to reach the point of asking if the laws allow the creation of a pocket universe with custom made laws? A few hundred thousand of years if we're any example of the mean. Even if it's millions of years my point will still be valid over several orders of magnitude. Why do we not see them? Because in the time between their starting to emit some signature of cosmological physics mastery to the point they create a better cosmos and move in is measured in that same time frame. Now consider the background radiation levels and how that signature is attenuated over distance compared to time. If you consider this and come up with any answer other than "Oh" then you need to do some more thinking about it. The more fundamental question that was asked is what are Transhumanist missing? I've addressed that in the strategic sense. I'd like to add an example in the operational/tactical sense. Let's take Rep-Rap manufacturing and self-assembly. What I see is the same old tried and true solutions repackaged. What I don't see in any of this are discussions of topology, polytopes, surgery (in the mathematical sense), and multi-dimensional multi-valued poly-time line cellular automatons, and origami. Here's a good question to ask to demonstrate my point. I'll once again ask you to stop reading after seeing it and think for a couple of minutes before you go on. What is the difference between a Mountain fold and a Valley fold? The traditional Origamist will say something about one goes down and the other goes up, or something along those lines. ^ (Mountain) versus v (Valley). The more useful answer is that it represents your view of the fold. The question isn't about the fold, it's about the way you see it. You're context. That is all. ---- Emlyn wrote: > On 11 March 2010 13:59, wrote: > > Can you articulate more clearly why you believe this? I suspect that I already know but I'd like to see your arguments in > > support of your thesis. > You just need to see how people play World of Warcraft. Your presumption borders on insulting. > I think the quality of life will be so high compared to the real world > that people will flood in; it'll cheaper to live in, might require > little or no income, will be easier (no disease! no aging! -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 15:45:20 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:45:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Followup on population collapse into virtual reality (Slashdot story) Message-ID: +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | US Gamers Spend $3.8 Billion On MMOs Yearly | | from the tell-us-about-your-paladin dept. | | posted by Soulskill on Tuesday March 09, @21:30 (Businesses) | | https://games.slashdot.org/story/10/03/09/2342252/US-Gamers-Spend-38-Billion-On-MMOs-Yearly| +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ eldavojohn writes "A new report from Games Industry indicates that [0]MMO gamers in the United States paid $3.8 billion to play last year, with an analysis of five European countries bringing the total close to $4.5 billion USD. In America, the report estimated that payments for boxed content and client downloads amounted to a measly $400 million, while the subscriptions came to $2.38 billion. Hopefully that will fund some developer budgets for bigger and better MMOs yet to come. The study also found that roughly a quarter of the US population [1]plays some form of MMO. Surely MMOs are shaping up to be a juicy industry, and a market that can satisfy people of all walks of life." Discuss this story at: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/03/09/2342252 Links: 0. http://www.gamesindustry.com/about-newzoo/todaysgamers_graphs_MMO 1. http://www.gamesindustry.com/about-newzoo/todaysgamers_graphs_USA ***************** " . . . .roughly a quarter of the US population [1]plays some form of MMO." Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 16:08:52 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:08:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 28 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 1:46 AM, wrote: snip > Consider that the first examples likely to see light will be destructive. It will require the stabilizing of the brain will require a fixing process like freezing or some sort of transfusion of a chemical through the structure. This requires two points to be recognized: it will require the destruction of the original and at best it would be suicide and in most cases would be considered a form of murder. There is little chance this will be popular. I agree. I think very few if anyone will go this way. But given nanotechnology, it would not be hard to fully infiltrate a brain and be able to read out the structure and activity in real time. It would not take long for a cloud of nanocomputers to learn to fully simulate the activity of a brain while writing memory into the physical brain. The nanocomputers could run faster than real time. There is no reason for a lost of continuity between running as a simulation and running in a physical brain. I discuss this in "the clinic seed." Keith PS, sorry for posting the bit about the scale of the MMO. Read Slashdot before extropy-chat this morning. From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 16:41:58 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:41:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 28 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100311164158.YKB00.469963.root@hrndva-web08-z01> "fully infiltrate"...I guess if you don't mind your head exploding in the process. Or are you proposing that all these nanobots be zero volume? And what of their heat dissipation? That's also a lot of data to be pumping over a limited bandwidth and then consider everyone doing it in parallel. I think your perspective is too high level. Start at the bottom with a reasonable volume estimate per nanobot and re-run your simulation. There is another aspect that I'm not seeing in any of these discussions and that is the complex interactions of the neurons and glial cells. For example the Astrocytes are critical in feeding and providing a framework for neuronal migration and connectivity. They also help provide nutrient and control the chemo-taxis that the neuron cells need. Another example is the axon sheath that speeds up the neuron signal transport time. That is not a component of the neuron itself but a glial cell that grows around the neuron branches. Do you propose that your nanobots are going to pry apart this tightly coupled symbiotic relationship and put it back together again? Not buying the hand waving. I'm not talking about simulation/emulating anything. To accept that shift in terminology is to accept a straw man argument. Nope, not gonna happen. What we are talking about is taking the complex electro-chemico-toplogical-dynamic of a mind and --moving-- it, not copying it. A copy is separate instance and not equivalent to --me-- surviving, that copy is a 'it/him/her' and is separate from my survival. That copy is a clone. Your claim for a loss of continuity assumes somethings that are not reasonable when looking at real structures made of atoms that require nutrients, waste removal, and heat management. ---- Keith Henson wrote: > On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 1:46 AM, wrote: > But given nanotechnology, it would not be hard to fully infiltrate a > brain and be able to read out the structure and activity in real time. > It would not take long for a cloud of nanocomputers to learn to fully > simulate the activity of a brain while writing memory into the > physical brain. > > The nanocomputers could run faster than real time. > > There is no reason for a lost of continuity between running as a > simulation and running in a physical brain. > > I discuss this in "the clinic seed." > > Keith > > PS, sorry for posting the bit about the scale of the MMO. Read > Slashdot before extropy-chat this morning. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 16:44:10 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:44:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Infection_Defense_May_Spur_Alzheimer=92s?= In-Reply-To: References: <580930c21003110046n5de439fh1bda4471a2bcca8c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003110844g6d4f18cbtafe455d9bef200a0@mail.gmail.com> On 11 March 2010 12:53, Dave Sill wrote: > Did you read the article? That's pretty much the point of it. Ah, OK. -- Stefano Vaj From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 17:56:57 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:56:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question from a neophyte In-Reply-To: <1A1BF4E5D69F45A3B39B00670534673F@spike> References: <9268F61B-A2D3-4A9A-A952-FCCCB074584A@gmail.com> <20100304194631.7ilifz27k8c400c8@webmail.natasha.cc> <580930c21003080244ubbecddaq8ab25b5c3f613a28@mail.gmail.com> <20100308155410.apr28rnzjkowgw08@webmail.natasha.cc> <53E0053A345F458E94B1A086C2EB281C@DFC68LF1> <2d6187671003091122g6f62ef0cn875fe719fe320dc3@mail.gmail.com> <1A1BF4E5D69F45A3B39B00670534673F@spike> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 1:06 PM, spike wrote: > > John, watered down transhumanism is actually H3O, derived from H+H2O. > > spike Well, that's positive. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti." Sophia Loren From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 11 18:04:44 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:04:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] koag moment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0A88350F04DF45478BEF3D8BFBBA17C1@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson > ... > > But given nanotechnology, it would not be hard to fully > infiltrate a brain and be able to read out the structure and > activity in real time. > It would not take long for a cloud of nanocomputers to learn > to fully simulate the activity of a brain while writing > memory into the physical brain. > > The nanocomputers could run faster than real time. > > There is no reason for a lost of continuity between running > as a simulation and running in a physical brain. > > I discuss this in "the clinic seed." > > Keith... Keith for all it's brevity, your commentary is brilliant. We could imagine internal nanobots gradually taking over and simulating the activity of the brain in a steady inloading process, while dismantling the less necessary bits, starting with the hair, nails and subcutaneous adipose tissue, gradually moving inwards. At some point the nanobots could realize there is no need nor justification for the continued existence of all this underemployed meat, that the carbon can be put to better use in expanding the number and complexity of the nanobots. So the bots take the carbon and use it, tranforming us towards our simulated rebirth of sorts. This we could refer to (among ourselves) as the KOAG moment, where we kiss our asses goodbye, and may the KOAG moment happen before my own perishes of natural causes. spike From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 19:09:15 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:09:15 +0000 Subject: [ExI] koag moment In-Reply-To: <0A88350F04DF45478BEF3D8BFBBA17C1@spike> Message-ID: <20100311190915.ZYA8V.504074.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Blood Music ---- spike wrote: > This we could refer to (among ourselves) as the KOAG moment, where we kiss > our asses goodbye, and may the KOAG moment happen before my own perishes of > natural causes. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 11 20:32:28 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:32:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] koag moment In-Reply-To: <20100311190915.ZYA8V.504074.root@hrndva-web22-z01> References: <0A88350F04DF45478BEF3D8BFBBA17C1@spike> <20100311190915.ZYA8V.504074.root@hrndva-web22-z01> Message-ID: <96CB463DAE82414399FA1FD5B476E3FB@spike> > ...On Behalf Of jameschoate at austin.rr.com > Subject: Re: [ExI] koag moment > > Blood Music > jameschoate at austin.rr.com Who is this Greg Bear, and why is he stealing all my best ideas? Oh, wait... >>We could imagine internal nanobots gradually taking over and simulating the activity of the brain in a steady inloading process, while dismantling the less necessary bits, starting with the hair, nails and subcutaneous adipose tissue, gradually moving inwards... spike Actually I overlooked the obvious. Nanobots would consist primarily of carbon I would think, and a few other minerals, in which case the obvious source of materials no longer needed by the biological body would be excrement. That material would even come with embedded bacteria, which contain mitochondria, which could perhaps be used by the nanobots as a temporary power source until the KOAG moment. Of course this concept would give entirely new meaning to the term "shit for brains." spike From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 20:59:52 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:59:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] koag moment In-Reply-To: <96CB463DAE82414399FA1FD5B476E3FB@spike> Message-ID: <20100311205952.Z9NMM.505742.root@hrndva-web22-z01> I think you missed the most obvious solution, make the mitochondria the nanobots. After all they are nothing more than ingested cells that built up a symbiotic relationship (Lynn Margulis). Some of the recent work with artificial DNA looks to be quite promising along this line. ---- spike wrote: > Actually I overlooked the obvious. Nanobots would consist primarily of > carbon I would think, and a few other minerals, in which case the obvious > source of materials no longer needed by the biological body would be > excrement. That material would even come with embedded bacteria, which > contain mitochondria, which could perhaps be used by the nanobots as a > temporary power source until the KOAG moment. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 11 21:53:26 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:53:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] koag moment In-Reply-To: <96CB463DAE82414399FA1FD5B476E3FB@spike> References: <0A88350F04DF45478BEF3D8BFBBA17C1@spike><20100311190915.ZYA8V.504074.root@hrndva-web22-z01> <96CB463DAE82414399FA1FD5B476E3FB@spike> Message-ID: <5949D2A550D24486B247C0A535860000@spike> > ...On Behalf Of spike > ... [shit] would even come with embedded bacteria, which > contain mitochondria, which could perhaps be used by the > nanobots as a temporary power source until the KOAG moment... spike Oops this should have sounded wrong to me as I typed it. Most bacteria do not have mitochondria, only a few types of aerobic bacteria have mitochondria. However all is not lost, for mitochondria would be present and still alive in the cells that slough off from the intestinal walls, so from that source they could be harvested. If you have already busted my chops for saying bacteria have mitochondria, I got there first. {8-] spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 21:56:57 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:26:57 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100311143310.Z7046.467879.root@hrndva-web08-z01> References: <710b78fc1003101939w7f0e426brcd89b1c4c2245797@mail.gmail.com> <20100311143310.Z7046.467879.root@hrndva-web08-z01> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003111356v3e7bb811yb43624569ce271b0@mail.gmail.com> On 12 March 2010 01:03, wrote: > As I thought, quality of life. That was exactly the term I was hoping you'd use. Because you had a pre-prepared strawman argument/performance piece? > > This is demonstrative of why Transhumanist don't get it. They see the pieces but not the whole. > > First let me start with the 'spike', it isn't and never will > be. It's a world view of Transhumanist who don't > fundamentally understand physics or cosmology. and then you go on to describe, instead of the Spike, a world which is altered to beyond the ken of us mere present day mortals by rapid technological advance, ie: the Spike; "people" know almost everything, have nano utility fog, everything is free and they all eventually disappear into pocket universes. So what are you trying to say here? I liked the bombastic poetry of what you wrote, but my criticisms are that firstly, it says nothing of the short to medium future (which is the timescale of this thread I think), and secondly that your vision still includes "people", which is a difficult to support assumption when talking about a post-singular world. Oh, and don't be so quick to write off human politics, it's more important than you give it credit for. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Thu Mar 11 22:25:28 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:25:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003111356v3e7bb811yb43624569ce271b0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100311222528.B8KYH.506709.root@hrndva-web22-z01> ---- Emlyn wrote: > On 12 March 2010 01:03, wrote: > > As I thought, quality of life. That was exactly the term I was hoping you'd use. > > Because you had a pre-prepared strawman argument/performance piece? No, because that term leads to the same mental model, over and over. > and then you go on to describe, instead of the Spike, a world which is > altered to beyond the ken of us mere present day mortals by rapid > technological advance, ie: the Spike; "people" know almost everything, There is a fundamental difference between the spike and what I describe. One of the precepts of the spike for example is that it goes so fast people can't understand it even in principle. You misrepresent here. > I liked the bombastic poetry of what you wrote, but my criticisms are > that firstly, it says nothing of the short to medium future (which is > the timescale of this thread I think), Actually it does, it's just not the near term -you- recognize. > and secondly that your vision still includes "people", which is a difficult to support assumption > when talking about a post-singular world. Only so far as the people are the ones who kick it off and get subsumed. If you really believe that somehow that's going to all magically disappear one day in a world of chrome and silicon then you've got a lot more thinking to do. > Oh, and don't be so quick to write off human politics, it's more > important than you give it credit for. Write it off? Can't imagine where you pulled that one from, and probably don't want to know. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From timhalterman at gmail.com Thu Mar 11 22:55:59 2010 From: timhalterman at gmail.com (Tim Halterman) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:55:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] endpoint of evolution In-Reply-To: <022701cabacb$50ba3b30$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <502276.29073.qm@web113611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <022701cabacb$50ba3b30$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <3967bd451003111455va1ef1bw5f5d5d00351c2541@mail.gmail.com> I realize this thread is a bit old but I feel it's an appropriate one to pose this scenario. Not looking for right and wrong answers I just figured this list could provide some thought provoking answers. A rational entity is created which outperforms humans in processing, lifespan(self-repairing, replicating) and memory retention when compared to human development. Along with this certain issues exist that do not allow the human self to exist beyond its current finite physical form(Specifically transferring the mind out of a dying brain while retaining the self). Humans decide instead of decaying into death they preserve themselves as best they can and assign the entity objectives with their eventual resurrection in mind. What objectives would you give the entity? Example: Resurrect me when I can be immortal would result in the entity requiring your immortality, unachievable without having attained omniscience/omnipotence. (you cannot guarantee immortality if there is still some unknown which could threaten it) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Fri Mar 12 00:07:01 2010 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:07:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Second Life Message-ID: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> emlyn wrote: btw, I just want to state clearly that I agree with Keith on this. WoW, the social network sites and games, and to a lesser extent Second Life, prove to me that at least a very large minority, and probably in fact a large majority of people will move into the virtual realm as soon as it is possible, and live their permanently. Anna writes: I agree that many will try the virtual realm but I highly doubt they will stay there permanently. A game is still a game. I think the majority of people will search in Second Life what they can't have in Real Life. Like any instance, they can choose to live in that state as opposed to living in real life. Isn't it much like an alcoholic state? I loved Second Life..what a unique program. The graphics where impeccable. The music was awesome and the people where all in all very hospitable:) The only thing that bothered me was that many where trying to be something else than what they where in real life. I suppose I understand that but shouldn't people be able to be whom they are in RL? Is RL really that bad for so many people? just curious __________________________________________________________________ Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/gift/ From heavensblade23 at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 00:44:29 2010 From: heavensblade23 at gmail.com (Jeffery P Davis) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:44:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001101cac17d$322886f0$967994d0$@com> > I loved Second Life..what a unique program. The graphics where > impeccable. The music was awesome and the people where all in all very > hospitable:) The only thing that bothered me was that many where > trying to be something else than what they where in real life. I > suppose I understand that but shouldn't people be able to be whom they > are in RL? Is RL really that bad for so many people? Personally I've never understood Second Life. Graphically it looks like a ten year old computer game, it runs like crap even on great hardware, and the world, by and large, is devoid of life. 3D chatrooms strike me as a solution in search of a problem. If the goal is to communicate there are many more efficient ways to do so that don't involve simulating a whole 3D world. From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Mar 12 01:26:45 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:26:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20100311202645.2fuealbdw48o0s0w@webmail.natasha.cc> Anna wrote: > I agree that many will try the virtual realm but I highly doubt they > will stay there permanently. A game is still a game. Well said Anna. No one really knows how we will get where we are going. That makes it intriguing. Second-order cybernetics. Natasha From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 12 01:45:13 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:45:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Transhumanist Reader: What writing would you include? Message-ID: <201003120212.o2C2CBtn011529@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Fellow extropians and fellow-traveling transhumanists: As has been mentioned before, Natasha, Anders, and I are working on a collection called The Transhumanist Reader. It is intended to be a central reference work on transhumanism, focusing especially (but not exclusively) on material from the1980s and 1990s, including work originally published in Extropy magazine or talks delivered at the Extro conferences. We aim to have the collection published by an academic publisher. We've had encouraging responses from invited contributors already (already adding up to a couple of dozen likely inclusions), but I'd like to invite long-term and well-read subscribers to this list to suggest pieces they think would be well suited to this collection. Items may be articles, blog posts, the text of talks, or possibly specific excerpts from books. Which pieces do you think are important to the formation of modern transhumanism? Which influenced you? Which stand out as effectively conveying some crucial aspect of transhumanist thinking? Suggested pieces can be anything from a few hundred words to around 4,000. Longer pieces up to 6,000 might be feasible. We expect to organize the volume into these six sections: -- Historical Perspectives: Philosophy, Statements, Manifestos -- Scientific and Technological Advances -- Human Enhancement -- Life and Anti-Death -- Ethics and Biopolitics -- Smarter Futures/transhuman rationality Although we are especially interested in including "classics" of transhumanism, we are also including some more recent pieces and a few completely new papers. There has been some recent discussion here of old classic posts to the original Extropy email list. That might be a source of good material that we haven't yet considered -- due to the rather large volume. Please respond publicly or privately. Thanks Onward! Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 02:18:05 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:18:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Transhumanist Reader: What writing would you include? In-Reply-To: <201003120212.o2C2CBtn011529@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003120212.o2C2CBtn011529@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003111818o3df85bfbqe144b321e0a07e03@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Max More wrote: > Fellow extropians and fellow-traveling transhumanists: > > As has been mentioned before, Natasha, Anders, and I are working on a > collection called The Transhumanist Reader. It is intended to be a central > reference work on transhumanism, focusing especially (but not exclusively) > on material from the1980s and 1990s, including work originally published in > Extropy magazine or talks delivered at the Extro conferences. We aim to have > the collection published by an academic publisher. > > We've had encouraging responses from invited contributors already (already > adding up to a couple of dozen likely inclusions), but I'd like to invite > long-term and well-read subscribers to this list to suggest pieces they > think would be well suited to this collection. Items may be articles, blog > posts, the text of talks, or possibly specific excerpts from books. Which > pieces do you think are important to the formation of modern transhumanism? > Which influenced you? Which stand out as effectively conveying some crucial > aspect of transhumanist thinking? Before I come up with an exhaustive list and damage my fingers beyond repair, I was wondering what the status on the copyrights of the works that you're looking for are? For instance, if it's going to be published by an academic publisher, they will probably want to retain full copyright. On the other hand, if you have convinced them to publish under the Creative Commons or some other liberal license, you may be able to include more works that are of interest (one that comes to mind is excerpts from twobits.net). As you can imagine, the answer to this question will strongly influence what can or cannot be included. I for one would be interested in seeing if we could get some of Kevin Kelly's writings from The Technium included, even if he is trying to spin it off into a book of his own. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 12 02:35:05 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:35:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Transhumanist Reader: What writing would you include? Message-ID: <201003120235.o2C2ZWir018918@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Bryan wrote: >Before I come up with an exhaustive list and damage my fingers beyond repair, I'd prefer carefully selected to exhaustive... we already have quite a few pieces, so a list of hundreds will probably just induce MEGO. > I was wondering what the status on the copyrights of the works > that you're looking for are? For instance, if it's going to be > published by an academic publisher, they will probably want to > retain full copyright. On the other hand, if you have convinced > them to publish under the Creative Commons or some other liberal > license, you may be able to include more works that are of interest > (one that comes to mind is excerpts from twobits.net). As you can > imagine, the answer to this question will strongly influence what > can or cannot be included. We are definitely looking for pieces that we can freely publish -- the publishers are currently quite resist to publishing collections requiring multiple payments for rights. Most pieces will be already published, so presumably the publisher won't expect to have rights over those. As for new pieces, we will have to see. >I for one would be interested in seeing if we could get some of >Kevin Kelly's writings from The Technium included, even if he is >trying to spin it off into a book of his own. Kevin has already offered any posts from Technium that we want to include. He told me that only about half of those entries made it into his forthcoming book. Max From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 03:41:25 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:11:25 +1030 Subject: [ExI] The Transhumanist Reader: What writing would you include? In-Reply-To: <201003120212.o2C2CBtn011529@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003120212.o2C2CBtn011529@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003111941i156347b4od9c8f4e73d3d7c64@mail.gmail.com> On 12 March 2010 12:15, Max More wrote: > There has been some recent discussion here of old classic posts to the > original Extropy email list. That might be a source of good material that we > haven't yet considered -- due to the rather large volume. I think you could do some classic crowdsourcing on this. If someone can throw me some archives, I bet I could put something together pretty quickly that'd let people browse them, and vote on them. If enough in the transhumanist community read and vote, the good stuff should float to the top. Anyone interested in this? Max? -- Emlyn http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010 http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Fri Mar 12 13:23:05 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:23:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <20100311202645.2fuealbdw48o0s0w@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20100312132305.D7ESY.373908.root@hrndva-web21-z02> I'd disagree on two points. It's not that they're going to move there permanently, it's that they're going to bring there and here together permanently. Augmented reality. This also addresses the point I was making in my long piece, that some missed by thinking it was about the far future. The near term isn't about nanobots. We can barely get them to switch electrons and one of the latest discoveries was if you heat a buckytube just right you can get electron migration which might be a power source. That's pretty protean research. On the flip side we've got working systems where people are controlling games and prosthesis with their minds remotely. We've got brain scans that are differentiating lies from truth, from one memory from another. There are also programs where direct magnetic stimulation of the mind is used as crude input. Aural signal injection by electrical stimulation has been around for quite a few years. We have a working model of the two basic concepts: pipe and tee. wearable computing and I/O is where any near term Transhumanist wants to be looking if they're seeking any sort of mind extension or augmentation. Coupling these various forms of direct I/O with the sort of interfaces we're using on tablets (getting rid of the keyboard mouse metaphor is fundamental). http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311123520.htm http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/heidegger-tools/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation http://open-rtms.sourceforge.net/ ---- natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > Anna wrote: > > > I agree that many will try the virtual realm but I highly doubt they > > will stay there permanently. A game is still a game. > > Well said Anna. No one really knows how we will get where we are > going. That makes it intriguing. > > Second-order cybernetics. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 15:56:40 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:56:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 30 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 5:00 AM, wrote: > > "fully infiltrate"...I guess if you don't mind your head exploding in the process. I suggest that you read some of the basic literature on nanotechnology. Say _Engines of Creastion_, Eric Drexler's 1986 book. It's online, so you don't even need to buy a copy. Nanotech devices are really small compared to human nerve cells. > Or are you proposing that all these nanobots be zero volume? And what of their heat dissipation? That's also a lot of data to be pumping over a limited bandwidth and then consider everyone doing it in parallel. I think your perspective is too high level. Start at the bottom with a reasonable volume estimate per nanobot and re-run your simulation. I did this a couple of decades ago. So did a number of other highly capable technical people. Here is an example that goes into the scale. http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/cellrepairmachines.html Search Google for "cell repair machines." You will get about 50,000 hits. snip > > Your claim for a loss of continuity "No lost of." > assumes somethings that are not reasonable when looking at real structures made of atoms that require nutrients, waste removal, and heat management. I am very aware (as most electrical engineers are) of waste heat management. As long as you are sticking to normal brain speed it is not a problem. Where you need forced cooling is to run much faster. If you want to run the numbers and show this is impossible, be my guest. Keith From sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com Thu Mar 11 08:37:12 2010 From: sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com (Sockpuppet99@hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:37:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Political Ponerology- A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003102028k6c60bd3an268325a38df65533@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187671003102028k6c60bd3an268325a38df65533@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The idea of ponerology is to science as the work of Henry Darger is to art, or Scientology is to religion. I prefer to gather my ideas from reputable scientists and don't see why the existing disciplines aren't enough to accommodate a discussion of evil. I wonder which is more dangerous, psychopathy or crackpot-ism. Tom D Sent from my iPod On Mar 10, 2010, at 9:28 PM, John Grigg wrote: > I have been reading about how psychopaths have infiltrated society > and for > millennia have caused terrible disruption, suffering and even war. > I am > fascinated by the classic work "Political Ponerology" and wondered > how many > of you were familiar with it. > > http://ponerology.com/psychopaths_1.html > > > From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Mar 12 16:19:36 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:19:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <20100312132305.D7ESY.373908.root@hrndva-web21-z02> References: <20100311202645.2fuealbdw48o0s0w@webmail.natasha.cc> <20100312132305.D7ESY.373908.root@hrndva-web21-z02> Message-ID: <25C8A20D34DA4052B981400E373110A2@DFC68LF1> Why are you disagreeing with Anna or me? Please read posts carefully before responding and please respond to the post with which your content relates. On another point, the near term is about nanorobots. Read Freitas. 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 jameschoate at austin.rr.com Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 7:23 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Second Life I'd disagree on two points. It's not that they're going to move there permanently, it's that they're going to bring there and here together permanently. Augmented reality. This also addresses the point I was making in my long piece, that some missed by thinking it was about the far future. The near term isn't about nanobots. We can barely get them to switch electrons and one of the latest discoveries was if you heat a buckytube just right you can get electron migration which might be a power source. That's pretty protean research. On the flip side we've got working systems where people are controlling games and prosthesis with their minds remotely. We've got brain scans that are differentiating lies from truth, from one memory from another. There are also programs where direct magnetic stimulation of the mind is used as crude input. Aural signal injection by electrical stimulation has been around for quite a few years. We have a working model of the two basic concepts: pipe and tee. wearable computing and I/O is where any near term Transhumanist wants to be looking if they're seeking any sort of mind extension or augmentation. Coupling these various forms of direct I/O with the sort of interfaces we're using on tablets (getting rid of the keyboard mouse metaphor is fundamental). http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311123520.htm http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/heidegger-tools/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation http://open-rtms.sourceforge.net/ ---- natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > Anna wrote: > > > I agree that many will try the virtual realm but I highly doubt they > > will stay there permanently. A game is still a game. > > Well said Anna. No one really knows how we will get where we are > going. That makes it intriguing. > > Second-order cybernetics. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Fri Mar 12 16:49:23 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:49:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <25C8A20D34DA4052B981400E373110A2@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <20100312164923.NPNP8.370502.root@hrndva-web15-z02> ---- Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Why are you disagreeing with Anna or me? Because her assertion that people won't stay there because a game is just a game, it's about the technology and not a particular implementation. And because your assertion that we don't know how we'll get there is also not accurate. > Please read posts carefully before responding and please respond to the post with which your content relates. I did, on both points. Apparently you missed a couple of mine. > On another point, the near term is about nanorobots. Read Freitas. I'm familiar with the work, http://www.rfreitas.com/ I've been interested in nanotech since the late 70's and early 80's. Used to work here http://order.ph.utexas.edu/ doing AB chemical oscillators and BZ Reactions, are you familiar with Illya? If anybody is in that neck of the woods say "Hi" to Dr. Turner please. Was around back when the Foresight Institute was formed as well. Discovery Hall did some demonstrations with their help as well as putting on the first Cyberspace Conference here in Austin at UT in '90. it's not compelling with regard to a fundamental shift of human society. It resolves some mechanical process issues but not much else. Where people need to be focused is on technology that augments inter-personal interactions. Here's a couple more links to ponder over... http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=555218 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,677537,00.html > ---- natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > Anna wrote: > > > > > I agree that many will try the virtual realm but I highly doubt they > > > will stay there permanently. A game is still a game. > > > > Well said Anna. No one really knows how we will get where we are > > going. That makes it intriguing. > > > > Second-order cybernetics. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Mar 12 17:20:02 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:20:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <20100312164923.NPNP8.370502.root@hrndva-web15-z02> References: <25C8A20D34DA4052B981400E373110A2@DFC68LF1> <20100312164923.NPNP8.370502.root@hrndva-web15-z02> Message-ID: <639EA580004E4D1688A2A2044DF2D13B@DFC68LF1> James Choate wrote: > Why are you disagreeing with Anna or me? "Because her assertion that people won't stay there because a game is just a game, it's about the technology and not a particular implementation." In systems, the variables change. Even a reinforcing loop changes. No system can remain in a state of stasis without dying out. Certainly that dying out brings about new relationships of matter, but that too is a changing system. As I understood Anna, a "game" was not so literal as you interpret. It was my impression that the "game" was more metaphorical and/or pertaining to behavior of environments. Technology is continually evolving, and so that game would evolve as well. "And because your assertion that we don't know how we'll get there is also not accurate." It very well may be that you know exactly how we will get there and if you do, please tell AGI folks because they will be glad to have the recipe. > Please read posts carefully before responding and please respond to the post with which your content relates. "I did, on both points. Apparently you missed a couple of mine." Okay, I understand now and see what you were referring to, but I do not agree that I missed it both times. Perhaps it might be helpful to point precisely to what you are responding to. As someone who can be terribly cryptic in postings, I am equally aware of others who do the same. You can disagree with this if you like. (cut) "Where people need to be focused is on technology that augments inter-personal interactions. Here's a couple more links to ponder over..." http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=555218 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,677537,00.html James, do you actually think that list members know nothing about behavioral psychology or lack any reading knowledge of neuroscience and consciousness? Regarding this list, why not create a your own new thread on a topic that you would like to discuss and engage list members in the discussion? Natasha From estropico at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 17:40:25 2010 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:40:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] ExtroBritannia: Aging and dietary supplements - correcting some myths. With Michael C Price. Message-ID: <4eaaa0d91003120940r2915e14fj978f13c1830d4b3d@mail.gmail.com> Aging and dietary supplements - correcting some myths. With Michael C Price. Venue: Room 416, Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX Date: Sunday 28th March 2010 Time: 2pm-4pm About the talk: This talk will review where we are (and aren't) with respect to understanding aging. It will cover theories of aging, and the (largely failed) promises of gerontologists and immortalists, past and present. It will then make some suggestions for what we can do now - including a discussion of which dietary supplements may work, which may not, and why dietary supplements are generally discredited. About the speaker: Michael Price trained as a physicist and has a BSc and MSc from Imperial College, London, where he studied unified field theories. He has been involved in UK cryonics, extropianism and futurism for 30 years. There's no charge to attend this meeting, and everyone is welcome. There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and to make comments. Discussion will continue after the event, in a nearby pub, for those who are able to stay. ** Why not join some of the Extrobritannia regulars for a drink and/or light lunch beforehand, any time after 12.30pm, in The Marlborough Arms, 36 Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HJ. To find us, look out for a table where there's a copy of the Stephen Hall's book "Merchants of immortality: chasing the dream of human life extension" displayed. ** About the venue: Room 416 is on the fourth floor (via the lift near reception) in the main Birkbeck College building, in Torrington Square (which is a pedestrian-only square). Torrington Square is about 10 minutes walk from either Russell Square or Goodge St tube stations. Reminder: As a break with recent custom, this Extrobritannia meeting is happening on a Sunday, rather than on a Saturday. http://www.extrobritannia.blogspot.com http://www.transhumanist.org.uk/ From giulio at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 17:42:20 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:42:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Second Life In-Reply-To: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <832254.54193.qm@web110406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Real life _is_ bad for many people, unfortunately. Think no money, poor health, bad looks, no options, and perhaps a body of the wrong gender. Is it really so surprising that so many people try to escape to virtual realities? As a transhumanist, I wish to make _real life_ a better place, so I am not much interested in living a parallel unreal life in SL, which I mainly use as a skype-with-3D-graphics. But perhaps the microsociology of Second Life can be useful to understand our own, rapidly changing society. By the way I am reading a great book, which I recommend to everyone: The ultra-prestigious Oxford University just published a book devoted to theology in the digital age: Apocalyptic AI Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality... Product Description: Apocalyptic AI, the hope that we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting everything from the world view of online gamers to government research funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci offers the first serious account of this ?cyber-theology? and the people who promote it. Links and comments here - http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/oxford-press-book-on-digital-age.html Many of those who participate in Second Life events have met Robert, and he has written about many of us. On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 1:07 AM, Anna Taylor wrote: > emlyn wrote: > btw, I just want to state clearly that I agree with Keith on this. WoW, the social network sites and games, and to a lesser extent Second Life, prove to me that at least a very large minority, and probably in fact a large majority of people will move into the virtual realm as soon as it is possible, and live their permanently. > > Anna writes: > I agree that many will try the virtual realm but I highly doubt they will stay there permanently. ?A game is still a game. ?I think the majority of people will search in Second Life what they can't have in Real Life. ?Like any instance, they can choose to live in that state as opposed to living in real life. ?Isn't it much like an alcoholic state? > > I loved Second Life..what a unique program. ?The graphics where impeccable. ?The music was awesome and the people where all in all very hospitable:) ?The only thing that bothered me was that many where trying to be something else than what they where in real life. ?I suppose I understand that but shouldn't people be able to be whom they are in RL? ?Is RL really that bad for so many people? > > just curious From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Mar 12 19:30:12 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fun and games Message-ID: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/ . . . . What the new data has allowed Bobylev to do is calculate the probability of Gliese 710 smashing into the Solar System. What he's found is a shock. He says there is 86 percent chance that Gliese 710 will plough through the Oort Cloud of frozen stuff that extends some 0.5 parsecs into space. That may sound like a graze but it is likely to have serious consequences. Such an approach would send an almighty shower of comets into the Solar System which will force us to keep our heads down for a while. And a probability of 86 percent is about as close to certainty as this kind of data can get. The good news is that Bobylev says the chances of Gliese 710 penetrating further into the Solar System, inside the Kuiper Belt, are much smaller, just 1 in a 1000. So that's all right, then. Keep calm and carry on. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1003.2160: Searching for Stars Closely Encountering with the Solar System Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 12 20:01:43 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:01:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] fun and games In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B9A9DA7.7040509@satx.rr.com> On 3/12/2010 1:30 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1003.2160: Searching for Stars Closely Encountering > with the Solar System I loved this line: "To construct the stellar orbits relative to the solar orbit, we have used the epicyclic approximation." Ptolemy lives! I suppose it doesn't *really* mean that they used epicycles in that sense... :) Damien Broderick From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Mar 12 20:04:02 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:04:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] fun and games In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201576.76640.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> All the more reason to build the infrastructure get?away asap. :) Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Keith Henson To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Fri, March 12, 2010 2:30:12 PM Subject: [ExI] fun and games http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/ . . . . What the new data has allowed Bobylev to do is calculate the probability of Gliese 710 smashing into the Solar System. What he's found is a shock. He says there is 86 percent chance that Gliese 710 will plough through the Oort Cloud of frozen stuff that extends some 0.5 parsecs into space. That may sound like a graze but it is likely to have serious consequences. Such an approach would send an almighty shower of comets into the Solar System which will force us to keep our heads down for a while. And a probability of 86 percent is about as close to certainty as this kind of data can get. The good news is that Bobylev says the chances of Gliese 710 penetrating further into the Solar System, inside the Kuiper Belt, are much smaller, just 1 in a 1000. So that's all right, then. Keep calm and carry on. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1003.2160: Searching for Stars Closely Encountering with the Solar System Keith _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Mar 13 03:32:21 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:32:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life] Message-ID: <62c14241003121932v4d94ac69id9e96bb0cc1da5a6@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Why are you disagreeing with Anna or me? Please read posts carefully before > responding and please respond to the post with which your content relates. I have wondered how people conceive of list-served email threads. It seems the identity of each poster becomes a nuance of the "other" who is not the reader. Obviously each of us has our own ideas, but those with a tendency to argue for argument's sake often conflate different posters. I assume it belies the mental shortcutting that everyone on a list comprises a singular list entity with which the disagreement is maintained. Conversely, it seems that on topics with general agreement people take less time time to expound on similar concepts because it is assumed that everyone already feels the same - after all, we share the list-mind via membership. This concept grows in complexity if other lists are included. My singular self deals with the group-mind comprised of all the lists to which I am subscribed. If I forget the context of one list-centric thread and refer to it on a different list, I have committed a faux pas of list etiquette. Do that imply that my viewpoint can be described as the intersection of the various group-minds (sets) which has only this singular member? Can I convince others to join my "camp"? Would that be considered an escalation to group-mind by increasing the number of members in the set? Is set the wrong mathematical construct for modeling this concept? Would population distribution be a better metaphor? Thoughts? From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Mar 13 15:53:16 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:53:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 31 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <433267.31629.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > From: Keith Henson > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: [ExI] fun and games > Message-ID: > ??? > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/ > > . . . . > > What the new data has allowed Bobylev to do is calculate > the > probability of Gliese 710 smashing into the Solar System. > What he's > found is a shock. Gliese 710 is 1.4 million years away from getting anywhere near us. Why is this the least bit interesting to anyone except astronomers? In 1.4my, we'll either be long dead or more than capable of coping with such a thing. It might even count as entertainment! Or it might be as significant as getting your elbow jostled in a crowd. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Mar 13 16:02:02 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:02:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <308275.73146.qm@web113617.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > From: Mike Dougherty riddled: > I have wondered how people conceive of list-served email > threads.? It > seems the identity of each poster becomes a nuance of the > "other" who > is not the reader.? Obviously each of us has our own > ideas, but those > with a tendency to argue for argument's sake often conflate > different > posters.? I assume it belies the mental shortcutting > that everyone on > a list comprises a singular list entity with which the > disagreement is > maintained.? etc. What? I disagree (with you, not with the list). But then, I don't argue for argument's sake, I argue with individuals on what appear to me to be false or mistaken ideas. There is no 'list entity', just a medium of communication between a number of individuals. Ben Zaiboc From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Mar 13 16:57:37 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:57:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? Message-ID: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with light? http://www.viewzone.com/dna.html WARNING: Does contain words such as "homoeopathy". Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 13 17:09:59 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:09:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the positive side of being slammed by oort cloud objects In-Reply-To: <433267.31629.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <433267.31629.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <03680740844A431B8EB7F9E70230EA20@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc > > From: Keith Henson > > > > http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/ > > > > . . . . > > > > What the new data has allowed Bobylev to do is calculate the > > probability of Gliese 710 smashing into the Solar System. > > What he's > > found is a shock. > > Gliese 710 is 1.4 million years away from getting anywhere > near us. Why is this the least bit interesting to anyone > except astronomers? > > In 1.4my, we'll either be long dead or more than capable of > coping with such a thing. It might even count as > entertainment! Or it might be as significant as getting your > elbow jostled in a crowd. > > Ben Zaiboc Right on, Ben! The possibility of having Oort Cloud objects displaced inward is very positive and exciting. Picture humanity 1.4 million years hence. We have long since converted the metals in our system to an Mbrain. Passing star displaces icy bits that come plunging inward and tears a hole in the Mbrain? No, not exactly. The icy bits collide with existing nodes, some of which become embedded in the interloper, which then have an abundance of raw material which they use to completely convert to more nodes, which then disperse and rejoin the Mbrain. Having asteroids come raining down on an Mbrain is like having additional brain cells implanted. A single kilogram of rocky material can be used to create thousands of new nodes, which can simulate entire worlds, cheerfully calculating new and wonderful ideas as the seconds of eternity quietly tick by. spike From reasonerkevin at yahoo.com Sat Mar 13 18:00:29 2010 From: reasonerkevin at yahoo.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:00:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <88044.59974.qm@web81603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >> I don't think that "virtually all humans" will do this. Instead, I expect that this kind of branching of human evolution will be done by a relatively small segment of the population. >I don't think you are aware of how many people are involved *now.* Over a year ago there were 11.5 million people subscribed to WoW. This is amazing considering the really crude interface to the virtual world. Oh, I agree. I'm aware of it and I think it is terrific. But I'm also aware of the 3 billion or so people who are part of major religions that will be working against this progress. I'm aware of people who will let their own children die rather than let them be cured of something simple through western medicine. I'm aware of people who think that prayer saves lives and that they can make decisions based on the alignment of the planets or the order of a deck of cards. People aren't always going to take best or most rational path. We often do things just aren't for the greater good and frequently do things that defy logic entirely. As the singularity nears I expect it to have a polarizing effect on people and as more people are drawn to the technology, more will also be pushed away by it. >> In time, that segment will grow, but a suspect that a large majority of the population will simply see this as another religion, or just another unique way of life much as nudists are viewed. With the "God gene" existing in such a large portion of the population and the huge number of people who would believe that such a thing as giving up your meat-body would be the work of the devil, I am certain that there would be lots of violence along the way. The only way that I see "virtually all humans" abandoning physical reality is if those battle result in the death of the rest of the people who don't. >I don't think you understand the "boiling a frog" aspect. (The thesis is that you can boil a frog without it jumping out of the pot if you start with cold water and slowly heat it.) As an outgrowth of nanotech based medicine, people will be able to upload into virtual worlds and reverse the process at will. It will only take a few hundred watts to keep your body in cold storage and your memory updated. For a time, years even, people will only spend part time in the virtual state. Oh I understand the concept. I just don't think it applies. Otherwise luddites and technophobes would not exist now. But using the boiling of frogs as an example, the rate that the temperature of the "pot" is increasing is accelerating and this is making more frogs aware of the situation they are in....not less. I don't see how you can miss this. If a shot became available today that would make everyone immortal for free, do you not realize that a huge group of people would form up against it and try to blow up the plant producing it? Wouldn't we see in the news that some cult groups arranged mass suicides to "prevent the overpopulation of the earth"? "There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity" >The problem is, virtual spaces can be and will be made *nicer* than the real world, not to mention less expensive. As people start spending more and more time there, the physical world will be increasingly abandoned. People are *social.* We live at certain densities and stores (for example) will be abandoned when there are too few people for them to make sense. (Automated stores may persist a long time even with very few customers.) Near the end the only things moving on the streets will be police robots. >Stored bodies with updated memories may be widespread for hundreds of years, with all the infrastructure in place and being maintained by machines with limited AI capacity. It's going to make a strange world. >If you see any way to avoid this fate, let us know. Actually I don't see that as a "problem", and yes, it will be a strange world no matter how it plays out. I do think that the "real" world will be slowly abandoned so we're on the same page there. In the "real" world, I just think this would take many more generations than you seem to think. Yes, we require certain population densities, but that requirement is only 150 people or so. That's how we lived before technology, it is still the ideal social group size for our species, and there are a number of them still around and their numbers are on the rise, and I think that's how many technophobic communities will continue to persist for a really long time after we have these capabilities. The presence of robots will be necessary to protect us from these fringe groups. The really interesting part of this is how time will be viewed subjectively from inside the "virtual" world vs the real world. Thousands of years could pass for those within the virtual universe in what is only seconds to the remaining human communities. The possibility exists that the virtual world could wipe itself out in a very short period of time leaving only those who shunned technology who would then use that to reinforce their religious doctrines and humanity would be set back several thousand years in the blink of an eye. That is the fate I wish to avoid...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From reasonerkevin at yahoo.com Sat Mar 13 18:18:39 2010 From: reasonerkevin at yahoo.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:18:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> References: <08451E99-3EF2-41CD-8D09-22A8DC96B8D4@bellsouth.net><2d6187671003091159u74d15012n691d15f3274923b8@mail.gmail.com><92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike><4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com><4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike><4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <285277.62500.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ________________________________ >> Business is not prey for lawyers, it is not a target > for lawsuit, not a big bucket of money for politicians to plunder with > taxes. Rather, business is teams of people making wealth, the engine of a > healthy society. >Stipulating that, how do you get there from here, and stay there? It's not an *accident* that we're where we are. (Oh yes, I realize that this is an invitation for an endless series of libertarian or anarchist sermons, some of them by me no doubt.) I just don't think we're ready yet. It's where I would prefer to be, but I still believe that if the FDA weren't there, my food would be less safe, if there were no law requiring child-proof caps, there would be more dead children, and if we don't have a knowledgeable group of people to oversee these huge banks and ponzi schemers, they will make every penny they can, not through innovation, but through lying, cheating, and stealing. The sad truth is, until we can oversee everything with an AI and give up privacy, no one can or will be trusted and without some kind of trust and stability, or at least the mass illusion of such, you can't grow an economy. Why do you think there are so few people willing to invest in Liberia and Sierra Leone? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sat Mar 13 20:26:10 2010 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:26:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] fun and games In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <783788.18636.qm@web27001.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> So, in the next 1.5million years we either need to evacuate the solar system or have systems to deflect every rogue comet coming our way. Compared to the 10^14 lives that fail to get a chance to exist for every second we delay our expansion throughout the universe this is a modest imperative for us to get a move on (yes, I did recently re-read Nick Bostrom's piece "Astronomical waste" - the 10^14 figure is for biological humans, for machine intelligences/uploads the figure is 10^31). To think - Arthur C Clarke liked to use an image in the 1960s (world population 1 billion) that for every human who had existed, the shadows of 30 hominids stood behind them (estimated number of later hominids who had ever lived according to 1960s archaeology approx 30 billion) - and all that pales into comparison with the vast number who could exist, if only we expanded to other stars. Tom From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Mar 13 21:26:28 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:26:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life] In-Reply-To: <308275.73146.qm@web113617.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <308275.73146.qm@web113617.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003131326t5e6703a8oe5ef22e2faed940@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > > What? > I disagree (with you, not with the list). > > But then, I don't argue for argument's sake, I argue with individuals on what appear to me to be false or mistaken ideas. > > There is no 'list entity', just a medium of communication between a number of individuals. > Do you collectively refer to Americans or American ideals when discussing international politics? Are you saying that this list does not aggregate discussion around a particular topic attractor? (of course you don't; I exaggerate this point to illustrate what I poorly expressed on my first attempt) Suppose hard takeoff AI contacts you in real-time communication as ambassador for humankind - is your view representative of your species? Would the majority of humans agree with the decisions you make on their behalf? This was one of the contexts of the movie Contact - if a human scientist decodes the invitation to enter the galactic civilization, should a scientist represent humanity or one of the many non-scientifics (religious/deistic/whatever) In reference to the seemingly endless identity threads, is a brain merely the communication between a number of neurons? Is a person the reference to the continuous process of that communication? Do groups of people exhibit characteristic communication tendency that gives the group a 'personality' despite none of its members having that particular behavior? (I would be quick to accept that they do, but apparently I haven't convinced you) btw, thanks for disagreeing and voicing that fact. Perhaps others found this point obvious and without need for comment. Perhaps they felt it so misguided (or undeveloped) as to be unworthy of comment. Hopefully this argument over my "false and mistaken" idea turns into a discussion of differences if not agreement. From ddraig at gmail.com Sun Mar 14 03:16:30 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:16:30 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <285277.62500.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> <285277.62500.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/14 Kevin Freels : > Why do you > think there are so few people willing to invest in Liberia and Sierra Leone? Yes, we had a time when there was very little oversight of the rich and powerful, it was the Middle Ages, and it was a *really* bad time to be poor and powerless. I think government serves a useful purpose, it just needs to be kept under control, like anything else with the power to affect more than a small group of people. This may or may not coincide with the political ideals of the rest of the people here. That's okay. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Mar 14 03:31:10 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:31:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: References: <92D68E918BE64A08A98FFBFCB34EC3E4@spike> <4B96C1E3.4070005@satx.rr.com> <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> <285277.62500.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4B9C587E.3090806@satx.rr.com> On 3/13/2010 9:16 PM, ddraig wrote: > http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg I know this is the least of your worries, but... Server not found Firefox can't find the server at www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org. (can't find www.barrelfulofmonkeys.org either) From ddraig at gmail.com Sun Mar 14 03:39:13 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:39:13 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Socialimplications ofwidespreadextropian/positivistideals. In-Reply-To: <4B9C587E.3090806@satx.rr.com> References: <4D5D8EF043A24A1DA7C98BCD95D0F530@spike> <4B96D2FF.2080702@satx.rr.com> <4B9709DB.3080802@satx.rr.com> <285277.62500.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4B9C587E.3090806@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 14 March 2010 14:31, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/13/2010 9:16 PM, ddraig wrote: > >> ? http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg > > I know this is the least of your worries, but... > > Server not found > Firefox can't find the server at www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org. > > (can't find www.barrelfulofmonkeys.org either) Ohhh, oooops. I should do something about that, as it is a great image.. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From giulio at gmail.com Sun Mar 14 08:23:59 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:23:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Book Review - Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality Message-ID: Book Review - Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality: http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/book-review-apocalyptic-ai-visions-of.html A very interesting book on transhumanism as a scientific religion. Some list members will like it, but it may be very hard to swallow for many others. >From the publishers' site: "Description: Apocalyptic AI, the hope that we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting everything from the world view of online gamers to government research funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci offers the first serious account of this "cyber-theology" and the people who promote it..." From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Mar 14 18:43:13 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:43:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Natasha Vita-More writes: > Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the > relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with > light? > I'm not a scientist (just a technoweenie) though I play at it on this list. Each and every cell has an identical inventory of DNA. Thus a liver cell has the same "kit" as a retinal cell or a neuron. So cell types that are labeled according to their primary function, still retain the potentiality to employ as needed what other cells do in a big way. I'm inclined to think that any cell would do exactly that whenever useful, by (of course) turning on the appropriate genes at appropriate levels of expression and in appropriate combination. Now I'm unfamiliar with the cellular mechanism(s) for photon emission, and I only mention the retinal cell as an example of a cellular photo-sensitive capability. I would be surprised to not find multiple modes of cellular photo-sensitivity in addition to the retinal forms, with the "appropriate" form employed as a standard for inter-cellular "communication". All encoded in the genes of course. Regarding "...a scientific explanation for the relationship between cells...", a "how" explanation would involve describing the conditions leading to the communication and the communication itself (in cell one), and the consequences of the communication (in cell two), and a "why" explanation would involve clarifying where the value lies for the cells and the organism, for the communication. I can't do the first, but I'll take a "well, duh!" amateur shot at the second. Adjacent cells work together. Communication enables efficient cooperative function. (I said it was "Well, duh!") I could leave it there, and retire from the field without significant embarrassment. But what fun would that be? I still think -- and this suspicion is growing not shrinking -- that research will eventually uncover a largely unexpected, and unexpectedly complex suite of "behaviors" at the cellular level. Yes, "behaviors", as in the kind of things we associate with (please forgive me) consciousness. That this cellular consciousness is mediated by quantum effects, and that the larger form of consciousness with which we are familiar is emergent from the combined consciousness of all the cells. So it is that I suggest (and with only a bit of a sly wink) that inter-cellular communication, beyond utilitarian content, may also be "social talk", cellular gossip, a handshake, a wink, a pat on the back. Yeah, yeah, I know: anthropomorphic projection. Maybe. Or maybe not. So why exactly is it that they call this sticking your neck out? Shouldn't it be sticking your head out? Best, Jeff Davis "When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." Buckminster Fuller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Mar 14 18:58:59 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <175777.50835.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Mike Dougherty wrote: > Do you collectively refer to Americans or American ideals > when > discussing international politics?? Are you saying > that this list does > not aggregate discussion around a particular topic > attractor? (of > course you don't; I exaggerate this point to illustrate > what I poorly > expressed on my first attempt) Fine, but the list itself doesn't have an opinion, it's still individual people who have opinions. You could group them together (as materialists and crypto-dualists, for example, or socialists and libertarians, or whatever categories you care to use), but those groupings are just a convenience for you, and don't reflect any 'entity' in the real world. > > Suppose hard takeoff AI contacts you in real-time > communication as > ambassador for humankind - is your view representative of > your > species?? Of course not. I don't see what you're getting at here. Maybe I misunderstand the whole thread. > > btw, thanks for disagreeing and voicing that fact.? > Perhaps others > found this point obvious and without need for > comment.? Perhaps they > felt it so misguided (or undeveloped) as to be unworthy of > comment. > Hopefully this argument over my "false and mistaken" idea > turns into a > discussion of differences if not agreement. Ok, I can see how my comment could be taken as an attack on your idea, but I didn't mean that. Could you restate your argument, because it seems I don't really get it? (Use simple language, please, my brain is still only small) Ben Zaiboc From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Mar 14 20:55:37 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:55:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life] In-Reply-To: <175777.50835.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <175777.50835.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003141355qc41ac5cpa01d0ec484d5c057@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Ok, I can see how my comment could be taken as an attack on your idea, but I didn't mean that. ?Could you restate your argument, because it seems I don't really get it? > > (Use simple language, please, my brain is still only small) I'll first admit that I don't really have a clear picture myself, it's more of a hypothesis that's still forming - so simple language that is still expressive of that sense might be out of my reach. First, it was the observation that certain vocal list members seem to ignore who posted a particular opinion as what seems like a mental shortcut. They respond to a thread and use "you" to direct their flame to the recent poster and accuses them of saying things that were posted by others either in the same thread or on the same list. Obviously you (Ben) do not take this shortcut and can attribute authors properly. Maybe my observation is of a particular "type" of poster, but it still segues to a bigger picture. Next, I observed that some of the lists to which I am subscribed attract definite styles of posters or topics. Obviously an artificial intelligence list attracts AI topics, it's also possible to infer that AI researchers have a certain temperament that contributes to a style or tone of posts. Extropy chat is a collection of more like-minded people than would be expected from an N-member sampling of the general population (of either the world or a specific country). So from the unordered list of messages in my inbox, I frequently ignore the tags for list-source when opening them but can still confidently attribute the list by the style of posts. There are some individual members that overlap multiple groups. Their individual style is unique (consider any of spike's posts: they're more like spike's other posts than like anyone else's*). Now I consider how the individual's style contributes to the "flavor" of the group. How many individuals are required before a group can be identified? It's like the question about how many grains of sand are required before the collection is referred to as a pile. (to which I believe the legendary Anders answered that a pile with grain countability of 0 contains no sand at all) Next I considered all the groups (online and not) of which I am a member. It is quite likely that the intersection of these groups is the singular member: me. That's about the most definitive answer I can provide for the identity question that returns to this list like a swarm of locusts. I made the same observation about my Facebook page; it's merely the intersection of accepted friend requests - the only thing that can be said about the identity of that account is defined by the connectedness of the network to others. I wonder if refinement of this theory using a mathematical model would use more set theory or probability. I know it probably doesn't yet even sound like a theory because I haven't made a statement that can be tested or proven. In that sense, it's more of a lens through which other theories could be viewed. * hi spike, thanks for your participation in my example. :) From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Mar 14 22:23:14 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:23:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <4B9D61D2.6070308@satx.rr.com> On 3/14/2010 1:43 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Adjacent cells work together. Communication enables efficient > cooperative function. (I said it was "Well, duh!") > > I could leave it there, and retire from the field without significant > embarrassment. But what fun would that be? What fun indeed. Here's another morsel for yuh: Human Cells Exhibit Foraging Behavior Like Amoebae and Bacteria Damien Broderick From spike66 at att.net Sun Mar 14 22:58:26 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:58:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] customized advertising Message-ID: <97424B34D9AD468E99B8AB1DAB9B71D1@spike> Hey this is cool. A local company has figured out how to take digital images of a passerby, then customize the advertisement based on the characteristics of the person: http://keenesentinel.com/articles/2010/03/13/business/news/free/id_393603.tx t This is great! My local gas station has a video screen above the pump on which they play ads as you gas up your Detroit, but the ads are so lame. If they could figure out from my digital image that I am a male geek, they would for instance flash boobs at me. Then they have my full and undivided. Then I all need to do is come up with a good explanation for when my wife sees I have 87 charges on my credit card from the gas station, all between one and two dollars. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Mon Mar 15 01:00:36 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 1:00:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Singular vs Group mind(s) [was: Second Life] In-Reply-To: <175777.50835.qm@web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20100315010036.1VK3P.480085.root@hrndva-web12-z01> ---- Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Fine, but the list itself doesn't have an opinion, it's still individual people who have opinions. This is a simplistic and immature thesis. The list does have -culture- which is group opinion. For example many on this list believe nanotech is the near term answer to many problems. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 03:52:52 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:22:52 +1030 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003142052r772fb716w28af4b96d955a16c@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/14 Natasha Vita-More > Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the > relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with > light? > > http://www.viewzone.com/dna.html > WARNING: Does contain words such as "homoeopathy". > > [image: Nlogo1.tif] Natasha Vita-More > > This reads like something sitting in the grey borderlands between science and woo. It feels as though there is a real effect here somewhere, but I can't find much more detailed information to read, just vast crapscapes of woo pages mentioning Dr Popp. First thing that leaped out at me, was reasonable sounding discussion of photons playing some role in "communication" inside the cell, then jumping to "Dr. Popp exclaims, "We now know, today, that man is essentially a being of light." "Cancer is a loss of coherent light" "In one experiment, he compared the light from free-range hens' eggs with that from penned-in, caged hens. The photons in the former were far more coherent than those in the latter." "Just the opposite is seen with multiple sclerosis: MS is a state of too much order. Patients with this disease are taking in too much light, thereby inhibiting their cells' ability to do their job." (and much more) It seems like rubbish to me. Note also the claim that signaling with photons "explains" something about how cells work, while no actual explanation of anything is presented: saying photons are used isn't an explanation, it's just a statement with little context, an observation? Dr Popp seems to be central to the "International Institute for Biophysics", here's some more on "biophotons" from their site: http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0200e_.htm#Development%20of%20Biophotons http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0200e_.htm#Definition%20of%20Biophotons The "Development of Biophotons" stuff matches what's in that woo article. If this effect is so strong and useful, why isn't it hugely represented in the biology community? It seems pretty fringy. But I am not a biologist. I can't get any further here. Anyone else? -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 06:48:34 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:48:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003142052r772fb716w28af4b96d955a16c@mail.gmail.com> References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> <710b78fc1003142052r772fb716w28af4b96d955a16c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hugely, thrillingly bogus. 2010/3/14 Emlyn > > > 2010/3/14 Natasha Vita-More > > Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the >> relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with >> light? >> >> http://www.viewzone.com/dna.html >> WARNING: Does contain words such as "homoeopathy". >> >> [image: Nlogo1.tif] Natasha Vita-More >> >> > > This reads like something sitting in the grey borderlands between science > and woo. It feels as though there is a real effect here somewhere, but I > can't find much more detailed information to read, just vast crapscapes of > woo pages mentioning Dr Popp. > > First thing that leaped out at me, was reasonable sounding discussion of > photons playing some role in "communication" inside the cell, then jumping > to > > "Dr. Popp exclaims, "We now know, today, that man is essentially a being > of light." > "Cancer is a loss of coherent light" > "In one experiment, he compared the light from free-range hens' eggs with > that from penned-in, caged hens. The photons in the former were far more > coherent than those in the latter." > "Just the opposite is seen with multiple sclerosis: MS is a state of too > much order. Patients with this disease are taking in too much light, thereby > inhibiting their cells' ability to do their job." > (and much more) > > It seems like rubbish to me. > > Note also the claim that signaling with photons "explains" something about > how cells work, while no actual explanation of anything is presented: saying > photons are used isn't an explanation, it's just a statement with little > context, an observation? > > Dr Popp seems to be central to the "International Institute for > Biophysics", here's some more on "biophotons" from their site: > > http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0200e_.htm#Development%20of%20Biophotons > http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0200e_.htm#Definition%20of%20Biophotons > > The "Development of Biophotons" stuff matches what's in that woo article. > > If this effect is so strong and useful, why isn't it hugely represented in > the biology community? It seems pretty fringy. > > But I am not a biologist. I can't get any further here. Anyone else? > > -- > Emlyn > > http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog > Find me on Facebook and Buzz > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 10:16:39 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:16:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> <710b78fc1003142052r772fb716w28af4b96d955a16c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003150316pb44e79cn78f559418b22524b@mail.gmail.com> Self-validating at every step. Chooses few examples, and only ones that seem to fit in. And uses the "magic light" ideal of very, very old times to explain things instead of quantum phenomena which may be the tiny grain of truth contained therein. Healing light? May as well be swinging a crystal pendulum over my head, chanting New Age bullshit. Emlyn's quotes pretty much sum up the worst stuff in the article. The problem with this sort of thing is that people observe interesting phenomena, but without others to bounce ideas off and refine originally wild notions, the singular theorizing party feels the need to FINISH his or her theory, leading said person to create ridiculous theories to fit into the ridiculous seed, growing worse each moment peers aren't there to help. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 15 12:20:31 2010 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:20:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <697425.92652.qm@web65608.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> >From: Natasha Vita-More >To: ExI chat list ; Humanity+ Discussion List ; extrobritannia at yahoogroups.com >Sent: Sat, March 13, 2010 8:57:37 AM >Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? > > >Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with light? >http://www.viewzone.com/dna.html >WARNING:? Does contain words such as "homoeopathy". >?Natasha Vita-More > I generally concur with Emlyn with regard to this specific website.?There are?a handful of?valid and puzzling scientific facts mixed in with a lot of sensationalistic and speculative philosophy some might call "woo". But the title about DNA being the next Internet is kind of a non-sequitor with regard to biophotons. Yes, biophotons are real. Yes, there?is a?Russian?biophysicist named Popp that studies them. A search on his name brings back 49 citations in PubMed and some 400 pages in Google Scholar. Some of his older work is free access. His scientific work?does contain hard data and is written?a lot more conservatively than the website would lead you to believe. But he is a homeopath or a holist. This contributes to him being far more respected in Germany, China, and India than in the US and UK: http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0204e_1.htm http://www.scichina.com:8082/sciCe/fileup/PDF/00yc0507.pdf http://www.springerlink.com/content/252153715338p0mk/fulltext.pdf http://www.anatomyfacts.com/research/PropertiesBioph.pdf Also he believes, like I do, that?consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. http://neuroquantology.com/journal/index.php/nq/article/viewFile/318/294 With regard to your question regarding the role of biophotons in intercellular signalling, I can't tell you for certain what they do in the human body. I can tell you that many bacteria and other single celled organisms use them for "quorum sensing". In other words each cell gives off a small amount of light and each cell has photoreceptors that can measure the total amount of light. When the light reaches a certain overall level, the cells know that they are at maximal population density for their environment and therefore stop dividing to keep from becoming overpopulated. Here is a paper describing experiments to that effect?using the protist Paramecium caudatum. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005086#pone-0005086-t001 Curiously a lot of researchers are finding that injured cells and cancer cells glow more brightly than healthy ones. Since the Opsins (photoreceptor proteins) are G protein coupled receptors which generally cause cell growth,?biophotons could be some kind of growth signal. Here is a New Scientist article about biophotons being hosted at the Koboyashi lab website which also does biphoton research: http://www.tohtech.ac.jp/~elecs/ca/kobayashilab_hp/NewScientistE.html Here are Kobayashi's papers of which a few are free. http://www.tohtech.ac.jp/~elecs/ca/kobayashilab_hp/PapersE.html Here is a paper by a Korean group regarding biophotons after liver injury. http://jhs.pharm.or.jp/51(2)/51_155.pdf Incidently Japan after inventing the?ultrasensitive CCD cameras required to see biophotons has become a hotbed for biophoton research and I suspect many of the biggest discoveries?in the field, like light-based tumor biopsies, will come from the far east since the?far west?seems to be in denial about biophotons. I hope that helps anybody seriously interested in the subject to have a woo-free peer-reviewed starting point for further investigation. Also I do heartily endorse "The Rainbow and the Worm:?The Physics of Organisms" by Mae-Wan Ho (Biochemist and Geneticist) for anybody?interested in quantum biology.?Her book?pretty much picks up where?Erwin Schroedinger's?"What is life?" leaves off?and contains may insights, compelling evidence, and beautiful micrographs. Stuart LaForge "What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight." - Joseph Joubert From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 15 12:48:22 2010 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:48:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: <697425.92652.qm@web65608.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> <697425.92652.qm@web65608.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <296971.51814.qm@web65602.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ---- > From: The Avantguardian > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Mon, March 15, 2010 5:20:31 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? >Yes, there?is a?Russian?biophysicist named > Popp that studies them. A search on his name brings back 49 citations in PubMed > and some 400 pages in Google Scholar. Russian? Why did I write that? I meant German although there are Russians that studied biophotons too. :-) From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Mon Mar 15 20:39:57 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:39:57 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Some free books Message-ID: <20100315203958.QGCMK.335525.root@hrndva-web24-z02> http://intechweb.org/books.php -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 21:50:01 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:50:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] babies are born to dance Message-ID: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/uoy-nrs031510.php "...the better the children were able to synchronize their movements with the music the more they smiled." Sure made me smile. Best, Jeff Davis "And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!" Louie Armstrong From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 15 21:38:25 2010 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:38:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Being surrounded by gamer friends, I gave the topic some thought over the weekend. On the one hand, I can easily see people loving virtual worlds - crap, in the mid 90s I knew a guy who spent 55 hours one week on a text-based MUD (I don't think he made it to the end of the academic year at university). I've seen how much time people can spend on D&D online, and I know why people nickname World of Warcraft "Warcrack" due to the addictive properties. After all, in the real world you never get a reward soon after putting effort in. In fact, you can spend years working hard at a job, or building a loving relationship, to find yourself summarily dumped with little idea why. The online games give people a reward for their effort, reinforcing their desire to play more. Games which obviously give too much favour to certain behaviour/types of players will find a small subset of the player base addicted, and the rest feeling slightly cheated and moving elsewhere. Therefore, the most successful games find a way to reward people in as many ways as possible. There's also the whole "being who you want to be", where your own physical shortcomings/differences can be clicked away, but I believe others have covered this more eloquently. I remember Max mentioned some time ago his usual Second Life avatar is a younger version of himself, but sometimes he uses a fantastic avatar. So, if virtual worlds are so seductive, what will stop us all uploading en masse when the chance to dwell 24/7 in a virtual place is possible? Well, I would like to bring to your attention one facet of human behaviour: The F***ing Stupid Hobby (or FSH). I'll confess here - I'm a LARPER. Yes, I love the live-action roleplaying, and have run around woodlands in fake armour many a weekend. This has all the classic ingredients of a FSH - desire to own odd pieces of equipment you will never use otherwise (much like golfers and fishermen with their kit obsession), an in-group set of impenetrable jargon, friends and relatives not seeing the attraction in the slightest, and people's eyes glazing over if you try to enthusiastically tell them what you did at the weekend. (Best example of this - my friend Neve saying to her friends "I'm glad I remembered so much about the stages of grief at the weekend!" - Friend "oh, were you working?" - Neve "No, this was when my fake dad shot himself in the face" - friend "Sometimes it's better not to ask..") I believe there will always be people who will prefer our physical reality despite the flaws (or maybe BECAUSE of the flaws) and will find some reason to abandon the virtual worlds because of some virtue, real or imaginary, they find in it. After all, compared to spending weeks by a river bank trying to catch a fish and then throw it back, or risk arrest by plane-spotting (something British people seem to do regularly), or spending 150 years (spread over several lifetimes) to play the sitar, choosing our flesh bodies over the virtual world is probably nothing by comparison. Human orneriness - don't you love it? (Or as e e cummings put it - "humanity i love you" Tom From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 22:12:51 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:42:51 +1030 Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? In-Reply-To: <697425.92652.qm@web65608.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <6FC94A4764374746B7EF30FE210836CB@DFC68LF1> <697425.92652.qm@web65608.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003151512p51b34e0eqa06626dacf354378@mail.gmail.com> On 15 March 2010 22:50, The Avantguardian wrote: > >>From: Natasha Vita-More >>To: ExI chat list ; Humanity+ Discussion List ; extrobritannia at yahoogroups.com >>Sent: Sat, March 13, 2010 8:57:37 AM >>Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? >> >> >>Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with light? >>http://www.viewzone.com/dna.html >>WARNING:? Does contain words such as "homoeopathy". >>?Natasha Vita-More >> > > I generally concur with Emlyn with regard to this specific website.?There are?a handful of?valid and puzzling scientific facts mixed in with a lot of sensationalistic and speculative philosophy some might call "woo". But the title about DNA being the next Internet is kind of a non-sequitor with regard to biophotons. Yes, biophotons are real. Yes, there?is a?Russian?biophysicist named Popp that studies them. A search on his name brings back 49 citations [snip] Thanks for your post Stuart, really informative. So in summary you think this effect is real, and western scientists are ignoring it, basically for cultural reasons? -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 16 00:16:05 2010 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:16:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? Message-ID: <361274.20353.qm@web65609.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ---- > From: Emlyn > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Mon, March 15, 2010 3:12:51 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False? Thanks for your post Stuart, really > informative. So in summary you think this effect is real, and western > scientists are ignoring it, basically for cultural reasons? What effect? I do think that the phenomenon of?weak biophotonic emittance by cells and organisms?has been independently confirmed in multiple labs for decades now.?I do not think that?think a lot of the effects attributed to those photons?are real. For example, I don't think?they can turn a frog embryo into a salamander embryo. I do think it is unfortunate that so many quacks and wannabe new age gurus have latched onto?and, by association, discredited what is potentially an important line of scientific inquiry. ? Whereas the woo factor probably plays a large part of the reason why western science is ignoring the phenomenon, I am sure at least a portion of it cultural. A social psychologist named Richard Nisbett conducted some experiments in the beginning of the decade that demonstrate quite profound differences between ingrained western and eastern psychology. People from the two cultures *literally* see the world differently. Westerners tend to be reductionistic individualists. Easterners tend to be holistic collectivists. Westerners tend to fixate on singular points of reference and analyze them to great depths. Easterners?tend to place those points of reference?in a larger context and analyze the context. Here you may be interested in his work: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=americans-and-chinese-dif http://www.pnas.org/content/102/35/12629.full?sid=4346428f-a6a4-49a3-a73c-ac9dd382980b ? Stuart LaForge "What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight." - Joseph Joubert From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 16 21:26:35 2010 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:26:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Oceanic geoengineering In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <627014.2539.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> In a piece on the BBC website today - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8569351.stm They mention that aiding plankton growth also aids the growth of dinoflagellates and their toxin production. So, this technique for CO2 sequestration may cause toxic algal blooms. Still, this shows the need for caution in geoengineering schemes and the need for good quality science. Tom From alecnielsen at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 00:36:10 2010 From: alecnielsen at gmail.com (Alec Nielsen) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:36:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Tom Nowell wrote: > I believe there will always be people who will prefer our physical reality despite the flaws (or maybe BECAUSE of the flaws) and will find some reason to abandon the virtual worlds because of some virtue, real or imaginary, they find in it. As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life comes from studying nature. I think it will be hard to find this fulfillment in an invented world. Alec From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 17 04:47:11 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:47:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> References: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Alec Nielsen > Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Tom Nowell > wrote: > > I believe there will always be people who will prefer our > physical reality despite the flaws (or maybe BECAUSE of the > flaws) and will find some reason to abandon the virtual > worlds because of some virtue, real or imaginary, they find in it. > > As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life > comes from studying nature. I think it will be hard to find > this fulfillment in an invented world. > > Alec Alec, ye of little faith. Recall that fractals are an invented world of sorts, and look at all the natural beauty to be found in that. We could have a ton of fun in simulated worlds, wacky weird stuff just like the kinds of things that thrill us in this world. spike From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 04:50:12 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 4:50:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100317045012.9MW8E.556740.root@hrndva-web20-z01> Malarky, fractals were not invented. They were found. ---- spike wrote: > Alec, ye of little faith. Recall that fractals are an invented world of > sorts, and look at all the natural beauty to be found in that. We could > have a ton of fun in simulated worlds, wacky weird stuff just like the kinds > of things that thrill us in this world. -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 04:53:43 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 4:53:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100317045343.F5HAH.556753.root@hrndva-web20-z01> Reminds me of a story in one of Feynman's books about a girl who accused him of not understanding the beauty of a flower because of his background. His retort was that not only did he see the beauty she saw but he got to look at aspects of the flower she was completely ignorant of. ---- Alec Nielsen wrote: > As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life comes from > studying nature. I think it will be hard to find this fulfillment in > an invented world. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 17 06:02:00 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:02:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100317045012.9MW8E.556740.root@hrndva-web20-z01> References: <20100317045012.9MW8E.556740.root@hrndva-web20-z01> Message-ID: <38918FBE3887474CA28ADD69D99F3368@spike> ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies... >> Recall that fractals are an invented world of sorts... > Malarky, fractals were not invented. They were found... James Ja, and that makes my point better than I did. Like fractals, we will find all kinds of new cool stuff by running sims. In fact I would extrapolate that the simulated world is actually better than the real world for finding new things, because we can guide the questions into interesting areas. Note the delightful reduction in airline fatalities due to pilot error that we have seen in the past decade. More and more pilots were trained on the simulator, so we can sim all kinds of situations that cannot be done safely or economically in the real world, and train the pilots to deal with it. Similarly we can simulate evolution and answer Steven Jay Gould's contingency conjecture by setting up a thousand identical worlds and seeing what lifeforms evolve. Gould would argue that every simulated world would have completely different lifeforms. I disagree to some extent based on looking at the ratites: large flightless birds which include the emu, ostrich, cassowary, rhea, and several extinct forms. These guys are not closely related on the evolutionary sense, so it demonstrates convergent evolution on three different continents. If I had an Mbrain, I'd sim life in the morning, I'd sim life in the evening, all over sim laaand, I'd simulate life forms! I'd sim evolution! I simulate all views of natural selection, all over sim laaaaaannnd. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 17 06:42:25 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:42:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <38918FBE3887474CA28ADD69D99F3368@spike> References: <20100317045012.9MW8E.556740.root@hrndva-web20-z01> <38918FBE3887474CA28ADD69D99F3368@spike> Message-ID: <4BA079D1.2020404@satx.rr.com> On 3/17/2010 1:02 AM, spike wrote: > If I had an Mbrain, I'd sim life in the morning, I'd sim life in the > evening, all over sim laaand, I'd simulate life forms! I'd sim evolution! > I simulate all views of natural selection, all over sim laaaaaannnd. Yeah, but what would you do the next day? (Not rest, I hope.) Damien Broderick From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 06:56:29 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 6:56:29 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <38918FBE3887474CA28ADD69D99F3368@spike> Message-ID: <20100317065629.FU4QJ.556979.root@hrndva-web20-z01> No, I think it condemns your point to irrelevance. Expecting the same sort of emergence from a simulation as one gets from a cosmos is just silly, beyond taking seriously. One uses a simulation or model to understand the cosmos, the reverse doesn't work because the model is itself an instance of that cosmological reality. You're drawing a distinction of type that is specious at best, by reversing the logical dependencies. ---- spike wrote: > ... > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies... > > >> Recall that fractals are an invented world of sorts... > > > Malarky, fractals were not invented. They were found... James > > Ja, and that makes my point better than I did. Like fractals, we will find > all kinds of new cool stuff by running sims. In fact I would extrapolate > that the simulated world is actually better than the real world for finding > new things, -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 17 07:54:41 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:54:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> Some of the content of this thread surprises me. It now looks as though those of us who see value in being uploaded are doing so for rather different reasons. Perhaps everyone subconsciously supposed that his or her motivations were similar, if not identical, to everyone else's. Well, they're not. I've seen expressed here recently the idea that being uploaded is something akin to spending all your time in Second Life. SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms: * increased security * increased longevity * brain tampering Is the point not appreciated by all and sundry that one might be able to *choose* one's interests? As soon as enough progress is made, why would someone play games? Any games? Right now, we're trapped by our ancient hardware into being rewarded by some kinds of silly things: Some people here get excited by watching how a chess combination unfolds, or how atomic nuclei are structured, or who wins a particular wrestling match. Beauty, recall, is indeed in the eye of the beholder, (even though of course it's objectively true that certain forms have statistical appeal to most or many normal humans). We also know that whatever pleasures one obtains from certain activities are mediated by brain chemicals. So as default, why not enjoy them directly? Whereas right now there are unfortunate side effects (perhaps even for caffeine), that can *hardly* be claimed to necessarily be the case for uploads, doubly so since chemistry probably won't be involved at all. The much harder questions have to do with what particular experiences to select, what particular things to learn about, and what particular goals you as a sentient will have, or want, were it possible for you, as default, to have intense feelings of joy, contentment, ecstasy, satisfaction, and excitement---without having to surrender one bit of ambition, striving, dedication, or suffer any major alteration to your value system. Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, now that I think of it. And there are lots of things that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend to become curious about if I make it. Right now, it seems to me, people only try to imagine what activities will generate those all these great positive feelings in terms of what activities already generate those feelings. Based upon our inherited mammalian anthropoid brain architecture---and what we're accustomed to. Surely you'll agree that by a large margin, this undersells what will eventually be possible. Lee From mbb386 at main.nc.us Wed Mar 17 11:51:51 2010 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:51:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> References: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46521.12.77.168.218.1268826711.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Alec writes: > As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life comes from > studying nature. I think it will be hard to find this fulfillment in > an invented world. > Heh. As a *non*-scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life has been interacting with the natural world: watching pregnancies; watching the children grow and change; growing plants; feeding and caring for cats, dogs, snakes; appreciating the changes in my own body; seeking and identifying things (plants, insects, birds) in my environment. I'm not ready to move to a world of silicon, but I am happy to accept various enhancements to this physical body. The fact that many of them extend my (useful, happy, productive) life is just *great*! The "brain in a vat" scene reminds me entirely too much of my grandfather in a coma. I am *so* not ready to go there! Regards, MB From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 12:10:27 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:10:27 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 17 March 2010 18:54, Lee Corbin wrote: > Some of the content of this thread surprises me. It now > looks as though those of us who see value in being uploaded > are doing so for rather different reasons. > > Perhaps everyone subconsciously supposed that his or her > motivations were similar, if not identical, to everyone > else's. Well, they're not. I've seen expressed here recently > the idea that being uploaded is something akin to spending > all your time in Second Life. > > SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits > of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms: > > * increased security > * increased longevity > * brain tampering > > Is the point not appreciated by all and sundry that one > might be able to *choose* one's interests? As soon as > enough progress is made, why would someone play games? > Any games? > > Right now, we're trapped by our ancient hardware into > being rewarded by some kinds of silly things: Some > people here get excited by watching how a chess > combination unfolds, or how atomic nuclei are structured, > or who wins a particular wrestling match. Beauty, recall, > is indeed in the eye of the beholder, (even though of > course it's objectively true that certain forms have > statistical appeal to most or many normal humans). > > We also know that whatever pleasures one obtains from > certain activities are mediated by brain chemicals. So > as default, why not enjoy them directly? Whereas right > now there are unfortunate side effects (perhaps even > for caffeine), that can *hardly* be claimed to necessarily > be the case for uploads, doubly so since chemistry > probably won't be involved at all. > > The much harder questions have to do with what particular > experiences to select, what particular things to learn > about, and what particular goals you as a sentient will > have, or want, were it possible for you, as default, to > have intense feelings of joy, contentment, ecstasy, > satisfaction, and excitement---without having to surrender > one bit of ambition, striving, dedication, or suffer any > major alteration to your value system. > > Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? > Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain > kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently > curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be > neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, > now that I think of it. And there are lots of things > that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend > to become curious about if I make it. > > Right now, it seems to me, people only try to imagine what > activities will generate those all these great positive > feelings in terms of what activities already generate those > feelings. Based upon our inherited mammalian anthropoid > brain architecture---and what we're accustomed to. Surely > you'll agree that by a large margin, this undersells what > will eventually be possible. The problem is people imagine themselves just as they are now, only uploaded. This is like a caveman looking at 21st century life and considering such things as how he will make spears to hunt, what prey he will find, where he will make the fire, and other things that cavemen think are important - because what more to life could there be? -- Stathis Papaioannou From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Mar 17 13:08:32 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:08:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <582565.94470.qm@web113612.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I'm with Lee on this one, only moreso. Why do people assume that this is an either-or thing? That after uploading, you somehow lose the ability to interact with the world you 'left' (you won't leave it at all, really, your brain will just be made of someting different, and be much better at communication). I think that's a good way of looking at it: migrating your consciousness into a better brain. I'm sure there's no reason why that better brain couldn't be installed in an old-fashioned version 1 meat-body, just like the one you have now (If you really wanted that, for some unfathomable reason). You'd be able to inhabit a real-world body when desired, and do all the stuff you presently do, and want to do, and more. You'd be able to inhabit a completely virtual body, and experience a wide variety (understatement) of virtual environments. You'd be able to combine the two, probably in ways we haven't even thought of yet. I think it's important to appreciate that by the time we have the technology to emplement uploading, we'll be capable of building a much better version of our current meat-bodies, made of 'super-meat', or nanobots, or utility fog, or whatever. We'll be capable of building (and living in) bodies that are pretty much anything we like, and of switching between experiencing life in such a body and a huge variety of virtual worlds at will. I just don't understand the attitude that uploading somehow represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a vast broadening of it (and I certainly don't understand the comment about granddad in a coma!). Ben Zaiboc From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 14:45:27 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:45:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 5:00 AM, Alec Nielsen wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Tom Nowell wrote: >> I believe there will always be people who will prefer our physical reality despite the flaws (or maybe BECAUSE of the flaws) and will find some reason to abandon the virtual worlds because of some virtue, real or imaginary, they find in it. > > As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life comes from > studying nature. I think it will be hard to find this fulfillment in > an invented world. How do you know you are not in a simulation right now? Say the real universe is filled with technophiles and the lot of us are being run as a simulation to see how intelligences would develop when they think they are alone. (Another answer to the Fermi question.) If you prey to the operating system and it answers you back, you know you are in a simulation (or deranged). The converse is not true. Keith From giulio at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 14:53:38 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:53:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <582565.94470.qm@web113612.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I agree with Ben and Lee. These anti-uploading rants sound like deep ecology nonsense to me. Listen to me, there is nothing sublime in a senile brain slowly dying in a rotting body. The sooner we can leave these things behind us, the better. Moreover, we used to agree on self-ownership and radical morphological freedom. I hope we still do. -- Giulio Prisco giulio at gmail.com (39)3387219799 On Mar 17, 2010 2:36 PM, "Ben Zaiboc" wrote: I'm with Lee on this one, only moreso. Why do people assume that this is an either-or thing? That after uploading, you somehow lose the ability to interact with the world you 'left' (you won't leave it at all, really, your brain will just be made of someting different, and be much better at communication). I think that's a good way of looking at it: migrating your consciousness into a better brain. I'm sure there's no reason why that better brain couldn't be installed in an old-fashioned version 1 meat-body, just like the one you have now (If you really wanted that, for some unfathomable reason). You'd be able to inhabit a real-world body when desired, and do all the stuff you presently do, and want to do, and more. You'd be able to inhabit a completely virtual body, and experience a wide variety (understatement) of virtual environments. You'd be able to combine the two, probably in ways we haven't even thought of yet. I think it's important to appreciate that by the time we have the technology to emplement uploading, we'll be capable of building a much better version of our current meat-bodies, made of 'super-meat', or nanobots, or utility fog, or whatever. We'll be capable of building (and living in) bodies that are pretty much anything we like, and of switching between experiencing life in such a body and a huge variety of virtual worlds at will. I just don't understand the attitude that uploading somehow represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a vast broadening of it (and I certainly don't understand the comment about granddad in a coma!). Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lis... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 14:56:44 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:56:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 5:00 AM, wrote: > > No, I think it condemns your point to irrelevance. Expecting the same sort of emergence from a simulation as one gets from a cosmos is just silly, beyond taking seriously. Why? Even the crude, low level resolution simulations we have today have exhibited emergence. In fact, at least one phenomena that emerged in a "core wars" type simulation was later found to occur in real world genetics (something to do with parasitic elements as I recall). > One uses a simulation or model to understand the cosmos, the reverse doesn't work because the model is itself an instance of that cosmological reality. You're drawing a distinction of type that is specious at best, by reversing the logical dependencies. It's turtles all the way down. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 15:30:46 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:30:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Simulations, was bodies Message-ID: I hope nobody gets the idea that I am an *advocate* of uploading into simulated worlds. My thoughts on the subject are as ambiguous as the story ending for "the clinic seed." Zaba is a 12 year old girl, badly injured and repaired by Saskulan. Saskulan is an AI that runs a clinic for a remote village (tata) in Africa. ****************** Zaba often talked to Suskulan. She eventually acquired a top-level understanding of all of human knowledge and had access to the details through simulated memory. Suskulan warned her that she might have a difficult time in the physical world if she got out of communication because her mind had expanded well beyond what could be supported in a brain. "Why would I want to go back to being stupid?" she responded, but, after thinking about it, she warmed up her body and moved her consciousness back into her original brain. Her boyfriend was deep in a game and would not come along. (She had a boyfriend because the older man her parents expected to marry her to had lost interest after asking for and being given half a dozen simulated concubines.) Zaba was one of the few Suskulan permitted to be in the physical state in his underground extensions. He was not concerned about the safety of his racks of freezing cold patients, supported as they were in a web of nanomachines. He just didn?t want those who did not want to know how they went in and out of the spirit world to be concerned about the underlying physical details. She rode up the elevator and left the clinic and the spirit world for a day. Walking beyond the reach of the local net was a disconcerting experience at first but even without the net, Zaba's mind was impressive. She remembered what Suskulan had said about staying awake and learning while being healed and how it would change her and the people of the tata. It certainly had! For better or for worse? For better in that nobody died of fevers, nasty parasites, or malnutrition since Suskulan had come into their lives. People didn't even die of old age with a clinic to regress age for them and they aged in the spirit world only to the extent they wanted. For worse in that she could not have children unless she left the clinic for their gestation. Zaba had read the design notes that led up to the creation of the clinics and their spirits and had long understood the mathematics behind Suskulan's limits. In the long run, births and deaths had to match. If you wanted no deaths, then there could be no births. Since fetal development was arrested while in the clinic, (but not post-birth growth) a number of families stuck it out until a child was born, then moved back into the more attractive spirit world tata to raise the child. Zaba visited with the few remaining families in person, then returned to the clinic and the spirit world. She was not inclined to leave it again. **************** From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 17 15:26:24 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:26:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <46521.12.77.168.218.1268826711.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> <46521.12.77.168.218.1268826711.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <5712428069E54690A130A3AD7A72D777@spike> > ...On Behalf Of MB > ... > > > Heh. As a *non*-scientist, much of my happiness and purpose > in life has been interacting with the natural world: watching > pregnancies... Regards, MB Ja, especially if you can watch it at the exact moment it occurs. spike From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 15:57:37 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:57:37 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20100317155737.NGAVD.526929.root@hrndva-web07-z01> ---- Lee Corbin wrote: > SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits > of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms: > > * increased security Security from what/who? I think that the belief that uploading will somehow reduce the impact of competition and corruption is a pipe dream. Lawrence Lessig addressed the generally unrecognized impact of code as a second form of law in his book. To quote Jefferson "have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?" the infrastructure that this requires has to be built by somebody, and at least some of those will be corrupt. And the simple fact is that there isn't any way around that reality, virtual or not. > * brain tampering How would one know? Trust the hash algorithms indicating cohesion? Who wrote those programs? Who wrote the compiler and tool chain to implement them? Who loaded them and what sorts of chroot opportunity did they have? How do you verify (some sort of PKE?) your I/O is valid and untampered with? > Is the point not appreciated by all and sundry that one > might be able to *choose* one's interests? As soon as > enough progress is made, why would someone play games? > Any games? http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/12/game-guru-sid-meier-explains-decades-of-second-guessing-egomaniacal-gamers/ The short answer is that some people don't want to deal. > Right now, we're trapped by our ancient hardware into > being rewarded by some kinds of silly things: And somehow changing the hardware of this gilded cage makes it more acceptable? Think not. > Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? > Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain > kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently > curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be > neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, > now that I think of it. And there are lots of things > that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend > to become curious about if I make it. Mental solipsistic masturbation. So the ultimate goal of this grand socio-technical experiment is so we can spend our time in a dynamic mountain cabin exploring our every whim of insanity. Pass. > Based upon our inherited mammalian anthropoid > brain architecture---and what we're accustomed to. Surely > you'll agree that by a large margin, this undersells what > will eventually be possible. My concern is the R Complex. But, yes, I agree that the vast majority have not grokked the eventual possibilities, both good, bad, and pointless. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 16:19:58 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:19:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <582565.94470.qm@web113612.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20100317161958.9E196.527220.root@hrndva-web07-z01> ---- Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I'm with Lee on this one, only moreso. > > Why do people assume that this is an either-or thing? That after uploading, you somehow lose the ability to interact with the world you 'left' (you won't leave it at all, really, your brain will just be made of someting different, and be much better at communication). Because that's the way it's pitched, upload and leave the physical. If you don't see that then you missed something in that part of the discussion. > I think that's a good way of looking at it: migrating your consciousness into a better brain. I'm sure there's no reason why that better brain couldn't be installed in an old-fashioned version 1 meat-body, just like the one you have now (If you really wanted that, for some unfathomable reason). Migration or augmentation is -not- uploading. You're being uncritical in your thinking here. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Mar 17 16:22:23 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:22:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies and sims In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA101BF.4030901@satx.rr.com> On 3/17/2010 9:45 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > Say the real universe is filled with technophiles and the lot of us > are being run as a simulation to see how intelligences would develop > when they think they are alone. (Another answer to the Fermi > question.) > > If you prey to the operating system and it answers you back, you know > you are in a simulation (or deranged). More than a decade ago, Jacques Vallee wrote this from a world-as-sim perspective: This sounds very intriguing, but I have no idea what it means--how it cashes out operationally. Damien Broderick From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 16:23:53 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:23:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100317162354.93KRH.527267.root@hrndva-web07-z01> ---- Keith Henson wrote: > How do you know you are not in a simulation right now? When one considers the Plank limitations on reality that isn't as crazy as it sounds. If we are in a simulation then our 'knowing' is really a mis-use of terms. Because our presumed free will and independence are nothing more than algorithmic in nature. You wouldn't be able to know unless you were either programmed to find out or a bug allowed that unintended branch point. > Say the real universe is filled with technophiles and the lot of us > are being run as a simulation to see how intelligences would develop > when they think they are alone. (Another answer to the Fermi > question.) Not really, the simulation isn't the cosmos and by design there aren't any other aliens. > If you prey to the operating system and it answers you back, you know > you are in a simulation (or deranged). The converse is not true. The converse of what isn't true? -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 16:31:12 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:31:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20100317163113.5UWIG.527364.root@hrndva-web07-z01> ---- Giulio Prisco wrote: > I agree with Ben and Lee. These anti-uploading rants sound like deep ecology > nonsense to me. What anti-upload rants? You're spin doctoring to your own end using a strawman and an ad hominem in the process. Listen to me, there is nothing sublime in a senile brain > slowly dying in a rotting body. The sooner we can leave these things behind > us, the better. Agreed, however it's not an either or sort of thing. Managing our biology is a critical step forward, escaping it is not. I'd say anybody who believes the best answer to our reality is to escape it completely and live in some machine utopia has some deep seated self-hate issues. Not to mention that it completely ignores who manages that physical infrastructure such a utopia would require. It's a gilded cage escapism. > Moreover, we used to agree on self-ownership and radical morphological > freedom. I hope we still do. Irrelevant and indicates that you either don't understand or don't want to admit the validity of the contra coup. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 17 16:28:53 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:28:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> References: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: This post made me laugh a little, considering Plato's view of the world. 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 Alec Nielsen Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 7:36 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Tom Nowell wrote: > I believe there will always be people who will prefer our physical reality despite the flaws (or maybe BECAUSE of the flaws) and will find some reason to abandon the virtual worlds because of some virtue, real or imaginary, they find in it. As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life comes from studying nature. I think it will be hard to find this fulfillment in an invented world. Alec _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 17 17:15:47 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:15:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <976430E0D5014F0589799668358BA49F@DFC68LF1> The discussion on "bodies" leaves a lot to be desired. Since this is the Extropy list, in a world of Extropy, there are a few crucial thinking tools which foster the extent of a system's intelligence, information, order, vitality and capacity for improvement. http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm The human is in a state of transition, leading toward a critical transformation. In the future the single-life form of human physiology will be a thing of the past. Until then, we have a body and it is keeping us alive. Nevertheless, there are alternatives to the single-life form physiology and there are alternatives to a single upload existence. The future is about diversity and not one specific vehicle for personal existence, whether that be biological lifes, a bio-synthetic lifes, or an artificial lifes. On this list, to argue whether or not there will be synthetic existence is na?ve. The more apt conversation ought to concern methodologies in gaining momentum on these processes. To argue whether or not there will be whole brain emulation (upload) is more provoking and even some of the brightest thinkers are not sold on this notion. (I was just a panelist on "AI" at the SXSWi with http://my.sxsw.com/e/403 Doug Lenat, Bart Selman and Peter Stone, Mason Hale. Listening to the audience reaction (a packed conference room at the Hilton), it was very evident that the concept of a "Metabrain" (which is a vital part of Primo Posthuman http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0405.html ) was *applauded* by the audience.) And with the excitement came all the issue surrounding metabrain and the whole brain emulation upload, which share some identifiable links. Discussions on this list ought to revolve around the research, the methods, the funding, the socio-political issues, the costs, the pros and cons, etc. and not get boggled down by whether or not someone believes either a metabrain or upload will or will not come about. Both are being researched and there is money funding it. The metabrain is easier to swallow, to be sure, but the whole brain emulation is of great interest to many. Natasha From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 17 18:58:07 2010 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:58:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <976430E0D5014F0589799668358BA49F@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <20100317185807.849IL.529315.root@hrndva-web07-z01> ---- Natasha Vita-More wrote: > The discussion on "bodies" leaves a lot to be desired. Since this is the > Extropy list, in a world of Extropy, there are a few crucial thinking tools > which foster the extent of a system's intelligence, information, order, > vitality and capacity for improvement. > http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm It leaves out the critical parameter of 'justification' simply to do something because one can is insane. One -must- be able to answer the 'Why?' with an argument that is logical and ethically consistent. I don't see that in Extropianism as it exists now. > On this list, to argue whether or not there will be synthetic existence is > na?ve. That's not what was being argued. What was being argued was the degree and what the social value was of that choice. To miss such a distinction indicates a lack of attention. > The more apt conversation ought to concern methodologies in gaining > momentum on these processes. That is only one side of the coin. Without the contra coup it is a sterile effort rife for abuse and misuse. To quote Jefferson again "Let history be the judge." Besides, if this was -really- what Extropianism was about it would be focused on venture capital (eg Y Combinator, or Innocentive). There is one and only one method to gain momentum and that is to fund it. > (I was just a panelist on "AI" at the SXSWi with http://my.sxsw.com/e/403 Doug Lenat, Bart Selman and Peter > Stone, Mason Hale. Listening to the audience reaction (a packed conference > room at the Hilton), it was very evident that the concept of a "Metabrain" > (which is a vital part of Primo Posthuman > http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0405.html ) was > *applauded* by the audience.) And with the excitement came all the issue > surrounding metabrain and the whole brain emulation upload, which share some > identifiable links. Too bad I missed that. However, actually living in Austin for many years and knowing the kinds of people here I'm not sure you're implication of popularity is as wholehearted as it might seem. Austin: Keep it Weird. -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at g.austincc.edu james.choate at twcable.com h: 512-657-1279 w: 512-845-8989 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 17 19:33:12 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:33:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100317185807.849IL.529315.root@hrndva-web07-z01> References: <20100317185807.849IL.529315.root@hrndva-web07-z01> Message-ID: <20100317153312.58g1yir7wocog488@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting jameschoate at austin.rr.com: > ---- Natasha Vita-More wrote: > >> The discussion on "bodies" leaves a lot to be desired. Since this is the >> Extropy list, in a world of Extropy, there are a few crucial thinking tools >> which foster the extent of a system's intelligence, information, order, >> vitality and capacity for improvement. >> http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm > > It leaves out the critical parameter of 'justification' simply to do > something because one can is insane. One -must- be able to answer > the 'Why?' with an argument that is logical and ethically > consistent. I don't see that in Extropianism as it exists now. I did not use the term "Extropianism". On another point, critical thinking is a core value to the philosophy of Extropy. Critical thinking includes asking questions. (i.e., Critical thinking is the application of logical principles, rigorous standards of evidence, and careful reasoning to the analysis and discussion of claims, beliefs, and issues.) >> On this list, to argue whether or not there will be synthetic existence is >> na?ve. > > That's not what was being argued. What was being argued was the > degree and what the social value was of that choice. To miss such a > distinction indicates a lack of attention. I am not going to respond to this. >> The more apt conversation ought to concern methodologies in gaining >> momentum on these processes. > > That is only one side of the coin. Without the contra coup it is a > sterile effort rife for abuse and misuse. To quote Jefferson again > "Let history be the judge." This is not worth responding to as well because you seem to trying to prove a point, which could be meaningful but falls short because of your accusation and your attitude. > Besides, if this was -really- what Extropianism was about it would > be focused on venture capital (eg Y Combinator, or Innocentive). > There is one and only one method to gain momentum and that is to > fund it. I'm not sure where this rant comes from, but Extropy is not a business. Alternatively there is funding and that is what I suggested be discussed. >> (I was just a panelist on "AI" at the SXSWi with >> http://my.sxsw.com/e/403 Doug Lenat, Bart Selman and Peter >> Stone, Mason Hale. Listening to the audience reaction (a packed conference >> room at the Hilton), it was very evident that the concept of a "Metabrain" >> (which is a vital part of Primo Posthuman >> http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0405.html ) was >> *applauded* by the audience.) And with the excitement came all the issue >> surrounding metabrain and the whole brain emulation upload, which share some >> identifiable links. > > Too bad I missed that. However, actually living in Austin for many > years and knowing the kinds of people here I'm not sure you're > implication of popularity is as wholehearted as it might seem. > Austin: Keep it Weird. First, SXSWi is not about Austin locals. Second, it is an international event with thousands (15,000) people from all over the word. Lastly, your inference is beyond the pale. Natasha From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 21:29:35 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:59:35 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> References: <626020.73092.qm@web27004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <733f80021003161736q614978adha2d5824696315215@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003171429r57496218y4df464ec1f7e37f5@mail.gmail.com> On 17 March 2010 11:06, Alec Nielsen wrote: > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Tom Nowell wrote: >> I believe there will always be people who will prefer our physical reality despite the flaws (or maybe BECAUSE of the flaws) and will find some reason to abandon the virtual worlds because of some virtue, real or imaginary, they find in it. > > As a scientist, much of my happiness and purpose in life comes from > studying nature. I think it will be hard to find this fulfillment in > an invented world. > > Alec > Just because we live in the virtual world, there's no reason we can't reach out to the physical world. It'd be like now, but you'd have immeasurably better lab software! -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 22:01:43 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:31:43 +1030 Subject: [ExI] META: Nice mailing list ideas Message-ID: <710b78fc1003171501i5a65aecev753b11f762f56033@mail.gmail.com> http://tieguy.org/blog/2010/03/17/lists-parties/ --- Mailing lists are parties. Or they should be. by Louis Villa I can?t go to bed because Mairin is right on the internet and so I want to (1) say she?s awesome and (2) add two cents on mailing lists and using the power of a web interface to make them better. Bear with me; maybe this is completely off-base (probably I should just stick to law), but it has been bouncing around in my head for years and maybe me writing it down will help the lightbulb go off for someone who can actually implement it :) Here is the thing: I think mailing lists are almost like parties in a lot of ways, and so we can steal ideas from parties to help write better mailing list software. I know this sounds silly, but bear with me. First, the similarities. At most parties, like most mailing lists, most people want to have interesting conversations, and they understand the shared social standards and interests of the other people at the party. And at most parties and most mailing lists there are a handful of people are boors who probably don?t want to spoil the party, but who violate those shared norms- some in very mild ways (boring, talking too loud, posting too much), or maybe some less mild (the guy who doesn?t think he?s a racist, but really is.)1 If you?ve got similar mixes of people, why then do parties usually handle boors well, while mailing lists often fail and flame out? At a party, one thing that helps keep conversations functional is that people who lack social graces or are uninteresting get social cues which encourage behavioral change. Sometimes these cues are very explicit- someone saying out loud ?you?re not interesting, I?m leaving.? But those direct cues are a pain to send- they are usually considered ?rude,? they require a lot of emotional energy, and they often mean more interaction with the boor- which is the last thing anyone wants. And blatant signals are often counter-productive too, since they make well-intentioned people defensive instead of giving them a face-saving way to learn they have a problem. Since direct signals are a pain, at parties we?ve evolved a range of more subtle cues to use- people cough and shuffle their feet, or quietly move to another part of the room, or say ?how about the weather?? And this actually works pretty well- worst case, people walk away from the boor and have good conversations elsewhere; best case the boor gets the message, changes their behavior, and becomes more fun to be around. Mailing lists have no low-cost equivalents to coughing and walking away. There is only silence, or confrontation. Mairin?s mockup excites me since, if implemented, it could provide those more subtle, less confrontational cues by allowing ?-1? digg-style votes on posts. You could imagine making the cues even more subtle and non-confrontational than she suggests, perhaps by sending positive cues to everyone but negative cues anonymously and only directly/privately to the boor. Another way that parties and mailing lists aren?t enough alike: in a party, if you are part of a boring conversation, you just walk away. Besides giving the social cues already discussed, this also has the awesome effect of allowing you not to hear that conversation anymore. In contrast, a mailing list is like a party where you can?t walk away from a conversation. You hear every single conversation whether you like it or not. Some of the best email software allows killing entire threads, but that doesn?t give the social cue to the boor. They think everyone is paying attention and so they keep talking. And for people with less good email clients (most of us), the options are to just tolerate the boors or leave the list altogether. Imagine if you had to leave every party that had even a single boring conversation. You wouldn?t go to many parties. That is what most mailing lists are like, though. We can fix that. You can easily imagine mailing list software that allows you to tell the server ?don?t send me this thread anymore.? As a side-effect, if enough people ignored a thread, you could tell people posting in the thread that ?X people have walked away from this conversation- maybe you should take this off-list?? These would probably both require a fair bit of hacking, but it seems like the upside is a more party-like list. On the more positive side (Mairin said she liked to focus on the positive!), at a party it is easy to find the good conversations. Just wander around the room at any decent-sized party; you?ll see a tight knot of people and hear they are talking excitedly. Can?t do that with a mailing list; you?ve got to at least start reading every thread. Once you know which threads people like (maybe via a ?like? link in the footer?) you can offer a party-like ?subscribe only to threads that already have a crowd.? Twitter/identica sort of do this through the idea of retweets/repeats; you don?t have to follow everyone on earth- some people will just pass the cool stuff along- and that seems like it could be pretty useful for mailing lists. Note that virtually none of these behaviors require browsing the email through a web interface or a specialized mail interface. All of them could be implemented by ?click here to mod up/click here to mod down? links in the footer of each email, so people who live in their mail clients could still participate and benefit, which I think is a must. Bottom line: Software can?t save a mailing list full of people who actively dislike each other. Maybe I?m crazy, though, but it seems like software that helped mailing lists function more like parties could really help mailing lists cope better with anti-social people. (1 - There are only a small number who are actively malign and I?ll ignore them for the purposes of this post- if you have too many of them on a list, you have problems software can?t solve. That said, the analogy may have some use in dealing with trolls too.) --- - Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Mar 17 23:24:40 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:24:40 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100317155737.NGAVD.526929.root@hrndva-web07-z01> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <20100317155737.NGAVD.526929.root@hrndva-web07-z01> Message-ID: On 18 March 2010 02:57, wrote: > ---- Lee Corbin wrote: > >> SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits >> of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms: >> >> * increased security > > Security from what/who? I think that the belief that uploading will somehow reduce the impact of competition and corruption is a pipe dream. Lawrence Lessig addressed the generally unrecognized impact of code as a second form of law in his book. To quote Jefferson "have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?" the infrastructure that this requires has to be built by somebody, and at least some of those will be corrupt. And the simple fact is that there isn't any way around that reality, virtual or not. More secure because more durable and can be backed up. >> * brain tampering > > How would one know? Trust the hash algorithms indicating cohesion? Who wrote those programs? Who wrote the compiler and tool chain to implement them? Who loaded them and what sorts of chroot opportunity did they have? How do you verify (some sort of PKE?) your I/O is valid and untampered with? I think Lee meant tampering in a positive way: directly modifying your own brain to be the sort of person you would like to be. >> Is the point not appreciated by all and sundry that one >> might be able to *choose* one's interests? As soon as >> enough progress is made, why would someone play games? >> Any games? > > http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/12/game-guru-sid-meier-explains-decades-of-second-guessing-egomaniacal-gamers/ > > The short answer is that some people don't want to deal. > >> Right now, we're trapped by our ancient hardware into >> being rewarded by some kinds of silly things: > > And somehow changing the hardware of this gilded cage makes it more acceptable? Think not. We would be able to decide what we find rewarding rather than just accept (or struggle against) what we are born with or develop. >> Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? >> Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain >> kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently >> curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be >> neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, >> now that I think of it. And there are lots of things >> that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend >> to become curious about if I make it. > > Mental solipsistic masturbation. So the ultimate goal of this grand socio-technical experiment is so we can spend our time in a dynamic mountain cabin exploring our every whim of insanity. Pass. We don't have to. We can do whatever we want - we would just have more choices. It is like having lots of money: if you don't like it, you can always give it away. -- Stathis Papaioannou From max at maxmore.com Wed Mar 17 23:21:36 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:21:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] META: Moderation notice Message-ID: <201003172348.o2HNmPSl007010@andromeda.ziaspace.com> FYI: I have placed James Choate on moderation. Reason: Several complaints received. Annoying arrogance in every message posted; no social capital accumulated, so no leeway given. ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 00:26:36 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:26:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] META: Nice mailing list ideas In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003171501i5a65aecev753b11f762f56033@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc1003171501i5a65aecev753b11f762f56033@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af71003171726u553e6359x25fd25b8391b24f4@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Emlyn wrote: > http://tieguy.org/blog/2010/03/17/lists-parties/ That was interesting. On a completely tangential, coincidental thread of reasoning, I took the liberty of generating a tag cloud of what I talk about with other people across all mediums- web, in person, over the phone, yes even over smoke signal. Here are the results: http://designfiles.org/~bryan/meetlog/tags.html With information extracted from carbon copy headers, and tag clouds from each user based off of words used in their messages (etc.), we could compute (1) their immediate social network at least when it comes to emails, and (2) an extended social "tribe" that more or less has people that "should probably be their friends". There would probably be a weighted tag cloud somewhere in there, too. Links in the footers of each email could allow a user to send out "invitations" to their friends, or their friends could already be subscribed to certain tags and get those threads anyway. To get a resemblance of a normal mailing list, you could even have your associates still pull in particular threads to your inbox based off of "historical relation" (i.e. you tend to talk with x, y and z frequently therefore their threads get pulled in, unless of course you start downmarking tags you don't like, etc. etc.). Anyway, this would be fun to experiment with, especially with the volume of data I already have just for myself. Maybe I'll implement it as a layer on top of current mailing lists? Also! Look out for my iphone app that should be released on the 20th of this month. It does all of this except for real parties. The app is called "Hurricane Party". I'll probably youtube demo it soon. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 01:16:24 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:46:24 +1030 Subject: [ExI] META: Nice mailing list ideas In-Reply-To: <55ad6af71003171726u553e6359x25fd25b8391b24f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc1003171501i5a65aecev753b11f762f56033@mail.gmail.com> <55ad6af71003171726u553e6359x25fd25b8391b24f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003171816m363bc5f4obb0756bbdb835267@mail.gmail.com> On 18 March 2010 10:56, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Also! Look out for my iphone app that should be released on the 20th > of this month. It does all of this except for real parties. The app is > called "Hurricane Party". I'll probably youtube demo it soon. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 Awesome Bryan! I'm not an iPhone person at all, so the youtube demo would be very useful. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 18 01:39:37 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:39:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] META: Moderation notice Message-ID: <201003180139.o2I1dpcf009175@andromeda.ziaspace.com> A follow-up: James Choate says you all have thin skins and that I should just remove him from the list. So I have. We return you to your normal, occasionally-respectful discussions. Max From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 02:26:59 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:26:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:54 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? > Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain > kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently > curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be > neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, > now that I think of it. And there are lots of things > that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend > to become curious about if I make it. Thanks. Now I'm curious about knitting a kayak to go over Niagara Falls. While I'm at it, how about skydiving with no parachute, just a large ball of synthetic yarn (so it doesn't absorb water) - how fast can I knit a kayak such that it'll be ready before I hit the water? Oh yeah, I guess in the simulator I'll have control of gravity as much as the wetting factor of the yarn, etc. etc. Don't we already have some control over motivation to do different activities? If I really don't feel interested enough in my job or other aspects of my life, can't I just get a prescription neuroceutical? Why don't we do that? I wonder if their will be a new equilibrium that happens even after people uncap the restrictions of biological functions... From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 02:57:08 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:57:08 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 18 March 2010 13:26, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Don't we already have some control over motivation to do different > activities? ?If I really don't feel interested enough in my job or > other aspects of my life, can't I just get a prescription > neuroceutical? ?Why don't we do that? No, current psychopharmacology is extremely crude. We don't really know how the drugs work and it's a wonder that they work at all. There certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase your interest in a particular activity. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 18 02:54:02 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:54:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] META: Moderation notice In-Reply-To: <201003180139.o2I1dpcf009175@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003180139.o2I1dpcf009175@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: >...On Behalf Of Max More > Subject: Re: [ExI] META: Moderation notice > > A follow-up: James Choate says you all have thin skins... Max Thin skins! Who is he calling thin skinned? I am sooo insulted. Why, I'll... Oh, wait... From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Mar 18 04:13:33 2010 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:13:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] META: Moderation notice In-Reply-To: <201003180139.o2I1dpcf009175@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <226613.16014.qm@web81607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 3/17/10, Max More wrote: > A follow-up: James Choate says you > all have thin skins I dunno. My "Delete" button seemed to have a pretty thick skin when I used it on that thread. :) From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 18 04:59:15 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:59:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100317155737.NGAVD.526929.root@hrndva-web07-z01> References: <20100317155737.NGAVD.526929.root@hrndva-web07-z01> Message-ID: <4BA1B323.5040608@rawbw.com> James wrote > Lee wrote: > >> SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits >> of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms: >> >> * increased security > > Security from what/who? As Stathis explained, "physical" security :-) The idea is that if you are being computed at thousands of different places simultaneously throughout the Earth's crust, then you're pretty safe even from enormous meteor impacts. > I think that the belief that uploading will somehow reduce > the impact of competition and corruption is a pipe dream.... Evidently, you aren't talking about the same thing as some of us who've been on this list for a very long time. We all need to occasionally check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading every so often. I hope you do. Understand that all this is *extremely* hypothetical, even if, as many argue, inevitable! As Stathis also said, >>> * brain tampering >> >> How would one know? Trust the hash algorithms indicating >> cohesion? Who wrote those programs? Who wrote the compiler >> and tool chain to implement them? Who loaded them... > > I think Lee meant tampering in a positive way: directly modifying your > own brain to be the sort of person you would like to be. Quite right. The questions you raise of course cannot be answered at this time. We're in the positions of Romans wondering what the world would be like if energy was freely available from the walls. I wouldn't blame Romans for having fun with those ideas even if the exact "how" was not going to be resolved for millenia. >> Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? >> Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is [simply] a certain >> kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently >> curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be >> neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, >> now that I think of it. And there are lots of things >> that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend >> to become curious about if I make it. > > Mental solipsistic masturbation. So the ultimate goal > of this grand socio-technical experiment is so we can > spend our time in a dynamic mountain cabin exploring our > every whim of insanity. Pass. What insanity? Wanting to have new, different, or various experiences? You can't mean that. Perhaps you just refuse to entertain the idea that you yourself could ever leave your physical body and still enjoy life. As Keith hinted, you have no way of knowing for sure that it hasn't already happened. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 18 05:13:54 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:13:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <976430E0D5014F0589799668358BA49F@DFC68LF1> References: <976430E0D5014F0589799668358BA49F@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <4BA1B692.7090602@rawbw.com> Natasha Vita-More wrote: > The more apt conversation ought to concern methodologies in gaining > momentum on these processes. Quite true. I guess that's your "day job", but it isn't mine (worse, I suppose, for me). > To argue whether or not there will be whole > brain emulation (upload) is more provoking and even some of the brightest > thinkers are not sold on this notion. (I was just a panelist on "AI" at the > SXSWi with http://my.sxsw.com/e/403 Doug Lenat, Bart Selman and Peter > Stone, Mason Hale. Listening to the audience reaction (a packed conference > room at the Hilton), it was very evident that the concept of a "Metabrain" Sorry, I needed to examine http://metabraingrowthprocess.tribe.net/ to follow you here. In particular, Myself, I'm talking about an "endpoint" a very long time in the future, where the nearest thing one would have to a real body is a set of remotes coursing through space and the surface of worlds. *That*, to me, is ultimate. To the degree I understand it, you and they are talking about something much more near term. Are you repelled by the thought of not having any longer a real body whatsoever, but merely the feel and appearance of one (or more)? Don't consider that an argument---I really and sincerely just want to know. I certainly agree with your following. Lee > (which is a vital part of Primo Posthuman > http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0405.html ) was > *applauded* by the audience.) And with the excitement came all the issue > surrounding metabrain and the whole brain emulation upload, which share some > identifiable links. > > Discussions on this list ought to revolve around the research, the methods, > the funding, the socio-political issues, the costs, the pros and cons, etc. > and not get boggled down by whether or not someone believes either a > metabrain or upload will or will not come about. Both are being researched > and there is money funding it. The metabrain is easier to swallow, to be > sure, but the whole brain emulation is of great interest to many. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 18 05:25:05 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:25:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <582565.94470.qm@web113612.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <582565.94470.qm@web113612.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BA1B931.1040403@rawbw.com> Ben writes > Why do people assume that this is an either-or thing? That after > uploading, you somehow lose the ability to interact with the world > you 'left' (you won't leave it at all, really, your brain will just > be made of someting different, and be much better at communication). Hmm, perhaps because of the popular focus on RPGs? Many folks probably see our yearnings for being uploaded as escapist. Now our *discussions* about all this are, yes, escapist :-) ---that's for sure---but not the aim itself. > I think that's a good way of looking at it: migrating your consciousness > into a better brain. Yes, exactly. > I think it's important to appreciate that by the time we have the > technology to implement uploading, we'll be capable of building a > much better version of our current meat-bodies, made of 'super-meat', > or nanobots, or utility fog, or whatever. Yes, but since you and I appear to be talking *very* long term, why the emphasis on bodies? As I said to Natasha, sure, over the short term we have little choice; I should add, moreover, that I GREATLY APPRECIATE what my 50 trillion cells do for me every day. But while you might want to continue to feel that you had a body, why on Earth would anyone really be satisfied with something so vulnerable (and probably compute limited)? > I just don't understand the attitude that uploading somehow > represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a vast broadening of it Again, it's probably just a failure to communicate what we mean. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 18 05:44:10 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:44:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BA1BDAA.4040203@rawbw.com> Mike wrote: > [Lee wrote] > >> Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? >> Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is [simply] a certain >> kind of brain behavior... > > Thanks. Now I'm curious about knitting a kayak to go over Niagara > Falls. While I'm at it, how about skydiving with no parachute, just a > large ball of synthetic yarn... Right, get we ever to the Promised Land, there will be no shortage of fun. Many of us would be curious about those experiences. But why? Historical continuity is the answer, perhaps. We can ask, "just how much fun *were* many possible activities back in XX and XXI, given the tech of the day?" Because, as you write, > Don't we already have some control over motivation to do different > activities? If I really don't feel interested enough in my job or > other aspects of my life, can't I just get a prescription > neuroceutical? Why don't we do that? Stathis explained that we can't yet. I feel that I can enhance who I am by becoming more curious, whereas loss of curiosity threatens identity. So I'll want the experiences I'm presently curious about, and the experiences for which I'm not yet curious but intend to be---instead of the equivalent satisfaction and pleasure via direct brain stimulating. But what then? Even more long term, what comes after you have experienced everything you can imagine? Or will there always be new conceivable experiences? All that can be proved rock-solid is that there will always be new experiences understanding yet more mathematics. And if that doesn't turn you on, well, you need merely adjust your brain. Someday. Or there is Repeated Experience. My first post to this list in 1996. Lee From ablainey at aol.com Thu Mar 18 07:46:22 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:46:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <582565.94470.qm@web113612.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8CC94863D53A6D5-328C-6905@Webmail-d112.sysops.aol.com> Exactly it isn't an either or arguement. You can still study the complexity of the real world from within a virtual existence. Or are we destroying all I/O with the real world? I think not. As Ben says, there is nothing to stop you donning a meat suit for extra virtual activity! I would like to image existence after uploading along the lines of 'Dr Manhattan', although personally i'd either wear pants or a comedy sized penis upgrade. Your 'mind' could be in more than one place at once and won't be limited to a single body. Meat or electrons. A -----Original Message----- From: Ben Zaiboc To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:08 Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies I'm with Lee on this one, only moreso. Why do people assume that this is an either-or thing? That after uploading, you somehow lose the ability to interact with the world you 'left' (you won't leave it at all, really, your brain will just be made of someting different, and be much better at communication). I think that's a good way of looking at it: migrating your consciousness into a better brain. I'm sure there's no reason why that better brain couldn't be installed in an old-fashioned version 1 meat-body, just like the one you have now (If you really wanted that, for some unfathomable reason). You'd be able to inhabit a real-world body when desired, and do all the stuff you presently do, and want to do, and more. You'd be able to inhabit a completely virtual body, and experience a wide variety (understatement) of virtual environments. You'd be able to combine the two, probably in ways we haven't even thought of yet. I think it's important to appreciate that by the time we have the technology to emplement uploading, we'll be capable of building a much better version of our current meat-bodies, made of 'super-meat', or nanobots, or utility fog, or whatever. We'll be capable of building (and living in) bodies that are pretty much anything we like, and of switching between experiencing life in such a body and a huge variety of virtual worlds at will. I just don't understand the attitude that uploading somehow represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a vast broadening of it (and I certainly don't understand the comment about granddad in a coma!). Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 09:29:16 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:29:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 36 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 7:57 PM, wrote: > > ---- Lee Corbin wrote: > >> SURELY I speak for at least some, here, who see the benefits >> of achieving uploading wholly in these other terms: >> >> * increased security > > Security from what/who? The large class of events that kill people today. > I think that the belief that uploading will somehow reduce the impact of competition and corruption is a pipe dream. Lawrence Lessig addressed the generally unrecognized impact of code as a second form of law in his book. To quote Jefferson "have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?" the infrastructure that this requires has to be built by somebody, and at least some of those will be corrupt. And the simple fact is that there isn't any way around that reality, virtual or not. There are counter examples. Linux is not corrupt. PGP is not corrupt. I don't see any reason that an AI or an upload environment could not be the same. >> * brain tampering > > How would one know? Trust the hash algorithms indicating cohesion? Who wrote those programs? Who wrote the compiler and tool chain to implement them? Who loaded them and what sorts of chroot opportunity did they have? How do you verify (some sort of PKE?) your I/O is valid and untampered with? It's a good reason for the environment to be open source. Imagine *living* in something written by MS. >> Is the point not appreciated by all and sundry that one >> might be able to *choose* one's interests? As soon as >> enough progress is made, why would someone play games? >> Any games? > > http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/12/game-guru-sid-meier-explains-decades-of-second-guessing-egomaniacal-gamers/ > > The short answer is that some people don't want to deal. > >> Right now, we're trapped by our ancient hardware into >> being rewarded by some kinds of silly things: > > And somehow changing the hardware of this gilded cage makes it more acceptable? Think not. On the other hand I have great uneasiness about this future. > >> Are you finding yourself curious about enough things? >> Or curious enough? Curiosity itself is simple a certain >> kind of brain behavior. As for me, I'm not sufficiently >> curious about knitting or kayaking, though it would be >> neat to experience going off Niagara Falls in a kayak, >> now that I think of it. And there are lots of things >> that don't begin with the letter "k" which I intend >> to become curious about if I make it. > > Mental solipsistic masturbation. So the ultimate goal of this grand socio-technical experiment is so we can spend our time in a dynamic mountain cabin exploring our every whim of insanity. Pass. Hmm. >> Based upon our inherited mammalian anthropoid >> brain architecture---and what we're accustomed to. Surely >> you'll agree that by a large margin, this undersells what >> will eventually be possible. > > My concern is the R Complex. But, yes, I agree that the vast majority have not grokked the eventual possibilities, both good, bad, and pointless. Presumptively you are a fan of Gilliland. So am I. Keith From pharos at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 10:48:55 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:48:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Posner abandons Chicago School economics Message-ID: Slapped by the Invisible Hand Richard Posner has steadfastly fought the regulation of markets?until now. The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy By Richard A. Posner Harvard; $25.95; 408 pp Quotes: Posner less than a year ago began his dissection of the crisis of 2008 with A Failure of Capitalism (Harvard, May 2009). As an influential free-market thinker, he helped shape the antiregulatory ideology that inspired so much public policy since 1980. Belatedly he admits error. The Chicago School and all its powerful acolytes blundered, Posner writes, "by persuading themselves that markets were perfect, which is to say self-regulating, and that government intervention in them almost always made things worse." That was a crude misreading of history. Laws inspired by the Great Depression helped achieve a half-century without catastrophic meltdowns. The dismantling of those laws and emasculating of the agencies established to enforce them?without the enactment of new regulation suited to today's Wall Street?go a long way toward explaining our recent brush with disaster. End quote. ----------------------- Some economics bloggers are rather contemptuous about Posner (and Greenspan) 'seeing the light' after ten years of pontificating about the glories of 'unregulated-markets'. The first comment on the above blog article is very scathing. Quote: A possible reason why the P***ers of this world are/were unable to see the need for regulation was because just maybe one of the following was well and truly in place ? still (choose). 1. I don?t want to know as we are making bags of money in the scammer?s paradise. 2. Regulation doesn?t win me friends or sell books or gain consulting jobs. 3. Singing the same song as the other players makes me a team animal 4. Recognizing uncontrolled risk means I must inevitably recommend shutting down the money spigot ? ouch who threw that brick? 5 Lobbyists will let a contract on me? 6. We may gsin more efficient function via network management (see power distriution networks, highway traffic flow management) but like most other people, I am a greedy, venal, avaricious harvester (aha I see another sucker). 7. Punishment is reserved for the careless, we are home free and clear (no Elliott Ness allowed). One may choose one or more of the above. Now one could create a control system in 30 days (how long did it take to respond to Pearl Harbor) but are our lemming elected politicians part of the problem? Conclusion: This makes the mafia look like a neighborhood candy stealing racket in the land of the free. Seems like the folk we elected to clean up are part of the mess. ------------------------- BillK From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Mar 18 13:59:29 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:59:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <385186.49697.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Stathis Papaioannou claimed: > > There > certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase > your interest > in a particular activity. Ritalin? Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Mar 18 14:13:24 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:13:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <562880.47431.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Lee Corbin wrote: > > Ben writes > > > I just don't understand the attitude that uploading > somehow > > represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a vast > broadening of it > > Again, it's probably just a failure to communicate what we > mean. I think you're right. If even some people who join this list seem to misunderstand it, what chance do other people have? Especially when the main examples of virtual worlds we have atm are dedicated to fantasy. Maybe somebody needs to write a book. Ben Zaiboc From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 18 15:10:36 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:10:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <562880.47431.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <562880.47431.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BA2426C.9080509@satx.rr.com> On 3/18/2010 9:13 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > If even some people who join this list seem to misunderstand it, what chance do other people have? Especially when the main examples of virtual worlds we have atm are dedicated to fantasy. > Maybe somebody needs to write a book. A book? A *book*? Maybe you mean a five minute YouTube vid? A rap song? A slogan? Who reads books? Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 18 15:36:39 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:36:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: <201003181536.o2IFamHD022129@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I had some thoughts on the issue of whether virtual worlds implied losing contact with the physical world and our bodies that I put forth in a talk back in 1993: http://www.maxmore.com/virtue.htm Max From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 18 15:40:02 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:40:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA1B692.7090602@rawbw.com> References: <976430E0D5014F0589799668358BA49F@DFC68LF1> <4BA1B692.7090602@rawbw.com> Message-ID: Lee wrote: "Myself, I'm talking about an "endpoint" a very long time in the future, where the nearest thing one would have to a real body is a set of remotes coursing through space and the surface of worlds. *That*, to me, is ultimate. To the degree I understand it, you and they are talking about something much more near term." This thread has fluctuated between individual desires of uploading or not, plausibility of uploading, getting there, and alternatives to uploading. The metabrain is both an alternative and a process in getting there. Since the metabrain is HCI, it is a step along with way to whole brain emulation. I don't see a definitive endpoint, but I suppose the noosphere or connective intelligence is what we tend to think of as an endpoint, similar to your "remote coursing". I see this as a goal, but not necessary an endpoint. "Are you repelled by the thought of not having any longer a real body whatsoever, but merely the feel and appearance of one (or more)? Don't consider that an argument---I really and sincerely just want to know." My work, in practice and theory, has indicated that disembodiedment is a misconception because regardless of what form, shape, material, or substrate we embellish, we will have some type of vehicle to encapsulate mind (awareness/consciousness), be that individual existence or connective existence. **My work does not reflect an attachment to the human body but offers alternative bodies as non-biological and pro-synthetic, as well as no human-looking body at all. I personally am not repelled by not having a "real" body.** "I certainly agree with your following." > (which is a vital part of Primo Posthuman > http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0405.html > ) was > *applauded* by the audience.) And with the excitement came all the > issue surrounding metabrain and the whole brain emulation upload, > which share some identifiable links. > > Discussions on this list ought to revolve around the research, the > methods, the funding, the socio-political issues, the costs, the pros and cons, etc. > and not get boggled down by whether or not someone believes either a > metabrain or upload will or will not come about. Both are being > researched and there is money funding it. The metabrain is easier to > swallow, to be sure, but the whole brain emulation is of great interest to many. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From giulio at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 16:04:47 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:04:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <201003181536.o2IFamHD022129@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003181536.o2IFamHD022129@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: Great article Max, it is interesting to see how in 1993 you anticipated many of the issues which today are routinely discussed in virtual worlds interest groups -- for example in the last couple of days there has been a very interesting uploading discussion on the Second Life Educators list, see the Apocalyptic AI thread here: https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/educators/2010-March/thread.html If Nozick's "experience machine" is basically TV on steroids, Second Life and other VR worlds show promise of becoming, as you say, "real" VR worlds "like the physical world, except that here magic is routine. Words and gestures can change the environment and transport you instantly between virtual locations. Vastly more configurable than the natural world, this kind of virtual world seems capable of supporting at least as wide a range of activities as the physical realm... You might also have some contact with the external physical world" Seeing the current evolution of technology it appears that VR worlds will become sensorially indistinguishable from external reality in one or two decades. And all of the tininge you mention in the passage quoted, _including_ the last sentence about contact with the external physical world, will still be available to uploads once uploading tech is developed. So, uploads will have the option to live at least as fully as we do, and possibly much more. On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Max More wrote: > I had some thoughts on the issue of whether virtual worlds implied losing > contact with the physical world and our bodies that I put forth in a talk > back in 1993: > > http://www.maxmore.com/virtue.htm > > Max > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 16:08:31 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:08:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA2426C.9080509@satx.rr.com> References: <562880.47431.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4BA2426C.9080509@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 3:10 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > A book? A *book*? Maybe you mean a five minute YouTube vid? A rap song? A > slogan? Who reads books? > > > > I find auto summary software invaluable. Most word processors will provide you with an executive summary of large documents. You can also get specialized abstract and summary software. You can really get through a lot of books very quickly using this system. For example, 'The Spike' translates to 'Things will get very weird very quickly'. If you add in the Google machine translation step, you can read foreign language books as well. (Although the results can be a bit unpredictable). BillK :) From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 18 16:09:53 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:09:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Don't stop driving your Toyota Message-ID: <201003181610.o2IGA2b7022878@andromeda.ziaspace.com> http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/16/the-wrong-kind-of-toyotathon From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 18 16:16:32 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:16:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: <201003181616.o2IGGdOh022635@andromeda.ziaspace.com> >Great article Max, it is interesting to see how in 1993 you >anticipated many of the issues which today are routinely discussed >in virtual worlds interest groups Thanks Giulio, but I mis-typed. The talk was actually in 1997 (in Bonn). (However, I made some earlier comments at a 1994 talk at Long Beach Virtual Reality Group.) Max From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Mar 18 16:44:54 2010 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:44:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <562880.47431.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <566538.38131.qm@web81601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 3/18/10, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Lee Corbin > wrote: > > Ben writes > > > I just don't understand the attitude that > uploading > > somehow > > > represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a > vast > > broadening of it > > > > Again, it's probably just a failure to communicate > what we > > mean. > > I think you're right. > > If even some people who join this list seem to > misunderstand it, what chance do other people have?? > Especially when the main examples of virtual worlds we have > atm are dedicated to fantasy. Existence proof. What we have right now is not what most people would call "uploading". While there is an online virtual presence directly controlled by the user, it is in the manner of a tool, not as an extension of one's body (save perhaps for the most highly skilled experts, which by definition excludes the vast majority of people, and in any case is not primarily due to the technology). At a minimum, we will probably need direct neural interfaces (multi-channel ones, not the current generation that reads the entire brain to change one variable) before most people would agree that "uploading" exists. This is important because many people will not understand a thing until they can see it. How difficult would it have been to explain the mass public impact of the Web in 1990, even to people who knew about and used the Internet? And yet, simply by using it, the basics of it are now understood by most. From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 18 16:55:46 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:55:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA2426C.9080509@satx.rr.com> References: <562880.47431.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4BA2426C.9080509@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > ... > > Maybe somebody needs to write a book. > > A book? A *book*? Maybe you mean a five minute YouTube vid? A > rap song? > A slogan? Who reads books? > > _block_of> > > Damien Broderick I do! Ink on dead trees is still the gold standard for information, even tho we have a bunch of good alternatives now. I see it as kind of society's modern method of super-editing: the stuff that is exceptionally relevant and worthy of archiving is still being distributed that way. I don't expect it will always be so, and I read far fewer books than I did a decade ago, but there is still good stuff to be found there. spike From jonkc at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 18 17:31:50 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:31:50 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Health care (was:stop driving your Toyota) In-Reply-To: <201003181610.o2IGA2b7022878@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003181610.o2IGA2b7022878@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Mar 18, 2010, at 12:09 PM, Max More wrote: > http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/16/the-wrong-kind-of-toyotathon That is a good article and I think the reason that all the talk in Washington about health care leads nowhere is the lack of that sort of analysis; it's all about the mechanism by which I pay for your health care and you pay for mine, rather than asking exactly why health care is so expensive in the first place. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 20:41:24 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:41:24 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <385186.49697.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <385186.49697.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 19 March 2010 00:59, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou claimed: > >> >> There >> certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase >> your interest >> in a particular activity. > > Ritalin? Amphetamines cannot selectively increase interest in a particular activity. They increase catecholamine activity throughout the brain and the rest of the body, and as one of many effects (many undesirable) this can increase goal-directed behaviour. -- Stathis Papaioannou From sparge at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 20:57:05 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:57:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <385186.49697.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 19 March 2010 00:59, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> Stathis Papaioannou claimed: >> >>> >>> There >>> certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase >>> your interest >>> in a particular activity. >> >> Ritalin? > > Amphetamines cannot selectively increase interest in a particular > activity. They increase catecholamine activity throughout the brain > and the rest of the body, and as one of many effects (many > undesirable) this can increase goal-directed behaviour. OK, how about hormones that increase sex drive? -Dave From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 18 21:29:07 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:29:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: <4BA29B23.4030603@rawbw.com> Max wrote in http://www.maxmore.com/virtue.htm It was likely harmful to dissent from this view in 1997--- but I don't think it matters now. You can now name at least one Extropian who'll be very happy to leave his body behind, *once there is something far better to host him*, supposing we ever get so lucky as to attain that possibility. That's extremely prudent! One has to take care of oneself whatever the underlying machinery. And, of course, those of us who look at bodies as vehicles can hardly ever be allowed to speak for Extropians en masse. But by the same token, those who have no intention of ever running on distributed hardware cannot speak for all of us either. So how would you feel about the scenario I've always envisaged: every prudent person, whatever flavor of real/apparent reality they enjoyed, would in fact be running on machines buried deep within the Earth's crust? (Earth local versions of one, of course.) I liked very much the parts of your essay, reading it again after all these years, that denigrate mere wireheading and the relatively mindless fantasy-living (experience machine). In *principle* your hikes up mountains, lovemaking, and dancing would be just as before---so far as you could tell, as you know. Of course, intellectually, one would realize that there was no mountain, and actually not even a body, just as today one knows that there are no colors, only EM radiation of various frequencies. But who would care? I ought to have many sensors throughout the Earth, not just allowing me to check against threats, but to assist my natural curiosity about all the real hardware employed to make manifest my virtual reality, as well as to satiate my expanded curiosity concerning scientific phenomena. As for colors, well! No reason my emotions cannot be linked to an incredible variety of new hues. Won't it be interesting to see yourself the actual code and chips that produce your very real feelings and thoughts? Imagine being able to implement into room-sized equipment those physical circuits that *are* a particular thought or feeling in real time---and see it operate simultaneously as you experience it! I love my fifty trillion cells very much, the way I love other vehicles I've driven for many years, only much more so. But the sad day arrives, as it often has, when one must say goodbye. I've yet never failed to shed a tear. If things go well---I'm keeping my fingers crossed---and I get frozen, then so far as I can see, in all likelihood that will be goodbye. It's just to be hoped that it's only goodbye to a loyal vehicle, which was so very good to me for all those decades, and not goodbye to my experience and to my life. Lee From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 18 21:50:04 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:50:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA29B23.4030603@rawbw.com> References: <4BA29B23.4030603@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20100318175004.vffzxjxpb4k4cc4k@webmail.natasha.cc> Lee writes: > But who would care? I ought to have many sensors throughout > the Earth, not just allowing me to check against threats, > but to assist my natural curiosity about all the real > hardware employed to make manifest my virtual reality, > as well as to satiate my expanded curiosity concerning > scientific phenomena. > > As for colors, well! No reason my emotions cannot be > linked to an incredible variety of new hues. > > Won't it be interesting to see yourself the actual code > and chips that produce your very real feelings and thoughts? > Imagine being able to implement into room-sized equipment > those physical circuits that *are* a particular thought > or feeling in real time---and see it operate simultaneously > as you experience it! > > I love my fifty trillion cells very much, the way I love > other vehicles I've driven for many years, only much > more so. But the sad day arrives, as it often has, > when one must say goodbye. I've yet never failed to > shed a tear. TRANSHUMAN STATEMENT We are transhumans Our art integrates the most eminent progression of creativity and sensibility merged by discovery. Transhumanist Arts represent the aesthetic and creative culture of transhumanity. Transhumanist Artists are developing new and varied modes of art.? Our aesthetics and expressions are merging with science and technology in designing increased sensory experiences. Transhumans want to improve and extend life. We are designing the technologies to improve and extend life. Emotions are integral to our senses and understanding. We are designing the technologies to enhance our senses and understanding. The transhumanist ecology and freedom exercises self-awareness and self-responsibility. If our art represents who we are, then let us choose to be transhumanist not only in our bodies, but in our future existences, and in our values. Transhumanist Artists embrace the creative innovations of transhumanity. We are ardent activists in pursuing infinite transformation, overcoming death and exploring the universe.? Transhumans want to improve and extend life. We are designing the technologies to improve and extend life. Emotions are integral to our senses and understanding. We are designing the technologies to enhance our senses and understanding. As Transhumanist Arts come into focus As more artists join our efforts As more designs are produced As more music is composed As more stories are written As the tools and ideas of our art continue to evolve, So too shall we. http://www.transhumanist.biz/[1] Links: ------ [1] http://www.transhumanist.biz/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 21:52:54 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:22:54 +1030 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 36 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003181452u26d6beagf807e56a49682776@mail.gmail.com> On 18 March 2010 19:59, Keith Henson wrote: >> I think that the belief that uploading will somehow reduce the impact of competition and corruption is a pipe dream. Lawrence Lessig addressed the generally unrecognized impact of code as a second form of law in his book. To quote Jefferson "have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?" the infrastructure that this requires has to be built by somebody, and at least some of those will be corrupt. And the simple fact is that there isn't any way around that reality, virtual or not. > > There are counter examples. ?Linux is not corrupt. ?PGP is not > corrupt. ?I don't see any reason that an AI or an upload environment > could not be the same. This is why I think that digital freedom will become the number one political issue at some point in the first half of this century. Given the recent speech by Obama confirming that the US is going to support the bad guys on this, I guess we'll be doing it the hard way. I expect at least one war to be fought over IP in the near future, as well as a lot of civic strife worldwide. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Mar 18 23:13:27 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:13:27 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <385186.49697.qm@web113603.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 19 March 2010 07:57, Dave Sill wrote: >> Amphetamines cannot selectively increase interest in a particular >> activity. They increase catecholamine activity throughout the brain >> and the rest of the body, and as one of many effects (many >> undesirable) this can increase goal-directed behaviour. > > OK, how about hormones that increase sex drive? Giving androgens to women sometimes does, but that has other side-effects. Amphetamines and some other recreational drugs can increase libido but they also have other side-effects, including decreased performance. If you can discover an aphrodisiac that works and has no significant side-effects then I don't need to tell you you will become very rich. -- Stathis Papaioannou From wingcat at pacbell.net Fri Mar 19 00:50:44 2010 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:50:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <131687.56900.qm@web81605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 3/18/10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > If you can discover an aphrodisiac > that works > and has no significant side-effects then I don't need to > tell you you > will become very rich. I wonder what the effectiveness would be, of a carefully placed electrode in the hypothalamus (possibly in the ventromedial nucleus), triggered when the recipient wishes to be aroused. (Though, one would have to be careful to distinguish hunger for sex from other hungers also directed by this part of the brain.) From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 19 04:25:42 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:25:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <20100318175004.vffzxjxpb4k4cc4k@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <4BA29B23.4030603@rawbw.com> <20100318175004.vffzxjxpb4k4cc4k@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <4BA2FCC6.9050507@rawbw.com> Natasha quotes the > *TRANSHUMAN STATEMENT* > > We are transhumans > Our art integrates the most eminent progression > of creativity and sensibility > merged by discovery. > > Transhumanist Arts represent the aesthetic and creative culture of > transhumanity. > Transhumanist Artists are developing new and varied modes of art. > Our aesthetics and expressions are merging with science and technology in > designing increased sensory experiences. > > Transhumans want to improve and extend life. > We are designing the technologies to improve and extend life. > Emotions are integral to our senses and understanding. > We are designing the technologies to enhance our senses and understanding. > > The transhumanist ecology and freedom exercises self-awareness and > self-responsibility. > If our art represents who we are, then let us choose to be transhumanist > not only in our bodies, but in our future existences, and in our values. > Transhumanist Artists embrace the creative innovations of transhumanity. > We are ardent activists in pursuing infinite transformation, overcoming > death and exploring the universe. > > Transhumans want to improve and extend life. > We are designing the technologies to improve and extend life. > Emotions are integral to our senses and understanding. > We are designing the technologies to enhance our senses and understanding. > > As Transhumanist Arts come into focus > As more artists join our efforts > As more designs are produced > As more music is composed > As more stories are written > As the tools and ideas of our art continue to evolve, > So too shall we. > > http://www.transhumanist.biz/ without giving much of a clue as to how she views those who, for example, employ the term "meat cages". I don't happen to use that term because it's unnecessarily demeaning to a rather wonderful machine---but there is a widely shared view hiding therein that I too embrace: the sooner we can escape into safer, widely distributed---and disembodied---hardware, the better. Perhaps all of us who do embrace the transhumanist vision do in fact agree about this, for once. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 19 04:27:42 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:27:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> Stathis had written > ...current psychopharmacology is extremely crude. We don't really > know how the drugs work and it's a wonder that they work at all. > There certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase > your interest in a particular activity. My experience, and that of several friends, has been that almost whatever you are doing, seeing, or thinking about becomes more interesting with caffeine. Is this established? Lee From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 19 05:25:46 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:25:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] help! im being repressed! Message-ID: I offer a bit of entertainment in light of the current happenings in the US capital: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS_1bzaj2fw &feature=player_embedded spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Mar 19 06:05:53 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:05:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 19 March 2010 15:27, Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis had written > >> ...current psychopharmacology is extremely crude. We don't really >> know how the drugs work and it's a wonder that they work at all. > >> There certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase >> your interest in a particular activity. > > My experience, and that of several friends, has been that > almost whatever you are doing, seeing, or thinking about > becomes more interesting with caffeine. Is this established? And more so with amphetamines, but it isn't *specific*. You can't make yourself more interested in a particular thing that you aren't interested in. -- Stathis Papaioannou From ablainey at aol.com Fri Mar 19 10:01:55 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind controlled wheechair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8CC95625712DC17-2278-16CCC@webmail-m063.sysops.aol.com> Hi All, Following the mind controlled robot arm I have now made a mind controlled electric wheelchair. After a long hard think and baring in mind recent threds about IP rights. I have come to the conclussion that I wont be chasing a patent for the system or any part of it. Hope fully this will mean that peopla who are in need of such a chair will be able to get one sooner rather than later. I have no doubts that patent licenses and limited suppliers would do more harm than good. So I will forgo any financial rewards that may have come from this particular invention. So I am making a point of telling everyone in order to prove public disclosure. Also with a bit of luck this will serve as a morality lesson for some. ( no one on this list I hasten to add!!) Anyway, I was surprised at how easy it was to make and to be honest the most difficult thing was getting XP to install on the embedded computer system. grrrrr thanks Bill. Using a second hand chair the whole thing cost less than ?1000 to put together and everything was over the counter consumer parts, although the cost in man hours would run to more than that. Even so, when compared to top of the range electric wheelchairs with line tracking. This is very cheap. Hopefully people with varying degrees of severe paralysis will be coming to a street near you very soon with chairs under their own control. For my next trick??? I am open to suggestion. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Mar 19 12:43:21 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:43:21 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind controlled wheechair In-Reply-To: <8CC95625712DC17-2278-16CCC@webmail-m063.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC95625712DC17-2278-16CCC@webmail-m063.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/19 : > > Following the mind controlled robot arm I have now made a mind controlled > electric wheelchair. After a long hard think and baring in mind recent > threds about IP rights. I have come to the conclussion that I wont be > chasing a patent for the system or any part of it. Um...that's cool, but did you think to google for "mind controlled wheelchair" first? It's been done. > Anyway, I was surprised at how easy it was to make and to be honest the most > difficult thing was getting XP to install on the embedded computer system. > grrrrr thanks Bill. Just say no to MS. > For my next trick??? I am open to suggestion. Port the interface s/w to Linux. -Dave From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Mar 19 13:33:44 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:33:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA2FCC6.9050507@rawbw.com> References: <4BA29B23.4030603@rawbw.com><20100318175004.vffzxjxpb4k4cc4k@webmail.natasha.cc> <4BA2FCC6.9050507@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1360E84B4D694276ABE580ED99282654@DFC68LF1> Natasha quotes the > *TRANSHUMAN STATEMENT* > > We are transhumans > Our art integrates the most eminent progression of creativity and > sensibility merged by discovery. > > Transhumanist Arts represent the aesthetic and creative culture of > transhumanity. > Transhumanist Artists are developing new and varied modes of art. > Our aesthetics and expressions are merging with science and technology > in designing increased sensory experiences. > > Transhumans want to improve and extend life. > We are designing the technologies to improve and extend life. > Emotions are integral to our senses and understanding. > We are designing the technologies to enhance our senses and understanding. > > The transhumanist ecology and freedom exercises self-awareness and > self-responsibility. > If our art represents who we are, then let us choose to be > transhumanist not only in our bodies, but in our future existences, and in our values. > Transhumanist Artists embrace the creative innovations of transhumanity. > We are ardent activists in pursuing infinite transformation, > overcoming death and exploring the universe. > > Transhumans want to improve and extend life. > We are designing the technologies to improve and extend life. > Emotions are integral to our senses and understanding. > We are designing the technologies to enhance our senses and understanding. > > As Transhumanist Arts come into focus > As more artists join our efforts > As more designs are produced > As more music is composed > As more stories are written > As the tools and ideas of our art continue to evolve, So too shall we. > > http://www.transhumanist.biz/ "without giving much of a clue as to how she views those who, for example, employ the term "meat cages"." I don't understand what are you referring to. What does "meat cages" have to do with this manifesto? "I don't happen to use that term because it's unnecessarily demeaning to a rather wonderful machine---but there is a widely shared view hiding therein that I too embrace: the sooner we can escape into safer, widely distributed---and disembodied---hardware, the better." "Perhaps all of us who do embrace the transhumanist vision do in fact agree about this, for once." Natasha From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Mar 19 15:31:59 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:31:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks Message-ID: The three SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. Banks. I am in the middle of re reading _Look to Windward_ (2000) and was struck by how much of the book was closely related to recent discussions on this list. "The Culture" in Bank's universe is a galaxy wide society with nanotechnology. It has stabilized beyond the construction of AIs but remains for the most part in the physical world. But Banks is keenly aware of the instability of such a state of development. If you have not read it recently, you can go to Amazon and search inside the book for "sublime." Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_ (1986) is also relevant to the recent discussions. Singularity SF is really hard to write. Everybody who does so knows they have to cheat or they have no characters the reader can identify with. Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 19 15:59:50 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:59:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> On 3/19/2010 10:31 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > The three SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post > singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. Banks. The five SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post singularity are Vernor Vinge, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Charles Stross, and Damien Broderick. (There are others, too: Linda Nagata, David Marusek, etc etc...) Incidentally, I was sent a link to a strange alternative media interview I gave in my own backyard a decade ago with the god Ganesh cavorting in the background: Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 19 16:59:04 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:59:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Schrodinger's rat-a-tat Message-ID: <4BA3AD58.3090201@satx.rr.com> A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving. http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 19 23:11:39 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:11:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA404AB.2050300@satx.rr.com> On 3/1/2010 12:16 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > I don't know how deep your knowledge of modern biology, particularly > evolution is. Selfish Gene by Dawkins is basic to understanding > evolution, I presume you have read that. What other parts of the > topic are you up on? Before everyone becomes convinced that it's all Real Simple and Clear, I suggest a careful read of biologist Peter Watts' scathing comments at: (Canadian Watts has just been found guilty on an insanely bogus charge and might well spend a couple of years in jail. See his report at: and track it back if this is news to whoever is reading...) Damien Broderick From ablainey at aol.com Fri Mar 19 23:44:44 2010 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:44:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind controlled wheechair In-Reply-To: References: <8CC95625712DC17-2278-16CCC@webmail-m063.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <8CC95D5499475CF-904-9D16@webmail-d050.sysops.aol.com> Cars have been 'done' before too, but each one has patentable parts and systems. The point is that I am not going to stand in the way of people who need the technology for the sake of personal wealth. -----Original Message----- From: Dave Sill >Um...that's cool, but did you think to google for "mind controlled >wheelchair" first? It's been done. _______________________________________________ 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 msd001 at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 01:15:42 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:15:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003191815l7af8e00eub0016890b6c216a3@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 19 March 2010 15:27, Lee Corbin wrote: >> Stathis had written >> >>> ...current psychopharmacology is extremely crude. We don't really >>> know how the drugs work and it's a wonder that they work at all. >> >>> There certainly isn't anything you can take that will increase >>> your interest in a particular activity. >> >> My experience, and that of several friends, has been that >> almost whatever you are doing, seeing, or thinking about >> becomes more interesting with caffeine. Is this established? > > And more so with amphetamines, but it isn't *specific*. You can't make > yourself more interested in a particular thing that you aren't > interested in. So you aren't going to make me interested in accounting by injecting artificial levels of Accountine(tm)... but with a combination of proper sugar levels and caffeine and other focus-enhancing supplements, I would be quite content to spend 6-8 uninterrupted hours working on program code. I doubt the general population would feel the same way. However, tweaking our motivation deliberately typically coincides with Uploading fantasies. I could invest a few dollars in those supplements and be "wired" either into or out-of my head more|less than usual - but I don't. I wonder if that default choice will continue to limit behavior even after we have access to the brain's API / control panels. btw, I said Uploading fantasy not because I doubt it will ever be possible, but because the kinds of things our currently limited thinking have conceived to do after the upload are (imo) very small. It's like those naive beliefs that "heaven" is a place where you can eat all the ice cream you want without getting fat. The possibilities for an uploaded state of being are nearly inconceivable from our current point of reference. From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 01:20:44 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:20:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind controlled wheechair In-Reply-To: <8CC95D5499475CF-904-9D16@webmail-d050.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC95625712DC17-2278-16CCC@webmail-m063.sysops.aol.com> <8CC95D5499475CF-904-9D16@webmail-d050.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003191820j7ca4f391g7918880a73173bc3@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/19 : > Cars have been 'done' before too, but each one has patentable parts and > systems. The point is that I am not going to stand in the way of people who > need the technology for the sake of personal wealth. I would suggest doing the necessary work to 'protect' you IP, then open source it. That might make it harder for someone else to mildly improve on a public domain asset and claim it is a novelty that they can then own. (I almost said "necessary leg work" but considered that might be insensitive in a discussion of mind-controlled wheelchairs, then thought the PC self-monitoring was amusing enough to share anyway) From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 03:05:19 2010 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:05:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] META: Moderation notice In-Reply-To: <226613.16014.qm@web81607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <201003180139.o2I1dpcf009175@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <226613.16014.qm@web81607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4e3a29501003192005ua9dfb97k6ed81c4cbec6d415@mail.gmail.com> Was he warned of this beforehand? If not it seems a bit sudden; we may have lost a smart contributor as a result. Hell, Clark and Swobe were worse anyway, and the handwriting was written in large letters on the wall for that situation. As for social capital, it's easy to see that someone with no social capital does not deserve a chance. Obviously someone with little clout, say, a patent office worker or something, should be taken less seriously. ;) Don't we need voices of dissent to produce any sort of meaningful dialectic? Otherwise discourse dissolves into masturbatory circumlocution...just my thoughts. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 14:25:16 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:25:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003200725r345c907es10c572c109605384@mail.gmail.com> On 19 March 2010 16:31, Keith Henson wrote: > The three SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post > singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. Banks. ?I am > in the middle of re reading _Look to Windward_ (2000) and was struck > by how much of the book was closely related to recent discussions on > this list. I have a vague recollection of that book because it was inordinately long in comparison with my interest, and because at that time I found the English of Banks rather difficult, so I ended up "jumping" more than a few pages. What I can say is that inasmuch as I could grasp it, I hated the tedious and moralistic ideology thereof. Give my my daily Greg Egan... -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 14:28:10 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:28:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> On 19 March 2010 16:59, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/19/2010 10:31 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> The three SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post >> singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. Banks. > > The five SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post > singularity are Vernor Vinge, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Charles Stross, and > Damien Broderick. Actually, we have one published singularitarian SF author ourselves in the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti, Francesco Verso, a leader of a SF trend called "connectivism". Alas, I do no believe it he has ever been translated in English. -- Stefano Vaj From giulio at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 14:53:21 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:53:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Richard Morgan's noir SF novels in Takeshi Kovacs' universe (Altered Carbon, Broken Gods, Woken Furies) have post-singularity technologies, but people are still people. On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 19 March 2010 16:59, Damien Broderick wrote: >> On 3/19/2010 10:31 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> >>> The three SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post >>> singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. Banks. >> >> The five SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post >> singularity are Vernor Vinge, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Charles Stross, and >> Damien Broderick. > > Actually, we have one published singularitarian SF author ourselves in > the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti, Francesco Verso, a leader of > a SF trend called "connectivism". > > Alas, I do no believe it he has ever been translated in English. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Mar 20 14:29:31 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:29:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <588774.39469.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > From: Keith Henson > > The three SF authors who write the most about the > singularity and post > singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. > Banks.? I am > in the middle of re reading _Look to Windward_ (2000) and > was struck > by how much of the book was closely related to recent > discussions on > this list. > > "The Culture" in Bank's universe is a galaxy wide society > with > nanotechnology.? It has stabilized beyond the > construction of AIs but > remains for the most part in the physical world. > > But Banks is keenly aware of the instability of such a > state of development. > > If you have not read it recently, you can go to Amazon and > search > inside the book for "sublime." > > Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_ (1986) is also relevant to > the recent > discussions. > > Singularity SF is really hard to write.? Everybody who > does so knows > they have to cheat or they have no characters the reader > can identify > with. The Minds (AIs) in the Culture deliberately hold back from a singularity (equated with 'sublimation'), for reasons never explained. So these novels are really 'pre-singularity' stories. Whether or not a stable society like the one described would be even possible is arguable, but they are damned good stories. I rather liked the sub-plot in one book (I forget which) in which a character's mind is suspended for an unknown amount of time, and when he awakens he's in a place/time where nobody has even heard of the Culture, or anything like it. This made me wonder: Is it possible to be so far in the future that it wouldn't be possible to work out how far, even in principle? All the constellations and stars had changed so much you have nothing to go on? Or would there always be something you could rely on, some kind of cosmic carbon-dating, maybe? Another author I can recommend is Neal Asher. His stories contain some very interesting ideas, and like Iain M Banks, for the most part he stays on this side of the singularity, but does give a glimpse of a possible hazard lying in wait for a civilisation that crosses the event horizon (at least that's my interpretation of Jain Tech.). Ben Zaiboc From nymphomation at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 17:19:31 2010 From: nymphomation at gmail.com (*Nym*) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:19:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7e1e56ce1003201019u12cfa084u836df18350957248@mail.gmail.com> On 20 March 2010 14:53, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Richard Morgan's noir SF novels in Takeshi Kovacs' universe (Altered > Carbon, Broken Gods, Woken Furies) have post-singularity technologies, > but people are still people. I've only read Altered Carbon, but I was struck by the fact that despite a century or two of AIs existing they hadn't become superhuman intelligences. In fact the book's main AI character was relegated to running an empty hotel. Also the setting was nothing like post scarcity. Perhaps the later books explain these points..? Heavy splashings, Thee Nymphomation 'If you cannot afford an executioner, a duty executioner will be appointed to you free of charge by the court' From ml at clemux.info Sat Mar 20 18:15:48 2010 From: ml at clemux.info (=?iso-8859-1?q?Cl=E9ment_=27clemux=27?= Schreiner) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:15:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: <588774.39469.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <588774.39469.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <201003201915.49087.ml@clemux.info> On Saturday 20 March 2010 15:29:31 Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > "The Culture" in Bank's universe is a galaxy wide society > > with > > nanotechnology. It has stabilized beyond the > > construction of AIs but > > remains for the most part in the physical world. > The Minds (AIs) in the Culture deliberately hold back from a singularity > (equated with 'sublimation'), for reasons never explained. Actually, these reasons has been explicited several times, especially in Look to Windward, and, if I recall correctly, in Excession. In Look to Windward, Chapter 6, it is explained that new AIs are at first shaped with a degree of morality, reflecting their civilization's (and then this intellectual character could of course disappear, replaced by another). The Culture, and other civilizations, have designed "perfect" AIs, without this initial bias, but they observed that those AIs almost always sublimed at the first opportunity, leaving the material universe. The Culture's Minds are therefore always created with some elements of moral, and that's the reason for their general benevolence. As described in Chapter 8, civilizations tend to sublime when they start feeling useless, with a long society-wide ennui. In Excession, I think, it is explained that the Culture still finds itself useful, by interfering with less advanced civilizations, helping them to develop themselves, ... However, individual AIs and "humans" often choose to sublime, like other choose death when they feel their life should end. (Also extensively explained in Look to Windward). -- Cl?ment Schreiner From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 20 19:07:14 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:07:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: <201003201915.49087.ml@clemux.info> References: <588774.39469.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201003201915.49087.ml@clemux.info> Message-ID: <580930c21003201207q304bb237sc038fac7a07fbc78@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/20 Cl?ment 'clemux' Schreiner : > The Culture's Minds are therefore always created with some elements of moral, > and that's the reason for their general benevolence. Yes, if I am not mistaken a paternalistic, condescending, nosy, interfering and sometimes rather harsh kinf of benevolence... -- Stefano Vaj From Frankmac at ripco.com Sat Mar 20 20:37:42 2010 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:37:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] college grads Message-ID: <000c01cac86d$34d7d170$ad753644@sx28047db9d36c> This is very funny, maybe an entire generation will be asking for uploading sooner than later:) http://theburningplatform.com/blog/ Frank -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 20 22:57:22 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:57:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA552D2.8010302@rawbw.com> Stathis writes >> My experience, and that of several friends, has been that >> almost whatever you are doing, seeing, or thinking about >> becomes more interesting with caffeine. Is this established? > > And more so with amphetamines, but it isn't *specific*. You can't make > yourself more interested in a particular thing that you aren't > interested in. How can that be? Take the medical details of cryonics, for example. I wish that I were more interested in it! Alas, along with many other things (e.g. meteorology, geology, crime & crime prevention, auto mechanics, etc., etc.), it's just so happened that I've had very little intrinsic interest. Why could I be so interested in, say, writing computer programs, and be so uninterested in medicine and medical procedures that could save my life??? Well, were I placed in a cell for a year with nothing to read except manuals on these subjects, and nothing to do except little experiments having to do with them, then SURELY you will agree that caffeine and---as you assert, amphetamines---would make *all the difference in the world* in how enjoyable that year was. Right? Of course, as I understand it, there could be some pretty bad side-effects from the amphetamines, depending on my physical and psychological response, and I might be unlucky and not have a disposition that handles them well. Correct? Thanks, Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 20 23:01:58 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:01:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <1360E84B4D694276ABE580ED99282654@DFC68LF1> References: <4BA29B23.4030603@rawbw.com><20100318175004.vffzxjxpb4k4cc4k@webmail.natasha.cc> <4BA2FCC6.9050507@rawbw.com> <1360E84B4D694276ABE580ED99282654@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <4BA553E6.6020902@rawbw.com> Natasha Vita-More comes back with >> ... >>> As Transhumanist Arts come into focus >>> As more artists join our efforts >>> As more designs are produced >>> As more music is composed >>> As more stories are written >>> As the tools and ideas of our art continue to evolve, So too shall we. >> >> http://www.transhumanist.biz/ > > "without giving much of a clue as to how she views those who, for example, > employ the term "meat cages"." > > I don't understand what are you referring to. What does "meat cages" have > to do with this manifesto? Sorry. Non-sequitur. Some of us were just exploring how people feel about not having bodies, or at least *often* not having bodies, at some point in the distant future. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 20 23:21:06 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA55862.7060409@rawbw.com> Keith writes > Singularity SF is really hard to write. Everybody who does so knows > they have to cheat or they have no characters the reader can identify > with. I don't think that creating characters that the reader can identify with is the problem at all. For example, I once wrote a short story published in Life Quest in which the protagonist was in communication with very advanced versions of himself. The plot is nothing more than him waking up to find that his role is to "hold down" the five-year period 1990-1995, or something like that. He's not to get *too* much smarter during a supposedly infinite lifetime ahead of him, and he gets to be very happy. But it was not---perhaps could not be---a great story. Zero real drama. No. The problem is coming up with a realistic plot that has to include conflict of some kind. Or perhaps thrills/ danger. That would be my guess, but I'm sure Damien and the other pros know a lot better. Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 03:09:36 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:09:36 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <4BA552D2.8010302@rawbw.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> <4BA552D2.8010302@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 21 March 2010 09:57, Lee Corbin wrote: > Well, were I placed in a cell for a year with nothing > to read except manuals on these subjects, and nothing > to do except little experiments having to do with them, > then SURELY you will agree that caffeine and---as you > assert, amphetamines---would make *all the difference > in the world* in how enjoyable that year was. Right? I wouldn't say "all the difference in the world". Maybe a slight difference, but it might even make you more irritable, anxious or dysphoric. I don't think there is evidence that any drug improves productivity in any activity in a sustained way, although maybe small doses of caffeine or amphetamines comes close. -- Stathis Papaioannou From emlynoregan at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 06:05:51 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:35:51 +1030 Subject: [ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution In-Reply-To: <4BA404AB.2050300@satx.rr.com> References: <4BA404AB.2050300@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003202305t6e06b220g274a8df890058f4@mail.gmail.com> On 20 March 2010 09:41, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/1/2010 12:16 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> I don't know how deep your knowledge of modern biology, particularly >> evolution is. ?Selfish Gene by Dawkins is basic to understanding >> evolution, I presume you have read that. ?What other parts of the >> topic are you up on? > > Before everyone becomes convinced that it's all Real Simple and Clear, I > suggest a careful read of biologist Peter Watts' scathing comments at: > > > > (Canadian Watts has just been found guilty on an insanely bogus charge and > might well spend a couple of years in jail. See his report at: Evolutionary Psychology is seeming more and more bogus to me. Wall to wall just-so stories, grand conclusions drawn from very specific, restricted scope studies, mathematical model based "proofs" with ridiculously parsimonious assumptions. Plus its popularity seems tied to its ability to support the political assumptions of the theorist, whatever they may be (too often a very 19th century social-darwinistic kind of sensibility), and it has the added benefit that you don't need to know anything about the real work done in academic disciplines that have studied the field in question. "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 11:04:27 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:04:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world Message-ID: "If you've spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am. Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here's the even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain advantage in these Web-based games." snip "CCP Games, creator of a virtual community called EVE Online, actually hired an in-house economist to regulate the economy of its online world, which has 330,000 members. "My role is like that of a lead economist in a central bank?I give information about the economy to the players and to CCP," says Eyj?lfur Gudmagnusson, who was an associate professor at a university in Iceland before joining CCP." http://www.newsweek.com/id/235170 Game economy stabilization was the background on which _Halting State_ was written. I wonder how long it will take for the virtual economy to exceed the "real" economy? (And for that matter how you would measure it?) It the last few years what has been going on in the real world is stranger than what has been discussed on this list. Keith From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sun Mar 21 15:34:40 2010 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:34:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds (was Re: Bodies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I've been trying to write a post on the "Bodies" thread all weekend, but I've too many things to address so in order to keep my posts manageable, I'm splitting my thoughts down. It has been mentioned that people see virtual worlds as places full of escapism and games. I think there is a fundamental difference between the way people visualise their place in the physical world and the virtual world. In the physical world, we have physical needs of food, shelter, warmth, transport to shift our bodies around and healthcare for the failings in our bodies. In the virtual world, we just need electricity, processing power, communication and someplace to meet up. In the physical world, we are accustomed to toil to support ourselves, and people have difficulty visualising ways of living without toil. Suggestions of Basic Income or Negative Income Tax, concepts of over 50% structural unemployment due to increasing automation - people find these hard to accept. There is a widespread belief that we have to toil to support ourselves, and whatever jobs disappear, someone will invent an equally crappy way of spending 40 hours a week just so we can have some consumer goodies. In the virtual world, we visit the pretty parts in our spare time. (The dull part of business emails and B2B websites are much less visually appealing than leisure sites.) People who go into virtual worlds are frequently there to play games. In a world where a fixed monthly subscription for your broadband and a subscription fee to the virtual world of your choice gets you what you need, people find it easy to believe in living there with minimal needs. It seems that it is easier to envision a truly ludic/leisure based society in a virtual world than in the physical one. Maybe the ludic revolution in our physical societies can only occur once an uploaded society has blazed a trail. Tom From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 17:46:47 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:46:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003202305t6e06b220g274a8df890058f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA404AB.2050300@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc1003202305t6e06b220g274a8df890058f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Emlyn wrote: > Evolutionary Psychology is seeming more and more bogus to me. It seems however, that there is no way around it. Behavior is biological. All things biological are evolved. Ergo... Valid criticism of EP is abundantly reasonable if, as your comments suggest, it is based on the ("flakeyness", "flakeablity", "flake-worthy-ness" , flakeage-enabled", "flake-tending") behavior of human scientists (as opposed to alien scientists or say those geniuses of applied psychology and empirical clarity, canine scientists). ********************** By the way, regarding Peter Watts' fate, I expect the trial judge will sentence him to time served and probation (because the cop beat on the guy). The indictment and the subsequent conviction are a collection of messages: (1) Don't mess with the cops( as in "never"), (2) if you're a "furriner" (even a Canadian), don't mess with America, (3) America's in a bit of a bad place right now, so tread lightly, and (n) (your message in this space). Best, Jeff Davis "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 19:40:08 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:40:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Send in the dwarfs Message-ID: Almost two years ago, Eugen Leitl, in a thread re the Fermi Paradox, commented that no way would galactic colonization be carried out by "canned monkeys", but by Von Neumann probes. Which took me back to the old saw that it makes no sense to try to travel to the stars using current tech, cause future tech will be superior, and if you leave now, with current tech, those future folks having left after, will arrive ahead of you, and be there to greet you when you finally show up. I thought about this awhile, and just got pissed off. Applied as a general principle, it basically says there's no point in ever giving it a go. I said "Screw that!" and decided someone sometime will have to pull a "Nike", and "Just do it." From there I thought about how such an enterprise would come about: how would it start?, what would motivate the participants?, and what sort of folks would make a commitment to leave the planet forever and spend the rest of their lives in space, knowing that they will never live to reach their faraway new home? And what of the children, without whom the "colony ship" would end being little more than an interstellar mausoleum? What sort of folks make such a decision for their descendants, who would inevitably become a culture accustomed to living in transit between the stars, with no habit of life in a planetary gravity well? What would motivate them to disembark at their destination and walk away from the only way of life that they had ever known? Probably only a fringe group of the descendants, a disaffected element desiring separation, would choose to start a new planet-bound way of life. The rest would probably just resupply and refuel and he and http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/will-nasa-wise-space-telescope-find.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 21 20:17:42 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:17:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] effects of stimulants (was Bodies) In-Reply-To: References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> <4BA552D2.8010302@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA67EE6.6090009@rawbw.com> Stathis writes >> Well, were I placed in a cell for a year with nothing >> to read except manuals on these subjects, and nothing >> to do except little experiments having to do with them, >> then SURELY you will agree that caffeine and---as you >> assert, amphetamines---would make *all the difference >> in the world* in how enjoyable that year was. Right? > > I wouldn't say "all the difference in the world". Maybe a slight > difference, but it might even make you more irritable, anxious or > dysphoric. I don't think there is evidence that any drug improves > productivity in any activity in a sustained way, although maybe small > doses of caffeine or amphetamines comes close. Evidently there is great variation. Suppose I were trapped in the aforesaid cell for a year, with *nothing* to do except study automotive repair manuals, and, not to make it too extreme, given an hour or two every few days getting to fix a car. Now I have *never* had any interest whatsoever in car repair, yet with the help of caffeine, I would arise every day and hit those manuals with gusto. I would immediately find automotive repair to be rather interesting, and after a few months, *very* interesting. Without caffeine, this simply would not happen. The tedium would rarely subside. Remember that the Spanish greatly encouraged the chewing of the coca leaves by the South American indigenies they'd enslaved. Clearly given the Spanish methods, this didn't really increase the *possible* work that could be extracted each day every day from the workers---what it did instead was to make getting the slaves' compliance easier. Also, clearly, the natives preferred working with coca. I have no data on the longevity of the workers, but I doubt that they lived any shorter lives than workers who were not supplied coca. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 21 20:22:31 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:22:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA68007.7030607@rawbw.com> Keith writes > "If you've spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the > people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am. > Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here's the > even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to > buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain > advantage in these Web-based games." > ... > > "CCP Games, creator of a virtual community called EVE Online, actually > hired an in-house economist to regulate the economy of its online > world, which has 330,000 members... > > Game economy stabilization was the background on which _Halting State_ > was written. > > I wonder how long it will take for the virtual economy to exceed the > "real" economy? (And for that matter how you would measure it?) And then, perhaps, ? la Permutation City, those virtual economies will manifest their own physical reality, to the detriment and ultimate dissolution of ours. Lee > It the last few years what has been going on in the real world is > stranger than what has been discussed on this list. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 21 20:36:44 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:36:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds In-Reply-To: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> Tom writes > It seems that it is easier to envision a truly ludic/leisure > based society in a virtual world than in the physical one. > Maybe the ludic revolution in our physical societies can > only occur once an uploaded society has blazed a trail. I hope you read Max's recently linked 1997 essay on the ultimate dangers of people becoming divorced from physical reality (in just the sense of having no interest in it), and Damien's news report[1] from somewhere about the South Korean couple who got so wrapped up raising their in-game infant that they allowed their real one to starve to death. No doubt about it, many many people prefer fantasy to reality. BUT. Once we have the means so that people can *choose* what to be interested in, surely logic will grab them by the throat and force them to prefer reality, whether it's becoming insanely interested in doing AI experiments, studying mathematics, or sending out and savoring the reports from 10^15 probes on their way to explore the galaxy. I mean, Tom, if you could choose to find studying nanotech and doing nanotech experiments just as fun and interesting as going about the countryside in medieval armor having fun, wouldn't you choose to switch? Lee [1] South Korean police have arrested a couple for starving their three-month-old daughter to death while they devoted hours to playing a computer game that involved raising a virtual character of a young girl. The 41-year-old man and 25-year-old woman, who met through a chat website, reportedly left their infant unattended while they went to internet cafes. They only occasionally dropped by to feed her powdered milk. "I am sorry for what I did and hope that my daughter does not suffer any more in heaven," the husband is quoted as saying on the asiaone website. According to the Yonhap news agency, South Korean police said the couple had become obsessed with raising a virtual girl called Anima in the popular role-playing game Prius Online. The game, similar to Second Life, allows players to create another existence for themselves in a virtual world, including getting a job, interacting with other users and earning an extra avatar to nurture once they reach a certain level. "The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," Chung Jin-Won, a police officer, told Yonhap. "They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby." Last September after a 12-hour gaming-session the couple came home in the morning to find their daughter dead. The baby's malnourished body aroused police suspicions of neglect that were was confirmed after an autopsy. The couple fled to the wife's parents' house in Yangju, Gyeonggi province, but were picked up on Monday. The case has shocked South Korea and once again highlighted obsessive behaviour related to the internet. A 22-year-old Korean man was charged last month with murdering his mother because she nagged him for spending too much time playing games. After killing her the man went to a nearby internet cafe and continued with his game, said officials. In 2005 a young man collapsed in an internet cafe in the city of Taegu after playing the game StarCraft almost continuously for 50 hours. He went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital. Lee Joung-sun, an MP from the ruling Grand National party, last month submitted a bill restricting the hours offered to online gamers. Several bills are pending in the national assembly suggesting restrictions on teenagers' use of internet cafes and games. Research published last month in the UK showed evidence of a link between excessive internet use and depression. Leeds University researchers, writing in the Psychopathology journal, said a small proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted users. From scerir at libero.it Sun Mar 21 20:53:09 2010 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:53:09 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] The "real" world Message-ID: <31506545.915631269204789992.JavaMail.defaultUser@defaultHost> Keith: > I wonder how long it will take for the virtual economy to exceed the > "real" economy? (And for that matter how you would measure it?) It seems that the total amount of financial derivatives is something between 5 and 10 times the GNP of the entire world. So, it seems to me that this part of the economy is already 'virtual', in some sense. From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 20:56:21 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:56:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Send in the dwarfs, part 2 Message-ID: My finger slipped and off went the post, scarce half made up and that so lame and unfashionable that dogs do bark at it... Anyway,...to continue... The rest would probably just resupply and refuel and head out again. Then I checked out the inventory of nearby stars -- Blessed be Google, the font of all knowledge: www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/nearest.html In the end, I settled on the notion that some millions of earth folks, from a diversity of cultures, would decide to get the hell out. Leave the bullshit -- a world of criminal sociopath leaders and manipulated lynch-mob followers -- behind, in favor of a more rational social order (not that it would necessarily BE more rational, but that could well be the justifying narrative.) And finally, it seemed logical that the asteroid belt would provide the building material for very large ships, perhaps hundreds of miles long, and that the "icy" material in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud would provide the fuel for fusion reactors. None of these ruminations is the least bit original of course. Then today, I come upon the article the link to which -- http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/will-nasa-wise-space-telescope-find.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+(nextbigfuture)&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail -- heads up part one of this post. And there, some distance in, I read the following: "Part of the WISE mission is to search for brown dwarfs, and NASA expects it could find one thousand of the dim stellar objects within 25 light years of our solar system." Holy cow! A thousand brown dwarfs within 25 light years. Nearby is very good. Also as anyone whose been around this list knows, small stars are good for lotsa things. Like "chewy chewy tootsie rolls", they last a loooong time. As Robert Bradbury might testify, they're good for your m-brains. And now that their may be a swarm of them, perhaps they can be used to provide a repeated "slingshot effect" on the way to,...well,... further out. So let's see,...what is the spacing? Total volume = 4/3 x pi x (25 light years)e3 = 6.5e4 cubic lt-yrs, or 65 cubic lt-yrs per dwarf. That's about 4.5 light years -- on average -- between dwarfs. (Not counting Sedna, a mere 1.5 light years away!, if it exists). Okay. So maybe now I'm not quite so excited. But it's still good. Abundant brown dwarfs is good. I'll be looking forward to the WISE results. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 21:43:27 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:43:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 40 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:00 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > 2010/3/20 Cl?ment 'clemux' Schreiner : >> The Culture's Minds are therefore always created with some elements of moral, >> and that's the reason for their general benevolence. > > Yes, if I am not mistaken a paternalistic, condescending, nosy, > interfering and sometimes rather harsh kind of benevolence... I agree. If any human pass through the singularity more or less as they are now, then being treated by godlike AIs analogous to the way we treat cats may be the best they can hope for. It could be worse: "Some authors consider rule by secretive technocrats to be virtually inevitable. In Creating Alternative Futures, Hazel Henderson argues that complex technologies "become inherently totalitarian" (her italics) because neither voters nor legislators can understand them. In The Human Future Revisited, Harrison Brown likewise argues that the temptation to bypass democratic processes in solving complex crises brings the danger "that if industrial civilization survives it will become increasingly totalitarian in nature." If this were so, it would likely mean our doom: we cannot stop the technology race, and a world of totalitarian states based on advanced technology needing neither workers nor soldiers might well discard most of the population." http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_13.html > From: Lee Corbin > Subject: Re: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks > > Keith writes > >> Singularity SF is really hard to write. ?Everybody who does so knows >> they have to cheat or they have no characters the reader can identify >> with. > > I don't think that creating characters that the reader > can identify with is the problem at all. They have to be "left behind" humans or AIs that are limited to something like human level. snip > No. The problem is coming up with a realistic plot that > has to include conflict of some kind. "Realistic" and "conflict" in a world of godlike AI is tough. It is hard to imagine conflict between humans and such AIs. AIs themselves in conflict . . . . Unless the AIs had human elements to their personalities, it's not easy to imagine why AIs would fight. And if they did, being light years away a battle would seem like a good idea. The only element of conflict I wrote into The Clinic Seed was Suskulan feeling guilty about what he was doing to the people of the village. > From: Emlyn > On 20 March 2010 09:41, Damien Broderick wrote: >> On 3/1/2010 12:16 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> >>> I don't know how deep your knowledge of modern biology, particularly >>> evolution is. ?Selfish Gene by Dawkins is basic to understanding >>> evolution, I presume you have read that. ?What other parts of the >>> topic are you up on? >> >> Before everyone becomes convinced that it's all Real Simple and Clear, I >> suggest a careful read of biologist Peter Watts' scathing comments at: >> >> >> >> (Canadian Watts has just been found guilty on an insanely bogus charge and >> might well spend a couple of years in jail. See his report at: I read it. I don't know Peter, perhaps some of you do. It seemed to me to be considerably in excess of a rational discussion. If this is normal for Peter, then don't worry about it. If it is not, I would strongly suggest an MRI brain scan. This and getting into a row with border guards (if it is unusual behavior for him) suggests the possibility of organic brain problems. > Evolutionary Psychology is seeming more and more bogus to me. Wall to > wall just-so stories, grand conclusions drawn from very specific, > restricted scope studies, mathematical model based "proofs" with > ridiculously parsimonious assumptions. Normally parsimonious assumptions are considered better. Can you be more specific? > Plus its popularity seems tied > to its ability to support the political assumptions of the theorist, > whatever they may be (too often a very 19th century social-darwinistic > kind of sensibility), and it has the added benefit that you don't need > to know anything about the real work done in academic disciplines that > have studied the field in question. The first half of this sentence is getting close to Godwin's law. The second half looks to me like ad hominem. Evolutionary psychology is currently placing a foundation under much of social science. My estimate is that it has done this in virtually all of the top rated schools, and may be more than half way through with the rest. Google for Evolutionary Psychology graduate programs. It's a way to look at behavior, and a fundamental outline of how to construct models. Models lead to predictions. If the predictions fail, then the model needs to be reconsidered. Even poor models are better than no models because they lead to better models. For example, my initial model for what leads to wars failed with the US Civil war. The current economic situation was not contributing since there was no economic downturn at that time. But the _anticipation_ of hard times due to ending slavery was a factor and indeed the population of the South was correct in this assessment. Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Mar 21 22:12:49 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:12:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 40 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA699E1.7060105@satx.rr.com> On 3/21/2010 4:43 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I don't know Peter, perhaps some of you do. It seemed to > me to be considerably in excess of a rational discussion. If this is > normal for Peter, then don't worry about it. If it is not, I would > strongly suggest an MRI brain scan. This and getting into a row with > border guards (if it is unusual behavior for him) suggests the > possibility of organic brain problems. Oh for god's sake. How would you respond to someone making such comments about a person taken down and imprisoned for "threatening Scientologists"? You're literally the last person I'd expect to make such a fatuous remark. Damien Broderick From emlynoregan at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 23:10:14 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:40:14 +1030 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 40 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003211610j24be12e9n6c5e9e85ab453c48@mail.gmail.com> On 22 March 2010 08:13, Keith Henson wrote: >> From: Emlyn > >> Evolutionary Psychology is seeming more and more bogus to me. Wall to >> wall just-so stories, grand conclusions drawn from very specific, >> restricted scope studies, mathematical model based "proofs" with >> ridiculously parsimonious assumptions. > > Normally parsimonious assumptions are considered better. ?Can you be > more specific? Parsimony is fabulous, as long as you don't leave things out that are necessary, then it just becomes a toy model (I would throw much libertarian theory into the too-parsimonious-to-be-correct basket too). Make things as simple as possible *but not simpler*, to paraphrase a clever chappy. >> Plus its popularity seems tied >> to its ability to support the political assumptions of the theorist, >> whatever they may be (too often a very 19th century social-darwinistic >> kind of sensibility), and it has the added benefit that you don't need >> to know anything about the real work done in academic disciplines that >> have studied the field in question. > > The first half of this sentence is getting close to Godwin's law. ?The > second half looks to me like ad hominem. Godwins is very specific and I didn't go there. I do think there are benefits to the ev psych outlook (eg: balancing the blank slate assumptions of the 20th century), and probably academics in the area are more sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill armchair ev psych posturing you see around the place. But you must have seen examples of this? Random google turns this up: http://www.jasnh.com/a8.htm "Evolutionary psychologists have noted that men and women seek different traits when looking for a mate. Men value physical characteristics in women such as smooth skin, a small waist-to-hip ratio, and a youthful appearance (Buss, 1995). It has been argued that such traits are desirable because they signal fertility. Women value physical characteristics in men such as height, muscularity, and broad shoulders (Buss, 1994; Barber, 1995; Franzoi & Herzog 1987) and personality characteristics such as power, ascendance, and dominance (Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford, 1997). It has been argued that such traits are desirable because they signal the ability to provide resources. However, such traits could also signal the ability to provide protection from a variety of threats, including sexual predators." I'm surprised they haven't thrown in a bit of phrenology for good measure. I think if you consulted people from the social sciences, some people might object that there's a little thing called "culture" being neglected here... Plus, there are these wonderfully cartoonish assumptions about the "ancestral environment" that just don't draw on any evidence. The link Damien provided detailed a bit of this: eg: all this ape-based assumption of the alpha male dominating and getting all the women doesn't tie in with male human penis size, which is ridiculously large for primates, and appears to be the result of an evolutiionary arms race based in women having many mates (it's for getting past/flushing out competitor's sperm). As to ad hominem, do you see ev psych papers strongly referencing other fields that study the same area, eg psych, sociology, anthropology? The one I linked seems to almost exclusively reference other ev psych papers, and even one about non-human primates, but where's the anthropology, for example? I'm suspicious that we've been studying humans, individuals and groups, successfully now for at least a hundred years, and a new discipline can basically ignore all that. > > Evolutionary psychology is currently placing a foundation under much > of social science. ?My estimate is that it has done this in virtually > all of the top rated schools, and may be more than half way through > with the rest. ?Google for Evolutionary Psychology graduate programs. > It's a way to look at behavior, and a fundamental outline of how to > construct models. > > Models lead to predictions. ?If the predictions fail, then the model > needs to be reconsidered. ?Even poor models are better than no models > because they lead to better models. > > For example, my initial model for what leads to wars failed with the > US Civil war. ?The current economic situation was not contributing > since there was no economic downturn at that time. ?But the > _anticipation_ of hard times due to ending slavery was a factor and > indeed the population of the South was correct in this assessment. > > Keith I've read your paper, and quite liked the ideas (basically, we are genetically programmed to go to war when we feel our resource outlook is or might become desperate). But, where is any consideration of culture? Some peoples seem far less likely to go to war than others. Actually you talk about "xenophobic memes", so are assuming states are more warlike if their population is more xenophobic, but how does that explain a country like the US which is more or less constantly involved in (and often starting) wars, while have a pretty low level of xenophobia and little or no resource stress or perceived resource stress? I bet at many times in the past few decades, pre 9/11, the general population was hardly even aware of the wars the country was fighting. Where is any acknowledgement of other pre-existing theories about war, and how this theory compares? For instance, the Marxian contention that war is basically economic, that the ruling classes start wars to benefit capitalists? Not that I'm saying that particular theory is true, but it makes some very different claims to what your theory makes, predicts different types of behaviour. I do like the way your theory takes into account the differences between the "ancestral environment" and modern states, but claims such as this one: "So the huge US "tribe" was attacked on 9/11 by OBL's tiny "Al Qaeda tribe" and went into war mode due to being attacked." Do you feel that this properly explains the war in Iraq? To me this theory looks like an attempt at underpinning Political Realism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realism but without any acknowledgement of that orientation, or indeed any sign of awareness that this is only one way of understanding world politics, and not without serious criticisms. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From max at maxmore.com Sun Mar 21 23:09:56 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:09:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bodies Message-ID: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Commenting on the part of my paper that said "I would be hard put to name an Extropian who seems to reject the body and the senses." Lee wrote: >You can now name at least >one Extropian who'll be very happy to leave his body behind, *once >there is something far better to host him*, supposing we ever get so >lucky as to attain that possibility. I don't really have any dispute with what you say here or elsewhere in your comments. I, too, would eventually want to transfer my cognitive functioning to distributed hardware (or, if not distributed, have many backups created as frequently as possible). I don't think this is "rejecting the body" in the sense that I was commenting on in my talk/paper. The view I was tackling was the belief that transhumanists hate their bodies or are disgusted by them, or that they want to spend all their time in pure thinking mode with no sensations. (As suggested by, for instance, Erik Davis in TechGnosis.) A distributed person can still connect into various bodies -- preferably with enhanced senses -- or virtual bodies. I'm not sure whether or not we feel differently about the value of actual, physical senses (as distinguished from "senses" that tell you what's going on in a virtual environment. I expect to want to keep senses that tell me about the physical world -- if no other reason than self-protection. Even distributed hardware could be damaged. One way to do that, of course, is to have a body or bodies, although a rich array of networked and distributed sensors would be superior to those set in a single physical body. However the senses are housed and organized, I would definitely want to be able to sense the external (physical) world. I think you do see it the same way, since a bit later you write: "I ought to have many sensors throughout the Earth, not just allowing me to check against threats..." >I liked very much the parts of your essay, reading it again after >all these years, that denigrate mere wireheading and the relatively >mindless fantasy-living (experience machine). That was the other main point that I wanted to emphasize in that talk: A desire to upload and become independent of a single biological body is utterly different from the desire to enjoy mindless pleasure forever. Transhumanists differ on the desirability of such a state. I am not and never have been a utilitarian, so have no interest in simply feeling good while doing nothing. I also suspect that, in many possible futures, locking yourself into that kind of state could leave you vulnerable to mischief and accident. >Won't it be interesting to see yourself the actual code >and chips that produce your very real feelings and thoughts? Interesting and extremely useful once you can reconfigure the code and chips (or whatever we are running on then). BTW, when Natasha used the term "metabrain" I think she was using it in the sense that I used in my Extro-3 talk ("Mind Morph: Technologically Enhanced Emotion and Personality") (and later at the 2001 manTRANSforms conference), and not in the sense you found by googling it. (She used the term in Primo Posthuman.) That is, the metabrain is a label for a deeper and richer set of internal senses, that allow you to see your own wiring and improve on it. Max From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Mar 21 23:57:08 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:57:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Send in the dwarfs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62c14241003211657s1f4789d4u419ed3b9b7165446@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > What sort of folks make such a decision for their descendants, who > would inevitably become a culture accustomed to living in transit > between the stars, with no habit of life in a planetary gravity well? > What would motivate them to disembark at their destination and walk > away from the only way of life that they had ever known? ?Probably > only a fringe group of the descendants, a disaffected element desiring > separation, would choose to start a new planet-bound way of life. ?The > rest would probably just resupply and refuel and he and Well, we might start with the huddled masses something something... We might gather all those unruly prisoners and send them off in ships... We might also get those interested in seeking out new [ways of] life and new [self-governed] civilization... Now if we could find a way for the whole thing to be financed. I think I read about a plan where three rockets would be used to move the population of earth to their new home across the stars. All the scientists and engineers go on one ship, all the plumbers and such go on another ship. The remaining hairdressers and phone operators will go in their own ship. Fortunately for them their ship is already available for launch. OK so I wasn't reading a cutting edge news article on the intertubes, it was something by Douglas Adams and it was 1988 at the time. From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 00:24:23 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:24:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <31506545.915631269204789992.JavaMail.defaultUser@defaultHost> References: <31506545.915631269204789992.JavaMail.defaultUser@defaultHost> Message-ID: On 22/03/2010, scerir wrote: > > I wonder how long it will take for the virtual economy to exceed the > > "real" economy? (And for that matter how you would measure it?) > > It seems that the total amount of financial derivatives > is something between 5 and 10 times the GNP of the > entire world. So, it seems to me that this part of the > economy is already 'virtual', in some sense. Yes, I watched with astonishment some of the figures being floated around at teh height of the GFC. I think it got up to 450 trillion USD before it either peaked or someone with a clue in the media said "for God's sake! Stop publishing these numbers!" There has been some work in comparing virtual economies with real economies. Some of the larger games either allow you to directly convert the in-game currency, or else objects are being sold via ebay, for example, and this has been used as a basis to calculate the real-world value of the virtual economy. >From memory this has been done for Eve, WoW, and Second Life, and some others. I was involved in (what turned out to be a start-up) business which was developing models of real buildings for Second Life, the idea being that clients would examine these in SL and then buy them in the real world. I was amazed that people would spend significant money on such an object. I left when I realised that nobody had actually fronted up the money as yet, and instead of my being paid I was going to be paid... in the future... if anyone paid us... maybe. I have no idea if money was actually going to be paid or not, but it seemed that there was a certain amount of interest from some real estate companies in paying for virtual models of real buildings. I seem to recall someone actually becoming a millionaire via property speculation in Second Life. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 00:29:09 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:29:09 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds In-Reply-To: <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 22/03/2010, Lee Corbin wrote: > I mean, Tom, if you could choose to find studying nanotech > and doing nanotech experiments just as fun and interesting > as going about the countryside in medieval armor having fun, > wouldn't you choose to switch? As a former mediaevalist, both sound equally fun to me. Although, hmmm, nanotech armour, mmmmmm yummy. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 02:50:07 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:20:07 +1030 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003211950u5c37e824oab0236a0458f791d@mail.gmail.com> On 21 March 2010 21:34, Keith Henson wrote: > It the last few years what has been going on in the real world is > stranger than what has been discussed on this list. > > Keith I totally agree Keith. And, I think it's a harbinger of some, well, interesting times. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 03:45:01 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:45:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] effects of stimulants (was Bodies) In-Reply-To: <4BA67EE6.6090009@rawbw.com> References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> <4BA552D2.8010302@rawbw.com> <4BA67EE6.6090009@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 22 March 2010 07:17, Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis writes > >>> Well, were I placed in a cell for a year with nothing >>> to read except manuals on these subjects, and nothing >>> to do except little experiments having to do with them, >>> then SURELY you will agree that caffeine and---as you >>> assert, amphetamines---would make *all the difference >>> in the world* in how enjoyable that year was. Right? >> >> I wouldn't say "all the difference in the world". Maybe a slight >> difference, but it might even make you more irritable, anxious or >> dysphoric. I don't think there is evidence that any drug improves >> productivity in any activity in a sustained way, although maybe small >> doses of caffeine or amphetamines comes close. > > Evidently there is great variation. Suppose I were > trapped in the aforesaid cell for a year, with *nothing* > to do except study automotive repair manuals, and, > not to make it too extreme, given an hour or two > every few days getting to fix a car. > > Now I have *never* had any interest whatsoever in > car repair, yet with the help of caffeine, I would > arise every day and hit those manuals with gusto. > I would immediately find automotive repair to be > rather interesting, and after a few months, *very* > interesting. > > Without caffeine, this simply would not happen. The > tedium would rarely subside. You're very fortunate if caffeine has this sort of effect on you. With me, it does nothing at low doses and at high doses it just makes me a bit jumpy. -- Stathis Papaioannou From thirdeyeoferis at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 03:49:47 2010 From: thirdeyeoferis at gmail.com (Thirdeye Of Eris) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:49:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] effects of stimulants (was Bodies) In-Reply-To: References: <4BA08AC1.3050404@rawbw.com> <62c14241003171926n3083c458od7e34d9c590c5492@mail.gmail.com> <4BA2FD3E.9070100@rawbw.com> <4BA552D2.8010302@rawbw.com> <4BA67EE6.6090009@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <2b8f6cc91003212049w550f4dacq6ca5152e2613c1ee@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 22 March 2010 07:17, Lee Corbin wrote: > > > Without caffeine, this simply would not happen. The > > tedium would rarely subside. > > You're very fortunate if caffeine has this sort of effect on you. With > me, it does nothing at low doses and at high doses it just makes me a > bit jumpy. > > > Try Piracetam... -- "A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ?state? and?society? and ?government? have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world... aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure." -- Professor De La Paz from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 07:49:44 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:49:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Facebook and other online venues are part of our reality and, therefore, are as "real" as bricks and mortar. I don't know what reality is but, perhaps, reality is what we choose to pay attention to. In this sense, Facebook is more "real" than bricks. I am unable to understand why so many people play Farmville but, if they do, there is certainly a reason, and a very valid one from their point of view. On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > "If you've spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the > people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am. > Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here's the > even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to > buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain > advantage in these Web-based games." > > snip > > "CCP Games, creator of a virtual community called EVE Online, actually > hired an in-house economist to regulate the economy of its online > world, which has 330,000 members. "My role is like that of a lead > economist in a central bank?I give information about the economy to > the players and to CCP," says Eyj?lfur Gudmagnusson, who was an > associate professor at a university in Iceland before joining CCP." > > http://www.newsweek.com/id/235170 > > Game economy stabilization was the background on which _Halting State_ > was written. > > I wonder how long it will take for the virtual economy to exceed the > "real" economy? ?(And for that matter how you would measure it?) > > It the last few years what has been going on in the real world is > stranger than what has been discussed on this list. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From giulio at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 07:57:19 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:57:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: I definitely agree with Max here. I don't "hate my body", and I don't really think there can exist such a thing as "pure thinking mode with no sensations". On the contrary I think sensation and emotions are an integral part of our cognitive functions, and even true AIs will have to exhibit them is their mental activity is as complex as or more complex than ours. Of course the fact that I don't hate my body does not mean that I consider it as the best possible chassis for my self, and, yes, I am looking forward to uploading as soon as I get the chance (unfortunately I don't think uploading will materialize in my lifetime). These critiques: transhumanists hate their bodies, natural is good and artificial is no good, we must humbly revere nature... are complete bullsh### nonsense inspired by unclear thinking. On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:09 AM, Max More wrote: > I, too, would eventually want to transfer my cognitive functioning > to distributed hardware (or, if not distributed, have many backups created > as frequently as possible). I don't think this is "rejecting the body" in > the sense that I was commenting on in my talk/paper. The view I was tackling > was the belief that transhumanists hate their bodies or are disgusted by > them, or that they want to spend all their time in pure thinking mode with > no sensations. (As suggested by, for instance, Erik Davis in TechGnosis.) A > distributed person can still connect into various bodies -- preferably with > enhanced senses -- or virtual bodies. From pharos at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 09:04:40 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:04:40 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 7:49 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Facebook and other online venues are part of our reality and, > therefore, are as "real" as bricks and mortar. I don't know what > reality is but, perhaps, reality is what we choose to pay attention > to. In this sense, Facebook is more "real" than bricks. I am unable to > understand why so many people play Farmville but, if they do, there is > certainly a reason, and a very valid one from their point of view. > > People have a sense of 'fairness'. (Even monkeys do, as well). When people do a bit of work they expect to receive a reward. And this is built-in to computer games. That's exactly why they are so addictive. People object strongly when others receive greater rewards for little work (or they themselves receive little or no reward for their own work). Daily life for most people has a big disconnect between work and reward. Especially during the great economic recession period. If you've lost your job, your house, your pension, your investments, etc.. to a greater or lesser extent, or are stuck in a dead-end job working under continual harassment, then you *want* to escape to a virtual world where work and skill is instantly rewarded. Henry David Thoreau "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation...." 1854. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 11:46:49 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:46:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003220446r2381a806qd7428f84bfb3ac0f@mail.gmail.com> On 22 March 2010 00:09, Max More wrote: > I am not and > never have been a utilitarian, so have no interest in simply feeling good > while doing nothing. You see, Nietzsche's influence is still amongst us... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From giulio at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 11:51:56 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:51:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <580930c21003220446r2381a806qd7428f84bfb3ac0f@mail.gmail.com> References: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c21003220446r2381a806qd7428f84bfb3ac0f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Well, I am more of a utilitarian than you guys, but I don't disagree with Max here. How about doing some little thing while still feeling good enough? Sounds like a reasonable compromise. G. On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 22 March 2010 00:09, Max More wrote: >> I am not and >> never have been a utilitarian, so have no interest in simply feeling good >> while doing nothing. > > You see, Nietzsche's influence is still amongst us... :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 14:15:29 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:15:29 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Advantages of North Korean society Message-ID: No annoying cell phone conversations in public. Obesity is not a problem. No traffic jams. Crime levels are very low. Illegal immigrants are not a problem. Finally, Pak Nan-gi, a senior official in charge of monetary policy was executed by firing squad for screwing up the economy. (In the U.S., we give those people bonuses.) I suppose there must be some disadvantages as well. ;) BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 14:28:43 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:28:43 -0400 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003220728s41c41999g3a702c7ba67a9448@mail.gmail.com> And don't forget Karl Schroeder, and John C. Wright. On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/19/2010 10:31 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> The three SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post >> singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M. Banks. > > The five SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post > singularity are Vernor Vinge, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Charles Stross, and > Damien Broderick. > > (There are others, too: Linda Nagata, David Marusek, etc etc...) > > Incidentally, I was sent a link to a strange alternative media interview I > gave in my own backyard a decade ago with the god Ganesh cavorting in the > background: > > > > Damien Broderick > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Chief Clinical Officer, Gencia Corporation 706 B Forest St. Charlottesville, VA 22903 tel: (434) 295-4800 fax: (434) 295-4951 This electronic message transmission contains information from the biotechnology firm of Gencia Corporation which may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify us by telephone (434-295-4800) or by electronic mail (fportell at genciabiotech.com) immediately. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 14:34:25 2010 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:34:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: <580930c21003201207q304bb237sc038fac7a07fbc78@mail.gmail.com> References: <588774.39469.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201003201915.49087.ml@clemux.info> <580930c21003201207q304bb237sc038fac7a07fbc78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc61003220734p1f078bbfree0548a52b090c9f@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > 2010/3/20 Cl?ment 'clemux' Schreiner : >> The Culture's Minds are therefore always created with some elements of moral, >> and that's the reason for their general benevolence. > > Yes, if I am not mistaken a paternalistic, condescending, nosy, > interfering and sometimes rather harsh kinf of benevolence... ### Yeah, Banks is a commie. But still fun to read. Rafal From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 14:44:32 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:44:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Look to Windward--Banks In-Reply-To: <7641ddc61003220734p1f078bbfree0548a52b090c9f@mail.gmail.com> References: <588774.39469.qm@web113619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201003201915.49087.ml@clemux.info> <580930c21003201207q304bb237sc038fac7a07fbc78@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc61003220734p1f078bbfree0548a52b090c9f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003220744x6146222bjd33bda8d314c3dda@mail.gmail.com> On 22 March 2010 15:34, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Yeah, Banks is a commie. But still fun to read. Why, for sure a commie without the prometean flair and the heroic angles of the October Revolution... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 18:42:15 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:42:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Evolutionary psychology Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 4:52 AM, Emlyn wrote: > From: > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 40 > Message-ID: > ? ? ? ?<710b78fc1003211610j24be12e9n6c5e9e85ab453c48 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 22 March 2010 08:13, Keith Henson wrote: >>> From: Emlyn >> >>> Evolutionary Psychology is seeming more and more bogus to me. Wall to >>> wall just-so stories, grand conclusions drawn from very specific, >>> restricted scope studies, mathematical model based "proofs" with >>> ridiculously parsimonious assumptions. >> >> Normally parsimonious assumptions are considered better. ?Can you be >> more specific? > > Parsimony is fabulous, as long as you don't leave things out that are > necessary, then it just becomes a toy model (I would throw much > libertarian theory into the too-parsimonious-to-be-correct basket > too). Make things as simple as possible *but not simpler*, to > paraphrase a clever chappy. That's generalizing not being specific at all. For example, where do you think I have left out something important to include in the model I worked out with numbers showing the genetic advantage of going to war when the situation calls for war and not going to war otherwise? >>> Plus its popularity seems tied >>> to its ability to support the political assumptions of the theorist, >>> whatever they may be (too often a very 19th century social-darwinistic >>> kind of sensibility), and it has the added benefit that you don't need >>> to know anything about the real work done in academic disciplines that >>> have studied the field in question. >> >> The first half of this sentence is getting close to Godwin's law. ?The >> second half looks to me like ad hominem. > > Godwins is very specific and I didn't go there. You didn't. But "social-darwinistic" isn't that far away. "Social Darwinism is a pejorative term used in criticism of ideologies or ideas . . . " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism > I do think there are > benefits to the ev psych outlook (eg: balancing the blank slate > assumptions of the 20th century), and probably academics in the area > are more sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill armchair ev psych > posturing you see around the place. But you must have seen examples of > this? > > Random google turns this up: > http://www.jasnh.com/a8.htm > > "Evolutionary psychologists have noted that men and women seek > different traits when looking for a mate. Men value physical > characteristics in women such as smooth skin, a small waist-to-hip > ratio, and a youthful appearance (Buss, 1995). It has been argued that > such traits are desirable because they signal fertility. Women value > physical characteristics in men such as height, muscularity, and broad > shoulders (Buss, 1994; Barber, 1995; Franzoi & Herzog 1987) and > personality characteristics such as power, ascendance, and dominance > (Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford, 1997). It has been argued that such > traits are desirable because they signal the ability to provide > resources. However, such traits could also signal the ability to > provide protection from a variety of threats, including sexual > predators." > > I'm surprised they haven't thrown in a bit of phrenology for good measure. The paragraph you cite is a lead in to a student research paper. Even so, there is nothing in it I can see that is in conflict with the current state of evolutionary psychology. The authors are citing big names in the field. > I think if you consulted people from the social sciences, some people > might object that there's a little thing called "culture" being > neglected here... David Buss and others in the field go to a great deal of trouble to weed out cultural influences when discussing EP. Have you read any of his work? > Plus, there are these wonderfully cartoonish assumptions about the > "ancestral environment" that just don't draw on any evidence. ******** What is the EEA and why is it important? (general answer) The Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. This phrase, first coined by John Bowlby of attachment theory fame, has been the source of much confusion and controversy. First of all, the EEA is NOT a specific time or place. Roughly, it is the environment to which a species is adapted. Animals that lived in different environments or made their livings in different ways faced different reproductive problems, and that's why all animals aren't the same. Fish faced different problems than did butterflies, and as a result they have different adaptations. The EEA for any specific organism is the set of reproductive problems faced by members of that species over evolutionary time. The EEA for a particular species of fish is likely to be completely different than the EEA for a particular species of butterfly, even if those species both evolved in the same locations over the same periods of time. Each of these species faced reproductive problems that the other didn't, and thus their EEA's are different. The EEA concept is very similar to the notion of 'niche' in evolutionary biology. I have used the past tense when referring to the solving of reproductive problems because adaptations evolved over a large number of generations and are therefore "tuned" to reliable aspects of past environments (see the next section). If the environment changes, then the adaptation may be "out of tune" with the present environment and fail to properly perform its reproductive function. The EEA concept is extremely important for understanding the functional properties of organisms, including the functional organization of the human brain. As outlined in the previous section, the functional properties of organisms arise by the process of evolution by natural selection. This means that the functions that organisms have are precisely those that solved long standing, recurrent reproductive problems. Reproductive problems are all the various things organisms had to do to survive and reproduce in a particular environment over evolutionary time--find food, find mates, avoid predators, combat pathogens, etc. This observation is particularly important for understanding the functional organization of the human brain. Because we cannot (yet) directly study the wiring of the brain (except in a very few cases), we need another 'window' or set of tools for perceiving brain functions. Darwin's theory provides this window. If we can specify all the reproductive problems faced by our ancestors (i.e., if we can specify the human EEA), we can specify all the potential functions that our bodies and brains could have, in principle. With respect to the brain in particular, if we can specify all the reproductive problems involving information processing, we can specify all the possible psychological mechanisms that could have evolved. Whether humans possess any particular psychological mechanism (i.e., an ability to solve a particular reproductive problem involving information processing), becomes an empirical question. Fortunately, it is much easier to find something if you have some idea what you are looking for. Studying the past is, at present, easier than studying brain wiring. The EEA concept therefore provides a much needed tool for determining, a priori, what kinds of functions, or mechanisms, the human brain is likely to have: the human brain solves the reproductive problems posed by past environments; it allows us to do all the things we needed to do to survive and reproduce in ancestral environments--find food, find mates, detect and avoid predators and other dangerous animals, etc. We can understand the functional organization of human bodies and brains precisely to the extent that we can understand the human EEA. http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/eea.html ******** > The link > Damien provided detailed a bit of this: eg: all this ape-based > assumption of the alpha male dominating and getting all the women > doesn't tie in with male human penis size, which is ridiculously large > for primates, and appears to be the result of an evolutiionary arms > race based in women having many mates (it's for getting past/flushing > out competitor's sperm). > > As to ad hominem, do you see ev psych papers strongly referencing > other fields that study the same area, eg psych, sociology, > anthropology? The closest related areas are cognitive psychology and sociobiology. I strongly reference Azar Gat's work which in turn references a large swath of anthropology. http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf For the last century the root assumption of sociology was the "blank state," also know as the SSSM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_social_science_model Here is what Dr Christopher Badcock of the London School of Economics and Political Science said. Badcock: Something that is characteristic of evolutionary psychology is that it has tended to set itself up in opposition to what is often called the standard social sciences model, which is the belief that human behaviour is explicable mainly in terms of social, political and environmental causes. And I think that failed. It failed catastrophically and disastrously, and there is no point going on with it anymore. http://www.fathom.com/feature/35533/index.html > The one I linked seems to almost exclusively reference > other ev psych papers, and even one about non-human primates, but > where's the anthropology, for example? I'm suspicious that we've been > studying humans, individuals and groups, successfully now for at least > a hundred years, and a new discipline can basically ignore all that. For over a hundred years stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by stress. That was just wrong, it is mostly caused by Helicobacter pylori. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_peptic_ulcer_disease_and_Helicobacter_pylori Many people (such as James Joyce) died as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_joyce#1920.E2.80.9341:_Paris_and_Z.C3.BCrich Modern gastroenterology pays no attention to former theories of stomach ulcers because they were displace by one more in keeping with reality. We know the blank state is just wrong. The whole social science edifice has no foundation. >> Evolutionary psychology is currently placing a foundation under much >> of social science. ?My estimate is that it has done this in virtually >> all of the top rated schools, and may be more than half way through >> with the rest. ?Google for Evolutionary Psychology graduate programs. >> It's a way to look at behavior, and a fundamental outline of how to >> construct models. >> >> Models lead to predictions. ?If the predictions fail, then the model >> needs to be reconsidered. ?Even poor models are better than no models >> because they lead to better models. >> >> For example, my initial model for what leads to wars failed with the >> US Civil war. ?The current economic situation was not contributing >> since there was no economic downturn at that time. ?But the >> _anticipation_ of hard times due to ending slavery was a factor and >> indeed the population of the South was correct in this assessment. >> >> Keith > > I've read your paper, and quite liked the ideas (basically, we are > genetically programmed to go to war when we feel our resource outlook > is or might become desperate). But, where is any consideration of > culture? Some peoples seem far less likely to go to war than others. > Actually you talk about "xenophobic memes", so are assuming states are > more warlike if their population is more xenophobic, but how does that > explain a country like the US which is more or less constantly > involved in (and often starting) wars, while have a pretty low level > of xenophobia and little or no resource stress or perceived resource > stress? I bet at many times in the past few decades, pre 9/11, the > general population was hardly even aware of the wars the country was > fighting. > > Where is any acknowledgement of other pre-existing theories about war, > and how this theory compares? For instance, the Marxian contention > that war is basically economic, that the ruling classes start wars to > benefit capitalists? Not that I'm saying that particular theory is > true, but it makes some very different claims to what your theory > makes, predicts different types of behaviour. > > I do like the way your theory takes into account the differences > between the "ancestral environment" and modern states, but claims such > as this one: > > "So the huge US "tribe" was attacked on 9/11 by OBL's tiny "Al Qaeda > tribe" and went into war mode due to being attacked." > > Do you feel that this properly explains the war in Iraq? Yes. Without 9/11 do you think Bush would have had support to go to war with Iraq? No. In fact, hell no. You might note that the leaders of a number of other countries didn't even try with their populations. And the reason is obvious, they were not attacked. As for leaders in wars going irrational, that's part of the model. Stone age genes were "concerned" (anthropomorphizing) only with getting copies into the next generation. If the situation called for most of the tribe to take a chance on dying or die, that's what happened if the average outcome was better than doing nothing. > To me this theory looks like an attempt at underpinning Political Realism: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realism There is no science base to political realism. I don't know if the field would be open to one. But if you want to try, be my guest. > but without any acknowledgement of that orientation, or indeed any > sign of awareness that this is only one way of understanding world > politics, The EP papers I wrote came out of my up close efforts to understand the odd behavior of people in cults. That led in some strange directions, including a model for how the human behavioral traits leading to wars came about. I made no intentional attempt to understand world politics. > and not without serious criticisms. I came to where I did more by happenstance than any other reason. You can take what found from applying EP seriously or not. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 18:54:19 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:54:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 41 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 4:52 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/21/2010 4:43 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> I don't know Peter, perhaps some of you do. ?It seemed to >> me to be considerably in excess of a rational discussion. ?If this is >> normal for Peter, then don't worry about it. ?If it is not, I would >> strongly suggest an MRI brain scan. ?This and getting into a row with >> border guards (if it is unusual behavior for him) suggests the >> possibility of organic brain problems. > > Oh for god's sake. How would you respond to someone making such comments > about a person taken down and imprisoned for "threatening > Scientologists"? You're literally the last person I'd expect to make > such a fatuous remark. I had a friend many years ago who underwent a personality change. All of his friends withdrew from him. It was the first sign of a brain tumor that killed him. Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 22 19:37:43 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:37:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Watts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA7C707.7040705@satx.rr.com> On 3/22/2010 1:54 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> On 3/21/2010 4:43 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>> I don't know Peter, perhaps some of you do. It seemed to >>> me to be considerably in excess of a rational discussion. If this is >>> normal for Peter, then don't worry about it. If it is not, I would >>> strongly suggest an MRI brain scan. This and getting into a row with >>> border guards (if it is unusual behavior for him) suggests the >>> possibility of organic brain problems. >> Oh for god's sake. How would you respond to someone making such comments >> about a person taken down and imprisoned for "threatening >> Scientologists"? You're literally the last person I'd expect to make >> such a fatuous remark. > I had a friend many years ago who underwent a personality change. All > of his friends withdrew from him. It was the first sign of a brain > tumor that killed him. Sorry to hear that, but it's entirely beside in the point in discussing Peter Watts' arguments against coarse attempts to apply of EP, and especially his trial. "Getting into a row with border guards?" Is that like "threatening with a cruise missile"? In fact, yes, apparently it's exactly like that; both were bullshit charges: From the Times-Herald site: "As a member of the jury that convicted Mr. Watts today, I have a few comments to make. The jury's task was not to decide who we liked better. The job of the jury was to decide whether Mr. Watts "obstructed/resisted" the custom officials. Assault was not one of the charges. What it boiled down to was Mr. Watts did not follow the instructions of the customs agents. Period. He was not violent, he was not intimidating, he was not stopping them from searching his car. He did, however, refuse to follow the commands by his non compliance. He's not a bad man by any stretch of the imagination. The customs agents escalated the situation with sarcasm and miscommunication. Unfortunately, we were not asked to convict those agents with a crime, although, in my opinion, they did commit offenses against Mr. Watts. Two wrongs don't make a right, so we had to follow the instructions as set forth to us by the judge." Reading a little more shows that not complying means he failed to throw himself on the ground within 20 seconds after being assaulted. Again, from Watts' report on his blog ( http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186 ): Suggesting that a "brain tumor" explains this is shameful. Damien Broderick From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 21:20:02 2010 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:20:02 +1100 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 21 March 2010 01:53, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Richard Morgan's noir SF novels in Takeshi Kovacs' universe (Altered > Carbon, Broken Gods, Woken Furies) have post-singularity technologies, > but people are still people. They do? I read Broken Gods yesterday (in a single reading, I quite like his work) and did not notice much in the way of post-singularity tech. Highly advanced, yes, but post-singularity? Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 21:56:57 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:56:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003221456h2471ec80v145d08be5069d905@mail.gmail.com> On 22 March 2010 22:20, ddraig wrote: > Highly advanced, yes, but post-singularity? If we take the term too literally, it should be impossible by definition to tell a post-singularity story, "singularity" being defined as the region in time or space for which we cease being able to make coherent predictions... -- Stefano Vaj From max at maxmore.com Mon Mar 22 22:23:23 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:23:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? Message-ID: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I read a huge amount of science fiction. I devoured everything written by Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick (an odd combination), and an awful lot of Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, and some Arthur C. Clark, among others. From the late 1980s, I read much less, but still kept up with some of the more interesting new writers. I've read only a handful of SF novels and short story collections over the previous decade up to 2009, but started to take a fresh look at what was out there last year. I thought it might be fun to list the next dozen or so SF books that I have lined up to read -- and to ask other Extropy-Chat subscribers to post their own list of recently-read and next-to-read lists. Recently read: 2010: The John Varley Reader. Charles Stross, Singularity Sky. Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future. 2009 American Gods, Neil Gaiman. Kate Wilhelm, Welcome, Chaos. Ken Mcleod, The Cassini Division. Joe Haldeman, The Accidental Time Machine. Damien Broderick, Transcension Immortals, edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois To read next: Darwinia, by Robert Charles Wilson. (Reading March 2010) Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. The Dreaming Dragons by Damien Broderick. Vacuum Flowers, Michael Swanwick Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust. Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon Iron Man, by Peter David. Titan by John Varley. The Playboy Book of Science Fiction. ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 22 22:53:29 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:53:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BA7F4E9.2060405@satx.rr.com> On 3/22/2010 5:23 PM, Max More wrote: > To read next: > Darwinia, by Robert Charles Wilson. (Reading March 2010) > Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. > The Dreaming Dragons by Damien Broderick. > Vacuum Flowers, Michael Swanwick > Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust. > Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick. > Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. > Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. > Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon > Iron Man, by Peter David. > Titan by John Varley. > The Playboy Book of Science Fiction. Mostly good choices. DARWINIA is interesting, but look for SPIN as well; it's brilliant. Peter Watts's BLINDSIGHT is perhaps the best book of the last decade. Swanwick's JACK FAUST. The TITAN trilogy is worth perservering with, although it has its long dull stretches. Have you tried Stan Robinson's RED, GREEN, BLUE MARS trilogy? (You might find the political ethos disagreeable.) Charlie's MERCHANT PRINCES series is lots of fun, although it loses focus as it goes on. Alas, sf has been mostly replaced by vast fatasies (sic), which are mostly not nearly as interesting as Stross's faux-fantasies-sf-in-disguise. Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 23:33:42 2010 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:33:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A spacefaring hydraulic civilization Message-ID: <55ad6af71003221633q19b1a9eap78f9eaadf14027df@mail.gmail.com> A spacefaring hydraulic civilization http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1590/1 by Taylor Dinerman Monday, March 22, 2010 """ Among the German scientists, scholars, and artists who fled Hitler?s Germany in the 1930s and came to America, was an ex-Communist authority on Chinese history and society named Karl Wittfogel (1896?1988). A survivor of both World War I and a short stint in a Nazi concentration camp, his close?not to say obsessive?reading of Marx and of Max Weber led him to develop a set of ideas about what he termed ?Hydraulic Civilization?. He held that the societal mechanisms needed for the control of water, especially for irrigation and flood control purposes, leads to a complex bureaucratic state. This centralized power leads to what he termed ?Oriental Despotism?, which was the title of his 1957 monumental work subtitled ?A Comparative Study of Total Power?. "On or off Earth, the way any society distributes and uses water determines its ultimate destiny." Now that scientists have found huge deposits of water ice on the Moon, the question arises of who will control these ?hydraulic resources? and under what authority? Wittfogel thought that in societies like China, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Russia, there emerged a ?class in a society whose leaders are the holders of despotic state power and not private owners and entrepreneurs? and that ?in hydraulic society there exists a bureaucratic landlordism, a bureaucratic capitalism, and a bureaucratic gentry.? His vocabulary may seem a bit archaic in 2010, but the danger he described is all too real. The size of the water find on the Moon, estimated at 600 million metric tons in the Moon?s north polar region alone, may seem like a lot, but it is roughly the equivalent of the annual output of six mid-sized desalinization plants. Because of its location it may end up being very valuable indeed. It is also an indication that water may be common throughout the solar system. On or off Earth, the way any society distributes and uses water determines its ultimate destiny. This is obvious not only to any farmer or rancher, but to anyone living in or near a flood zone, or to any politician looking at what happened to George W. Bush?s presidency after Hurricane Katarina. Under normal circumstances people in the developed world expect to turn on the tap and have clean water come out. They seldom think about the amazingly complex system responsible for that result. In space, water is even more precious than on Earth. Onboard the International Space Station (ISS) the efforts made to recycle every molecule of moisture are well known. Yet water is still going to be one of the most important items to be delivered to the station by the various cargo carrying vehicles built by Russia, Europe, Japan, and by NASA?s Commercial Orbital Transportation System. Since the ISS partnership is well established and runs fairly smoothly, there have been no significant disagreements over the use of these water resources. Once the water on the Moon or Mars or the asteroids becomes accessible to humanity, the ownership and control of it will determine which nations or peoples will truly be able to profit from space resources. The unratified Moon Treaty may have its fans, but once the value of the Moon?s water becomes evident, particularly the possibility of using it to produce liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for rocket fuel, it will become just another irrelevant scrap of paper. Peacefully or otherwise, the major spacefaring powers will come to an agreement giving ?squatters rights? to whoever first occupies and claims a given bit of the icy Moon. "There are plenty of institutions, and people who run them, who would be all too happy to take control of the solar system?s water resources. One can be certain that they will claim to be doing so with the best of motives." The challenges involved in mining the deep craters of the lunar poles are gigantic. Yet on Earth we see that huge deep-sea oil drilling platforms are able to search for oil kilometers under the seabed. As long as the prize is of sufficient value there is no reason to think that human ingenuity will be diminished any time soon. Yet it the very size of this challenge that may lead to a kind of interplanetary hydraulic despotism. If the organization and technology needed to extract water from the Moon and from other celestial bodies is even more complex and expensive (on a relative basis) than that used to irrigate and regulate the great river valleys of China, then the prospect for the future of liberal capitalism in the solar system may be pretty dim. If, however, the technology is fairly compact and easy to use, then a whole new tribe of ice-seeking entrepreneurs and partnerships will spring up and go to work. For this to happen, a safe legal environment will have to be in place to allow them secure property rights over what they find. This means that the US, as the world?s leading liberal democracy, will have to find a way to be present on the Moon or someplace else where there are large accessible supplies of water, and set a legal precedent. There are plenty of institutions, and people who run them, who would be all too happy to take control of the solar system?s water resources. One can be certain that they will claim to be doing so with the best of motives. Yet, as Wittfogel pointed out, ?the hydraulic state prevents the nongovernmental forces of society from crystallizing into independent bodies strong enough to counterbalance and control the political machine.? If, in the course of humanity?s expansion into the solar system, such a controlling authority were to be installed, it would freeze any hope for a spacefaring civilization made up of free and independent men and women. The control of water would lead to the control of other vital space-based resources. In time the institution?s power would grow until it would be able to have a stranglehold on the flow of off-Earth resources down to the surface of this planet. For many, in America and elsewhere, this is not a happy thought. """ I'll patiently be waiting to see how well Paul can blast the property rights idea out of the (I am so sorry) water. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 01:41:13 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:11:13 +1030 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <4BA7F4E9.2060405@satx.rr.com> References: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4BA7F4E9.2060405@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003221841g663e55ebi71b5e141e24d8b48@mail.gmail.com> On 23 March 2010 09:23, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 3/22/2010 5:23 PM, Max More wrote: >> >> To read next: >> Darwinia, by Robert Charles Wilson. (Reading March 2010) >> Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. >> The Dreaming Dragons by Damien Broderick. >> Vacuum Flowers, Michael Swanwick >> Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust. >> Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick. >> Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. >> Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. >> Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon >> Iron Man, by Peter David. >> Titan by John Varley. >> The Playboy Book of Science Fiction. > > Mostly good choices. DARWINIA is interesting, but look for SPIN as well; > it's brilliant. Peter Watts's BLINDSIGHT is perhaps the best book of the > last decade. Swanwick's JACK FAUST. The TITAN trilogy is worth perservering > with, although it has its long dull stretches. Have you tried Stan > Robinson's RED, GREEN, BLUE MARS trilogy? (You might find the political > ethos disagreeable.) Charlie's MERCHANT PRINCES series is lots of fun, > although it loses focus as it goes on. Alas, sf has been mostly replaced by > vast fatasies (sic), which are mostly not nearly as interesting as Stross's > faux-fantasies-sf-in-disguise. > > Damien Broderick My 2 cents: Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and Makers Charlie Stross's Accelerando if you haven't read it already (although I couldn't make it through the last book/part) My published reading list is out of date, but here it is: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dh285fr_22gdk6x6c4 (btw Damien I read The Ruined Queen of Harvest World. I enjoyed it, but I suspect I'm not enough of a science fiction insider to really get it; particularly, I've never touched the ouvre you base it in) -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From max at maxmore.com Tue Mar 23 03:43:55 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:43:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? Message-ID: <201003230344.o2N3i6EH010446@andromeda.ziaspace.com> My previous list was only books I have on hand. Here's my Amazon wish list of SF: https://www.amazon.com/wishlist/3Q1Z7P7SINRB/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go?_encoding=UTF8&sort=universal-title&layout=compact Max From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 23 04:34:08 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:34:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] There's cold in them thar hills (maybe) Message-ID: <4BA844C0.2030307@satx.rr.com> 'Cold Fusion' Moves Closer to Mainstream Acceptance ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2010) ? A potential new energy source so controversial that people once regarded it as junk science is moving closer to acceptance by the mainstream scientific community. That's the conclusion of the organizer of one of the largest scientific sessions on the topic -- "cold fusion" -- being held here for the next two days in the Moscone Center during the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). etc etc From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 04:50:39 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:50:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bodies In-Reply-To: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003212336.o2LNajQv015332@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BA8489F.2050301@rawbw.com> Max More wrote: > Commenting on the part of my paper that said "I would be hard put to > name an Extropian who seems to reject the body and the senses." > > Lee wrote: > >> You can now name at least >> one Extropian who'll be very happy to leave his body behind, *once >> there is something far better to host him*, supposing we ever get so >> lucky as to attain that possibility. > > I don't really have any dispute with what you say here or elsewhere in > your comments. I, too, would eventually want to transfer my cognitive > functioning to distributed hardware... I don't substantially differ with anything in your remarks. > ...Even distributed hardware could be damaged. One way to > do that, of course, is to have a body or bodies, although a rich array > of networked and distributed sensors would be superior to those set in a > single physical body. However the senses are housed and organized, I > would definitely want to be able to sense the external (physical) world. > > I think you do see it the same way, since a bit later you write: > "I ought to have many sensors throughout the Earth, not just allowing me > to check against threats..." Yes, that's right. And of course we need keep in mind the point made by Mike D. that we really cannot imagine what options may be available by then along these lines. We're talking here of just a basic architectural default. > BTW, when Natasha used the > term "metabrain" I think she was using it in the sense that I used in my > Extro-3 talk ("Mind Morph: Technologically Enhanced Emotion and > Personality") (and later at the 2001 manTRANSforms conference), and not > in the sense you found by googling it. (She used the term in Primo > Posthuman.) That is, the metabrain is a label for a deeper and richer > set of internal senses, that allow you to see your own wiring and > improve on it. Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 04:58:05 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:58:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds In-Reply-To: References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> ddraig wrote: > On 22/03/2010, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> I mean, Tom, if you could choose to find studying nanotech >> and doing nanotech experiments just as fun and interesting >> as going about the countryside in medieval armor having fun, >> wouldn't you choose to switch? > > As a former mediaevalist, both sound equally fun to me. > Although, hmmm, nanotech armour, mmmmmm yummy. I'm talking about something *way* beyond "sound equally fun". Right now, playing golf sounds to me not at all fun. The real question is, "When I can decide what feels like fun, what should I decide?". What do we want to decide, and why? I would gladly switch my taste and expertise in chess for an equivalent taste and expertise in finance. Then from now on I could be on the receiving end of the scams, not the giving end (moral questions aside). But chess was fun---high finance was not. It has to *obviously* be the case that we would choose as evolution once chose for us: we ought to find fun those things most necessary to our survival and domination of the universe (both personal and social). ANYTHING ELSE IS A LOSER, in the long run. Both Mr. Darwin and simple logic say so. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 05:06:02 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:06:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> Giulio writes: > Facebook and other online venues are part of our reality and, > therefore, are as "real" as bricks and mortar. I don't know what > reality is but, perhaps, reality is what we choose to pay attention > to. In this sense, Facebook is more "real" than bricks. I am unable to > understand why so many people play Farmville but, if they do, there is > certainly a reason, and a very valid one from their point of view. > > On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> "If you've spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the >> people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am. >> Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here's the >> even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to >> buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain >> advantage in these Web-based games." Well, so an obvious inquiry is, does Second Life have an equivalent of Facebook yet? And when/if it does, will we find those denizens with their own virtual virtual farms and pets? Lee P.S. Giulio wrote "I agree with Ben and Lee. These anti-uploading rants sound like deep ecology nonsense to me. Listen to me, there is nothing sublime in a senile brain slowly dying in a rotting body. The sooner we can leave these things behind us, the better." Very well said. "Moreover, we used to agree on self-ownership and radical morphological freedom. I hope we still do." We seem to. Since that's the case, *now* it the time for some new threads criticizing our position (thanks to whoever in advance). From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 05:19:41 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:19:41 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds In-Reply-To: <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 23 March 2010 15:58, Lee Corbin wrote: > ddraig wrote: > >> On 22/03/2010, Lee Corbin wrote: >> >>> I mean, Tom, if you could choose to find studying nanotech >>> and doing nanotech experiments just as fun and interesting >>> as going about the countryside in medieval armor having fun, >>> wouldn't you choose to switch? >> >> As a former mediaevalist, both sound equally fun to me. >> Although, hmmm, nanotech armour, mmmmmm yummy. > > I'm talking about something *way* beyond "sound equally fun". > > Right now, playing golf sounds to me not at all fun. The > real question is, "When I can decide what feels like fun, > what should I decide?". > > What do we want to decide, and why? I would gladly switch > my taste and expertise in chess for an equivalent taste > and expertise in finance. Then from now on I could be on > the receiving end of the scams, not the giving end (moral > questions aside). But chess was fun---high finance was not. > > It has to *obviously* be the case that we would choose > as evolution once chose for us: we ought to find fun > those things most necessary to our survival and domination > of the universe (both personal and social). ANYTHING ELSE > IS A LOSER, in the long run. Both Mr. Darwin and simple > logic say so. It seems that you consider chess as not being as intrinsically worthwhile as finance, which creates some tension as you prefer the less worthwhile activity. An alternative would be to make it so that chess is at least as interesting as finance, so that you can think of those people making millions with a few mouseclicks as pitiful in their inability to appreciate what's really important in life. That is, you could genuinely think this way, not as a case of sour grapes. What this example illustrates is first, second and third order desires: (1) I really like chess; (2) I think finance is a more worthwhile activity, and I wish I could prefer it to chess; (3) but I wish that I actually considered chess the more worthwhile activity. -- Stathis Papaioannou From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 06:52:21 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:52:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Well, routine mind uploading, so routine that it it has disappeared in the fabric of culture / society / language and is not even noticed anymore, looks pretty post-singularity to me. However, people are still 20th century people (like those found in crime stories of the "noir" subgenre) even if they are surrounded by post-singularity tech. Read also Altered Carbon (the first in the series) and Woken Furies (the last), they are great. G. On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:20 PM, ddraig wrote: > On 21 March 2010 01:53, Giulio Prisco wrote: > >> Richard Morgan's noir SF novels in Takeshi Kovacs' universe (Altered >> Carbon, Broken Gods, Woken Furies) have post-singularity technologies, >> but people are still people. > > They do? I read Broken Gods yesterday (in a single reading, I quite > like his work) and did not notice much in the way of post-singularity > tech. > > Highly advanced, yes, but post-singularity? > > Dwayne > -- > ? ddraig at pobox.com irc.deoxy.org #chat > ? ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... > ?http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org/Data/3-death.jpg > our aim is wakefulness, ?our enemy is dreamless sleep > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 07:16:36 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:16:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds In-Reply-To: References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA86AD4.1070406@rawbw.com> Stathis writes > [Lee wrote]] >> Right now, playing golf sounds to me not at all fun. [Which >> *obviously* could altered by a minor cerebral modification.] >> The real question is, "When I can decide what feels like fun, >> what should I decide?". >> >> What do we want to decide, and why? I would gladly switch >> my taste and expertise in chess for an equivalent taste >> and expertise in finance. > > It seems that you consider chess as not being as intrinsically > worthwhile as finance, "Intrinsically worthwhile"? Goodness, whatever do you mean by that! > which creates some tension as you prefer the > less worthwhile activity. "Prefer" has two senses here. I actually vastly prefer chess, but I would prefer to prefer finance. "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills", which is gonna change soon. > An alternative would be to make it so that chess is at > least as interesting as finance, Hmm? I meant to state that right now, chess is very interesting to me, while finance is incredibly boring to me. > so that you can think of those people making millions > with a few mouseclicks as pitiful in their inability > to appreciate what's really important in life. "What's really important in life"? Evidently you misunderstood the entire thrust of my argument. There are no such things that are of *intrinsic importance*, unless you impose a more or less arbitrary set of values on them (not a bad idea, of course). Consider these activities: A. trying to get the world's starving people adequately fed (or if you live in a rich nation, spying on obese people and strategically luring them into discussions that---so to speak---tip the scales in their thinking so that they make healthier life style choices) B. studying rocket science and scheming to do everything possible to help along projects like Burt Rutan's, or medicine and Aubrey DeGrey's C. investigating the world of household plumbing, especially the myriad differences around the world, and learning about the various solutions per dollar spent & becoming a world-class master plumber D. playing chess, absorbing the striking masterpieces of the famous grandmasters, and becoming much more skilled at the game itself Do any of these have more "intrinsic worth", period? I.e., not merely more intrinsic worth to individual X (who is only a mere hypothesis by natural selection as to what might be fit and what might produce a lot of kids). The answer is no! "Intrinsic worth" unqualified, like beauty, lies strictly in the eye of the beholder! What is paramount in this discussion is that we will be able to soon alter our own will, alter our own preferences according to *any* set of criteria we choose. Call it the post-Schopenhauer era, if you will. :-) Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 09:08:58 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:08:58 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Real & virtual worlds In-Reply-To: <4BA86AD4.1070406@rawbw.com> References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> <4BA86AD4.1070406@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 23 March 2010 18:16, Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis writes > >> [Lee wrote]] > >>> Right now, playing golf sounds to me not at all fun. [Which > >>> *obviously* could altered by a minor cerebral modification.] >>> >>> The real question is, "When I can decide what feels like fun, >>> what should I decide?". >>> >>> What do we want to decide, and why? I would gladly switch >>> my taste and expertise in chess for an equivalent taste >>> and expertise in finance. >> >> It seems that you consider chess as not being as intrinsically >> worthwhile as finance, > > "Intrinsically worthwhile"? ?Goodness, whatever do you mean by that! > >> which creates some tension as you prefer the >> less worthwhile activity. > > "Prefer" has two senses here. I actually vastly prefer chess, > but I would prefer to prefer finance. "Man can do what he wills > but he cannot will what he wills", which is gonna change soon. > >> An alternative would be to make it so that chess is at > >> least as interesting as finance, > > Hmm? ?I meant to state that right now, chess is very interesting > to me, while finance is incredibly boring to me. > >> so that you can think of those people making millions > >> with a few mouseclicks as pitiful in their inability >> to appreciate what's really important in life. > > "What's really important in life"? ?Evidently you misunderstood > the entire thrust of my argument. There are no such things that > are of *intrinsic importance*, unless you impose a more or less > arbitrary set of values on them (not a bad idea, of course). > > Consider these activities: > > A. trying to get the world's starving people adequately fed > ? (or if you live in a rich nation, spying on obese people > ? and strategically luring them into discussions that---so > ? to speak---tip the scales in their thinking so that they > ? make healthier life style choices) > > B. studying rocket science and scheming to do everything > ? possible to help along projects like Burt Rutan's, or > ? medicine and Aubrey DeGrey's > > C. investigating the world of household plumbing, especially > ? the myriad differences around the world, and learning > ? about the various solutions per dollar spent & becoming > ? a world-class master plumber > > D. playing chess, absorbing the striking masterpieces > ? of the famous grandmasters, and becoming much more > ? skilled at the game itself > > Do any of these have more "intrinsic worth", period? ?I.e., > not merely more intrinsic worth to individual X (who is only > a mere hypothesis by natural selection as to what might be > fit and what might produce a lot of kids). > > The answer is no! "Intrinsic worth" unqualified, like beauty, > lies strictly in the eye of the beholder! > > What is paramount in this discussion is that we will be able > to soon alter our own will, alter our own preferences according > to *any* set of criteria we choose. Call it the post-Schopenhauer > era, if you will. :-) If the intrinsic worth of each activity *to you* were directly proportional to how motivated you were to do it then you would spend exactly as much time on each activity as you felt it deserved, and therefore you would never wish to deviate from this perfect system by introducing an artificial preference distortion. However, people frequently wish that they had less motivation to do something or more motivation to do something else. Why do they wish this? As well as giving each activity a score for motivation, based on negative as well as positive feelings, they also give it a score for intrinsic worth. The intrinsic worth score affects the motivation score, but not always to the extent that people would like. Sitting around all day eating chocolate may have a high motivation score (first order desire) but a low intrinsic worth score (second order desire: a desire about what I would like to desire). If I could modify my mind at will, I would therefore arrange it so that I found it less enjoyable to sit around eating chocolate and more enjoyable to go out and exercise, for example. On the other hand, I might see that this belief about what is worthwhile and what is not is due to the way I have been manipulated by society, and modify myself so that I can be content in my chocolate-eating idleness (third order desire: a desire about what I would like to desire to desire). -- Stathis Papaioannou From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Mar 23 08:43:36 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:43:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I know it's very unfashionable to say anything good about a very large corporation, but I think Google's decision to withdraw from the very large Chinese market because they no longer felt comfortable with the oppressive censorship that government imposed is commendable and is absolutely compatible with their famous motto. Economically it might be foolish but morally it is the right thing to do. Capitalism doesn't always do the right thing but it did this time. Capitalists be proud! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 09:25:14 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:25:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am not sure the decision was motivated by compassionate feelings alone. Perhaps free and enthusiastic coverage and advertising on the Western press had a part;-) The Chinese market will be important for Google someday, but not yet. With this move, they win a lot of karma points in their real markets, and will worry about China later. Note: I like Google _very_ much. But what I am thinking today, is that perhaps this everything-is-free Internet culture can only benefit rich multinationals like Google and create powerful monopolies. Small companies with innovative products cannot afford to make everything free. 2010/3/23 John Clark : > I know it's very unfashionable to say anything good about a very large > corporation, but I think Google's decision to withdraw from the very large > Chinese market because they no longer felt comfortable with the oppressive > censorship that government imposed is commendable and is absolutely > compatible with their famous motto. > Economically it might be foolish but morally it is the right thing to do. > Capitalism doesn't always do the right thing but it did this time. > Capitalists be proud! > ?John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 10:36:23 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:06:23 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003230336n2e1b1901t39664f214e6adf9@mail.gmail.com> On 23 March 2010 19:55, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Note: I like Google _very_ much. But what I am thinking today, is that > perhaps this everything-is-free Internet culture can only benefit rich > multinationals like Google and create powerful monopolies. Small > companies with innovative products cannot afford to make everything > free. Perhaps not, but collections of free individuals, doing stuff for the love of it, and relying on the free infrastructure provided by corps like Google, definitely can. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 10:39:02 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:09:02 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003230339x622aa82bpa005c3f08a11c711@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/23 John Clark : > I know it's very unfashionable to say anything good about a very large > corporation, but I think Google's decision to withdraw from the very large > Chinese market because they no longer felt comfortable with the oppressive > censorship that government imposed is commendable and is absolutely > compatible with their famous motto. > Economically it might be foolish but morally it is the right thing to do. > Capitalism doesn't always do the right thing but it did this time. > Capitalists be proud! > ?John K Clark re: Google, I totally agree. I'd hesitate to give the points to capitalism though... are they part of a movement of likeminded companies, or standing out there on their own? -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 11:55:55 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:55:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003230455t200c635ncd194f023e9765f7@mail.gmail.com> On 23 March 2010 10:25, Giulio Prisco wrote: > The Chinese market will be important for Google someday, but not yet. > With this move, they win a lot of karma points in their real markets, > and will worry about China later. > I also like Google - even though this might be just a reflection of my hatred for Microsoft :-) -, but this might be actually a win-win situation, because it will give China the kind of market protection enabling it to develop some competing local research platform... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 11:58:21 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:58:21 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 1:06 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > P.S. Giulio wrote > ?"I agree with Ben and Lee. These anti-uploading rants sound like > ?deep ecology nonsense to me. Listen to me, there is nothing sublime > ?in a senile brain slowly dying in a rotting body. The sooner we can > ?leave these things behind us, the better." > > Very well said. If your house needs a new roof and some paint, do you just move? I agree with the premise, I think uploading is not the only option. Oh, by "leave these things behind" you meant the design flaw of non-renewal due to age, right? :) As we get better at medical technology, we might be able to fix a senile brain before we can upload it. Ironically, work in organic computing or wetware interface might drive those insights/innovations. I also expect that body repair will improve considerably with technology. The disturbing fact is that political and economic innovations aren't evolving as quickly as other technologies - so we'll have miraculous science being wielded by antiquated powers to maintain the status quo. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 12:35:42 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:35:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003230535s43512caam6ef4d06951d8344a@mail.gmail.com> On 23 March 2010 12:58, Mike Dougherty wrote: > As we get better at medical technology, we might be able to fix a > senile brain before we can upload it. ?Ironically, work in organic > computing or wetware interface might drive those insights/innovations. > ?I also expect that body repair will improve considerably with > technology. ?The disturbing fact is that political and economic > innovations aren't evolving as quickly as other technologies - so > we'll have miraculous science being wielded by antiquated powers to > maintain the status quo. As somebody coming from "wet" transhumanism, I used to be rather uninterested if not uneasy with regard to talks on radical cyborgisation and/or uploading on different "platforms" (including, but not only, because I found such prospective as distracting from the possible "biorevolution" in place). Let us say that I had more or less the same attitude of Gregory Stock on the subject (genetic engineering plus fyborgisation as the really interesting stuff). Now, I see the mechanist/shaper split as outdated, at least conceptually. In any event, convergence is not going to happen anywhere near pull-and-lever entities such as Robby in the Forbidden Planet. Most probably, when we get on silicon, silicon will be much softer than that :-), and may not even be silicon at all, given that most new info and materials techs are based on carbon... So, after a fashion, we shall have to do, after all, as in Cronenberg's Videodrome, with a "new meat" (or flesh, in Italian the words are one and the same). ;-) -- Stefano Vaj From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 23 13:26:32 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:26:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> A little quibble: "capitalism" doesn't do anything. (Neither does "socialism.") People do things. In this case, they did them seemingly through a market choice. Regards, Dan From: John Clark To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 23, 2010 4:43:36 AM Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil I know it's very unfashionable to say anything good about a very large corporation, but I think Google's decision to withdraw from the very large Chinese market because they no longer felt comfortable with the oppressive censorship that government imposed is commendable and is absolutely compatible with their famous motto.? Economically it might be foolish but morally it is the right thing to do. Capitalism doesn't always do the right thing but it did this time. Capitalists be proud! ?John K Clark ?? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 14:09:34 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:09:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/23 Dan > A little quibble: "capitalism" doesn't do anything. (Neither does > "socialism.") People do things. In this case, they did them seemingly > through a market choice. > > Why, according to classical economic theory everything is a "market choice", reputation or righteousness having a market value themselves... :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 14:15:19 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:15:19 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/23/10, Dan wrote: > A little quibble: "capitalism" doesn't do anything. (Neither does > "socialism.") People do things. In this case, they did them seemingly > through a market choice. > > 'choice' ??? Looks to me that Google made a massive error of judgment concerning the Chinese market. They saw a huge market and decided they wanted some of that. But Google's business relies on freedom of advertising, payments, -- capitalism, really. They assumed that China would quickly change to accommodate their business plan. But China thinks long-term. Microsoft is in China, but is prepared to wait fifty years. Google isn't. BillK From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 23 15:04:16 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:04:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Even were that so, that would not be "Capitalism" making choices. It would be people acting in a market making choices. This is sort of like saying Science runs experiments or has debates. The truth is people run experiments and debate about the?data or theory. And this brings up a more general point. It's not markets that do things. It's people. People act and when they interact voluntarily, markets are what we might see -- though markets are hardly the only form of voluntary interaction. When they interact involuntarily -- i.e., coercively -- what we see is statism or some form of one person or group abusing another person or group. Regards, Dan From: Stefano Vaj To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 23, 2010 10:09:34 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil 2010/3/23 Dan A little quibble: "capitalism" doesn't do anything. (Neither does "socialism.") People do things. In this case, they did them seemingly through a market choice. > Why, according to classical economic theory everything is a "market choice", reputation or righteousness having a market value themselves... :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 15:25:19 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:25:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003230825t759b33b2n99770368a1a6eac9@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/23 Dan > And this brings up a more general point. It's not markets that do things. It's people. People act and when they interact voluntarily, markets are what we might see -- though markets are hardly the only form of voluntary interaction. When they interact involuntarily -- i.e., coercively -- what we see is statism or some form of one person or group abusing another person or group. Just for the sake of discussion, there are no involuntary behaviours in the theory. A threat, going from the displeasure of your clients, a diminished sense of righteousness, or a good chance somebody putting a bullet in your head, is simply a factor in your optimisation choice. Of course, all the paradox of the theory is that in its strong form is always true, but becomes non-falsifiable and so incapable of prediction (every choice can be justified in term of "extended rationality" after the fact). In its weak form, where self-interest is taken to mean short-term monetary gain, it is simply false, because nobody really complies at best with their best interest, or even what they perceive as it. -- Stefano Vaj From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Mar 23 15:06:10 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:06:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <579705.70277.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> A mistaken choice is still a choice, no? Unlike you, though, I don't know why Google made its choice, why Microsoft made its choice,?or what will happen in fifty years. But I do hope we're?all around to find out. :) Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: BillK To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 23, 2010 10:15:19 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil On 3/23/10, Dan wrote: > A little quibble: "capitalism" doesn't do anything. (Neither does > "socialism.") People do things. In this case, they did them seemingly > through a market choice. > > 'choice' ??? Looks to me that Google made a massive error of judgment concerning the Chinese market. They saw a huge market and decided they wanted some of that. But Google's business relies on freedom of advertising, payments, -- capitalism, really. They assumed that China would quickly change to accommodate their business plan. But China thinks long-term. Microsoft is in China, but is prepared to wait fifty years. Google isn't. BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 15:55:18 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:55:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003230855l7eb1e2b9rf44745059bb4d7df@mail.gmail.com> On 22 March 2010 23:23, Max More wrote: > Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I read a huge amount of science > fiction. I devoured everything written by Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick > (an odd combination), and an awful lot of Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, > and some Arthur C. Clark, among others. From the late 1980s, I read much > less, but still kept up with some of the more interesting new writers. I've > read only a handful of SF novels and short story collections over the > previous decade up to 2009, but started to take a fresh look at what was out > there last year. I am impressed with the very strong parallelism with my own story with SF... Only add to that Poul Anderson, whose implicit transhumanism and overhumanism is often underestimated. > 2010: > The John Varley Reader. > Charles Stross, Singularity Sky. > Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future. >From the top of my head I would recommend most (not all) of Greg Egan's books, plus Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel; and obviously Transhuman by Mark L Van Name and T.K.F. Weisskopf. The latter is a must, be it just for its title... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 16:01:41 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:01:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] There's cold in them thar hills (maybe) In-Reply-To: <4BA844C0.2030307@satx.rr.com> References: <4BA844C0.2030307@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003230901r4e2e724ci3c528391bc644cbc@mail.gmail.com> On 23 March 2010 05:34, Damien Broderick wrote: > ?'Cold Fusion' Moves Closer to Mainstream Acceptance Mmhhh, for the time being I think I remain amongst those who "Like It Hot"... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 16:19:10 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:19:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Post-Schopenhauer World In-Reply-To: References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> <4BA86AD4.1070406@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA8E9FE.7010902@rawbw.com> Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.) ---Arther Schopenhauer, 1839 Stathis writes (in the thread Real & Virtual worlds) > Lee wrote > >> The answer is no! "Intrinsic worth" unqualified, like beauty, >> lies strictly in the eye of the beholder! >> >> What is paramount in this discussion is that we will be able >> to soon alter our own will, alter our own preferences according >> to *any* set of criteria we choose. Call it the post-Schopenhauer >> era, if you will. :-) > > If the intrinsic worth of each activity *to you* were directly > proportional to how motivated you were to do it then you would spend > exactly as much time on each activity as you felt it deserved, and > therefore you would never wish to deviate from this perfect system by > introducing an artificial preference distortion. With you so far. Well, I am a bit worried about your use of the concept "artificial preference distortion"---as though that had negative connotations. > However, people frequently wish that they had less motivation > to do something or more motivation to do something else. Right, but you don't here them *planning* on just exactly what they would do---with its attendant dangers---had they the power to act. Your following example is ? propos. > Why do they wish this? As well as giving each activity a score > for motivation, based on negative as well as positive feelings, > they also give it a score for intrinsic worth. Intrinsic worth, *to them*, of course. > The intrinsic worth score affects the motivation score, but not always > to the extent that people would like. Sitting around all day eating > chocolate may have a high motivation score (first order desire) but a > low intrinsic worth score (second order desire: a desire about what I > would like to desire). If I could modify my mind at will, I would > therefore arrange it so that I found it less enjoyable to sit around > eating chocolate and more enjoyable to go out and exercise, for > example. Very good. > On the other hand, I might see that this belief about what is > worthwhile and what is not is due to the way I have been manipulated > by society, and modify myself so that I can be content in my > chocolate-eating idleness (third order desire: a desire about what I > would like to desire to desire). You may see your chocolate-gorging behavior as, yes (i) how you were "manipulated" by society (ii) how the recipe originated by your genes played out (iii) how your genes responded in the culture you grew up in (this time, contra Judith Rich Harris) where eating preferences at a young age came to generate life long preferences (iv) something else "you" never deliberately chose So? You are still faced, later from now, with the post-Schopenhauer meta-choice. By what principles or current preferences are you doing to dictate your future 1st order preferences? Lee P.S. If you are serious about calling them 1st order, 2nd order, and 3rd order, would you please offer characterizations of each? (i.e. a bit short of definitions to be taken entirely literally). For I, along with Arthur S., see just two levels. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 16:25:15 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:25:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> Mike writes > I think uploading is not the only option. Hell, it's not *even* an option, now! > Oh, by "leave these things behind" you meant the design flaw of > non-renewal due to age, right? :) We've described over and over the advantages of running on distributed hardware safety reduced need for backups simple incremental hardware upgrades So, no, I think that what was meant was literally "leave behind". You have a problem with that? :-) Why anything else? What other option compares at all to it? Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 23 16:33:36 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:33:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <580930c21003230535s43512caam6ef4d06951d8344a@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003230535s43512caam6ef4d06951d8344a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BA8ED60.3010302@rawbw.com> Stefano writes: > Let us say that I had more or less the same attitude of Gregory Stock > on the subject (genetic engineering plus cyborgisation as the really > interesting stuff). Well, it's much closer, and---understandably for many more---technically interesting. > Now, I see the mechanist/shaper split as outdated, at least conceptually. > > In any event, convergence is not going to happen anywhere near > pull-and-lever entities such as Robby in the Forbidden Planet. > > Most probably, when we get on silicon, silicon will be much softer > than that :-), and may not even be silicon at all, given that most new > info and materials techs are based on carbon... 25.7 percent of the Earth's crust is silicon. There's just not enough carbon (I'm speaking, again, very long term). You might get quintillions of people going on carbon, but no way decillions (10^33), as presently constituted in terms of their personalities. Or some such gigantic ratio. > So, after a fashion, we shall have to do, after all, as in > Cronenberg's Videodrome, with a "new meat" (or flesh, in Italian the > words are one and the same). ;-) Okay---but are you dissenting from the view that running on tiny bits of distributed processing throughout the Earth's crust is less preferable to something else? Lee From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 16:50:14 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:50:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA8ED60.3010302@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <580930c21003230535s43512caam6ef4d06951d8344a@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8ED60.3010302@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003230950q58730116xaffbb6e6a5fad16c@mail.gmail.com> On 23 March 2010 17:33, Lee Corbin wrote: > Okay---but are you dissenting from the view that running on > tiny bits of distributed processing throughout the Earth's > crust is less preferable to something else? Mmhhh. No, I do not see anything especially disturbing in such a scenario, and I appreciate the dividends. :-) In any event, I think that at such stage you might even decide to get (partially?) embodied again from time to time in a robot or a meat avatar if this happens to be your whim... -- Stefano Vaj From max at maxmore.com Tue Mar 23 17:57:34 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:57:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Data, Data Everywhere Message-ID: <201003231757.o2NHvjH2019764@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Some here may be interested in an 8-part special report on the information explosion in The Economist: Data, Data Everywhere Kenneth Cukier The Economist, Feb 25th 2010 http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15557443 http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=15557443 Max From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 19:09:12 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:09:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Apocalyptic AI - book presentation and discussion in Second Life, Tuesday March 30, 10am PST Message-ID: http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/apocalyptic-ai-book-presentation-and.html Oxford University Press - Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, by Robert M. Geraci. See my review of this excellent book. Robert has done a lot of field reconnaissance work behind transhumanist lines in Second Life. The book has a full report of Robert's field work and his interpretation of the spirit of transhumanism, and the spirit of virtual worlds. This book has started many interesting (and often vigorous) discussions in both transhumanist and Second Life interest groups. Robert will come to Second Life for a book presentation and discussion on Tuesday March 30, at 10am PST. The talk will take place in the Singularity Club (which can be seen in the background of the picture) on the Transvision Nexus island. Please follow this SLURL to teleport, and bring interesting questions. New World Notes - Oxford Press Book on Digital Age Spirituality Argues Second Life Provides Platform For Innovative Religious Thinking: The ultra-prestigious Oxford University just published a book devoted to theology in the digital age: Apocalyptic AI Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. It's written by Manhattan College professor Robert Geraci, known in Second Life as Soren Ferlinghetti (pictured), and unsurprisingly, a whole chapter is devoted to Second Life, and conversations with several well-known Extropians (sometimes called transhumanists), who often see Second Life as a means for transcending the human body. >From the publishers' site: "Description: Apocalyptic AI, the hope that we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting everything from the world view of online gamers to government research funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci offers the first serious account of this "cyber-theology" and the people who promote it. Drawing on interviews with roboticists and AI researchers and with devotees of the online game Second Life, among others, Geraci illuminates the ideas of such advocates of Apocalyptic AI as Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil. He reveals that the rhetoric of Apocalyptic AI is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. In both systems, the believer is trapped in a dualistic universe and expects a resolution in which he or she will be translated to a transcendent new world and live forever in a glorified new body. Equally important, Geraci shows how this worldview shapes our culture. For instance, Apocalyptic AI has influenced funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, helping to prioritize robotics and AI research. It has become the ideology of choice for online gamers, such as those involved in Second Life; it has had a profound impact on the study of the mind; and it has inspired scientists and theologians alike to wonder about the super robots of the future. Should we think of robots as persons? What kind of morality would intelligent robots espouse? Apocalyptic AI has become a powerful force in modern culture. In this superb volume, Robert Geraci shines a light on this belief system, revealing what it is and how it is changing society." From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 23:11:47 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:11:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Mike writes > >> I think uploading is not the only option. > > Hell, it's not *even* an option, now! > >> Oh, by "leave these things behind" you meant the design flaw of >> non-renewal due to age, right? ?:) > > We've described over and over the advantages of > running on distributed hardware > > ? ?safety > ? ?reduced need for backups > ? ?simple incremental hardware upgrades > > So, no, I think that what was meant was literally "leave > behind". You have a problem with that? ?:-) > > Why anything else? What other option compares at all to it? Compared to cloud computing the LeeCorbin runtimes? Nothing. ...though, as you say above - uploading isn't even an option, now. Taking better care of the hardware hosting your.. identity (however it may be defined) is probably a good compromise between self-destruction by debauchery and a cryotank wait for upload. I meant only to express that there may exist alternatives to uploading for the indefinite lifespan goal. The technology that lets us disassemble and model subneuronal processes will probably make it possible to create artificial systems before the uploading process is considered safe enough for production use. Artificial systems that enhance or support existing structures are probably more readily accepted than outright replacements. I would have never expected people to pay large amounts of money to have botulism toxin injected into their face, but Botox is doing well in the cosmetic 'enhancement' business. I was thinking also of the technology to, for example, restart cellular rejuvenation after age has slowed it to ineffectual levels. (or whatever causes the phenomenon known as "age") Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging and allow those who practice this restricted diet to literally live forever (barring physical injuries that induce a state of death) - what percentage of the world's population either could afford it or have the discipline to practice it unerringly? From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Tue Mar 23 23:33:39 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:33:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging and allow > those who practice this restricted diet to literally live forever > (barring physical injuries that induce a state of death) - what > percentage of the world's population either could afford it or have > the discipline to practice it unerringly What about calorie restriction? While I don't know any staistics, I think I can confidently say, "Very few." > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 01:07:02 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:07:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4BA39F76.3060607@satx.rr.com> <580930c21003200728x77ca871exdf96838c23f647cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003231807t2f68c685se9d0f4174ff36c77@mail.gmail.com> Damien Broderick wrote: The five SF authors who write the most about the singularity and post singularity are Vernor Vinge, Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, Charles Stross, and Damien Broderick. >>> And what about Ken MacLeod? Despite being a visionary SF author, he can still go on quite a rant about Extropians... LOL John ; ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 03:33:33 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:33:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> Mike Dougherty wrote: > I meant only to express that there may exist alternatives to uploading > for the indefinite lifespan goal. The technology that lets us > disassemble and model subneuronal processes will probably make it > possible to create artificial systems before the uploading process is > considered safe enough for production use... Of course. > Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging and allow > those who practice this restricted diet to literally live forever > (barring physical injuries that induce a state of death) - what > percentage of the world's population either could afford it or have > the discipline to practice it unerringly? Your second question, who would have the discipline to practice it, depends for one thing on your first question, how affordable it is. It's your hypothetical scenario, so you have to specify an answer to the first question. If it were cheap and easy---say the diet was a certain kind of bean, canned corn, tomato juice, and a fruit---then I'd guess around seventy percent of the population would go for it. We are, after all, talking about totally halting aging! Lee P.S. to Sarah: Mike specified something guaranteed to work, and work extremely well for almost all people: not slowing, but halting aging. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 03:41:01 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:41:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> Dan wrote: > Even were that so, that would not be "Capitalism" making choices. It > would be people acting in a market making choices. This is sort of like > saying Science runs experiments or has debates. The truth is people run > experiments and debate about the data or theory. > > And this brings up a more general point. It's not markets that do > things. It's people. People act and when they interact voluntarily, > markets are what we might see Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do, start a flame war? Unregulated voluntary economic interactions are precisely what has led to this worldwide condition so objectionable to so many people. (In Germany, it is known as "American conditions".) Of course, we don't see suggestions here to outright replace it with socialism, or with anything. But *something* has to be better than unregulated voluntary economic exchanges between individuals! :-) That's so evil. Lee > -- though markets are hardly the only form > of voluntary interaction. When they interact involuntarily -- i.e., > coercively -- what we see is statism or some form of one person or group > abusing another person or group. > > Regards, > > Dan From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 03:45:07 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:45:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Freeze your head, the headline said Message-ID: <4BA98AC3.8060003@rawbw.com> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Alcor-north] Freeze your head, the headline said From: Monica Anderson http://www.mensjournal.com/thermahelm Lee From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 24 04:22:09 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:22:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Sarah Wood ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] The "real" world > > > Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging... > > What about calorie restriction? While I don't know any > staistics, I think I can confidently say, "Very few." ... Do you suppose it would it be easier to practice CR if you couldn't taste anything? If you knew CR would extend your life, and not being able to taste anything would allow you to practice CR, would you choose to have surgery to disable the gustatory sense? spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 24 04:41:43 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:41:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <361F5B030E3543239C20DFFE28B15055@spike> > > Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging > and allow > > those who practice this restricted diet to literally live forever > > (barring physical injuries that induce a state of death) - what > > percentage of the world's population either could afford it or have > > the discipline to practice it unerringly? ... Actually the way this question is worded makes it too easy. If any diet could halt the aging process, I for one would do aaaaaanything it takes, anything, to make that happen, even up to and including complete celebacy. Ooooh my, that would be painful to give up that one, but to halt aging, even that is a deal. spike From p0stfuturist at yahoo.com Tue Mar 23 14:25:35 2010 From: p0stfuturist at yahoo.com (Post Futurist) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:25:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil Message-ID: <735218.5465.qm@web59909.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> "A little quibble: "capitalism" doesn't do anything. (Neither does "socialism.") People do things. In this case, they did them seemingly through a market choice. >Dan" ? ? Aye, but another quibble: the construct of capitalism influences the way actors think; in this case?the influence of Google affects?certain actors?who possess?power in China. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thirdeyeoferis at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 03:49:27 2010 From: thirdeyeoferis at gmail.com (Thirdeye Of Eris) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:49:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:41 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Dan wrote: > > Even were that so, that would not be "Capitalism" making choices. It would >> be people acting in a market making choices. This is sort of like saying >> Science runs experiments or has debates. The truth is people run experiments >> and debate about the data or theory. >> And this brings up a more general point. It's not markets that do things. >> It's people. People act and when they interact voluntarily, markets are what >> we might see >> > > Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do, start a flame war? > Unregulated voluntary economic interactions are precisely what > has led to this worldwide condition so objectionable to so many > people. (In Germany, it is known as "American conditions".) > Of course, we don't see suggestions here to outright replace > it with socialism, or with anything. > > But *something* has to be better than unregulated voluntary > economic exchanges between individuals! :-) That's so evil. > > Lee > > Personally, I don't think that any system of governance can fix anything unless the people under it decide to fix something... > > -- though markets are hardly the only form of voluntary interaction. When >> they interact involuntarily -- i.e., coercively -- what we see is statism or >> some form of one person or group abusing another person or group. >> Regards, >> Dan >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- "A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ?state? and?society? and ?government? have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world... aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure." -- Professor De La Paz from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 07:50:11 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:50:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > P.S. to Sarah: Mike specified something guaranteed to work, > and work extremely well for almost all people: not slowing, > but halting aging. Ok, then I'll ask a slightly different question: what if there was a diet that dramatically slowed the aging process, thereby greatly increasing one's chances of living until the advent of some technology that made immortality possible? Sarah From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 24 07:35:12 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:35:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6ADB50CF-AFB4-4E5B-93C0-68F7CB0B4F9C@bellsouth.net> On Mar 23, 2010, Thirdeye Of Eris wrote: > Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do, start a flame war? I have been on this list for about 15 years and I have always enjoyed flame wars, perhaps because at least up to now I have always won them. But maybe now is the time to change the status quo, maybe now somebody can beat me. So tell me Mr. Thirdeye Of Eris, what is the error or my ways, what new profound ideas do you have to replace the ones I perviously erroneously held? Use your brilliance to show the world how stupid my ideas actually are! Come on, the world is waiting! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 11:11:29 2010 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:11:29 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The Post-Schopenhauer World In-Reply-To: <4BA8E9FE.7010902@rawbw.com> References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> <4BA86AD4.1070406@rawbw.com> <4BA8E9FE.7010902@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 24 March 2010 03:19, Lee Corbin wrote: > P.S. If you are serious about calling them 1st order, 2nd order, > and 3rd order, would you please offer characterizations of each? > (i.e. a bit short of definitions to be taken entirely literally). > For I, along with Arthur S., see just two levels. First order preferences are governed by immediate impulses and desires, such as hunger and the preference to avoid anything that seems like hard work. Second order preferences are, roughly, governed by longer term goals we have inherited due to our genetics and environment, such as a desire for financial security and the approval of one's peers. Third order preferences are when we look at our second order preferences and wish they were different. I wish I weren't so lazy, so that I could work harder and impress friends and family with my material success; on the other hand, I wish I weren't so interested in material success and could instead channel my energy into helping people. -- Stathis Papaioannou From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 11:24:24 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:24:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> Sarah had written > [Mike wrote] > > > Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging > > and allow those who practice this restricted diet to literally > > live forever (barring physical injuries that induce a state > > of death) - what percentage of the world's population either > > could afford it or have the discipline to practice it unerringly? Did you know that Spike, since age 15, never eats anything that allows his six foot frame to exceed 125 pounds? The CR you mention later about your own question > What about calorie restriction? While I don't know any > staistics, I think I can confidently say, "Very few." As Spike then said: "Mike's question taken literally is too easy" and then Spike said what he would do. But he's already in the vanguard here, so your reformulation > Ok, then I'll ask a slightly different question: what if there was a > diet that dramatically slowed the aging process, thereby greatly > increasing one's chances of living until the advent of some technology > that made immortality possible? was a no-op in his case. But he's extraordinarily rare. But you don't ask about *who* in general could with profit try the diet. So I will assume that you mean that it "dramatically slows the aging process" for people 25 years and older, as well as the very young. And I will assume that it has no damaging side effects, (thus ruling out CR for the young, incidentally). (By forcing me or others to speculate as to the missing parameters and conditions of your question, you run the risk, methinks, of having your questions ignored.) People jump on new diets all the time. If we had *scientific proof* that this diet would do as you say, there would be absolutely no shortage of takers. Naturally, almost none of this applies to CR, a painful and unproven regimen. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 11:35:48 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:35:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <6ADB50CF-AFB4-4E5B-93C0-68F7CB0B4F9C@bellsouth.net> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <6ADB50CF-AFB4-4E5B-93C0-68F7CB0B4F9C@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <4BA9F914.2030004@rawbw.com> John Clark wrote: > On Mar 23, 2010, Thirdeye Of Eris wrote: > >> Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do, start a flame war? Of course that is incorrect. It was I, Lee, who wrote those ironic words, *not* ThirdEye. Can you admit error on even something so black and white as this? > I have been on this list for about 15 years and I have always enjoyed > flame wars, perhaps because at least up to now I have always won them. I ironically exaggerated---by use of the term "flame war", ---the vigorous exchanges that used to be the norm here. > But maybe now is the time to change the status quo, maybe now somebody > can beat me. So tell me Mr. Thirdeye Of Eris (sic) [actually me], what > is the error or [of] my ways, what new profound ideas do you have to > replace the ones I perviously [previously] erroneously held? Which of your erroneous ideas would that be, pray tell? > Use your brilliance to show the world how > stupid my ideas actually are! Come on, the world is waiting! Why? You almost never admit error of any kind, from simple elementary school English grammar to actual arguments where you (okay, rarely) are bested. Alas John, you exemplify yet another serious dimension in which the discussions here continue to degenerate. But at least you're interested in substance, in the forceful presentation of views ipso facto subject to criticism. For that, at least, you do have to be saluted. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 11:48:02 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:48:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Post-Schopenhauer World In-Reply-To: References: <513693.16737.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4BA6835C.5030602@rawbw.com> <4BA84A5D.2090708@rawbw.com> <4BA86AD4.1070406@rawbw.com> <4BA8E9FE.7010902@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BA9FBF2.1030203@rawbw.com> Stathis explains: > Lee wrote: > >> P.S. If you are serious about calling them 1st order, 2nd order, >> and 3rd order, would you please offer characterizations of each? >> (i.e. a bit short of definitions to be taken entirely literally). >> For I, along with Arthur S., see just two levels. > > First order preferences are governed by immediate impulses and > desires, such as hunger and the preference to avoid anything that > seems like hard work. With you so far. > Second order preferences are, roughly, governed by longer term > goals we have inherited due to our genetics and environment, > such as a desire for financial security and the approval > of one's peers. So already people fall into two categories: those who cannot, say, hold down a job because of the hard work involved, and those who can. Or those who can follow fashion to generate the approval of peers, and those who will not. > Third order preferences are when we look at our second > order preferences and wish they were different. But in my examples, and quite commonly, people lament that they cannot fulfill their second-order preferences. E.g., "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak". > I wish I weren't so lazy, so that I could work harder > and impress friends and family with my material success; Yes; but I say, that arises from a second order preference, no? > on the other hand, I wish I weren't so interested in > material success and could instead channel my energy > into helping people. Ah, yes, now there is a third-order preference, if I'm reading you correctly. I propose that, in the new era, using your terminology folks will have control over preference types one and two. Lee "Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants." ---Arther Schopenhauer, 1839 "Yes we can, yes we can!" ---Barack Obama, 2008 From wood.sarah.m at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 11:48:12 2010 From: wood.sarah.m at gmail.com (Sarah Wood) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:48:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <935D2FCD-1CF7-44AC-A274-B7E21BA316B3@gmail.com> > (By forcing me or others to speculate as to the missing > parameters and conditions of your question, you run the > risk, methinks, of having your questions ignored.) Thank you for your advice. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 24 12:56:58 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:56:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <573171.37975.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I hope you jest. :) Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Lee Corbin To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 23, 2010 11:41:01 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil Dan wrote: > Even were that so, that would not be "Capitalism" making choices. It would be people acting in a market making choices. This is sort of like saying Science runs experiments or has debates. The truth is people run experiments and debate about the data or theory. >? And this brings up a more general point. It's not markets that do things. It's people. People act and when they interact voluntarily, markets are what we might see Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do, start a flame war? Unregulated voluntary economic interactions are precisely what has led to this worldwide condition so objectionable to so many people. (In Germany, it is known as "American conditions".) Of course, we don't see suggestions here to outright replace it with socialism, or with anything. But *something* has to be better than unregulated voluntary economic exchanges between individuals!? :-)? That's so evil. Lee > -- though markets are hardly the only form of voluntary interaction. When they interact involuntarily -- i.e., coercively -- what we see is statism or some form of one person or group abusing another person or group. >? Regards, >? Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 24 13:06:33 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:06:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I think there's a little bit more to it than that. It's not just that governance or whatever will have a really hard time working without at least acquiesence if not the support of the governed, it's also that the solutions tried must, unless they get lucky, work. And, in terms of solutions, I'd prefer the massive, decentralized, parallel process of hundreds of millions or billions of individuals interacting peacefully and voluntarily over the model of one or a few people directing all the rest. (Bertolucci's 2003 film "The Dreamers" had an interesting line where one character reacts to another's idolizing Mao as a great director of a big epic film: "In this big, epic movie -- everyone [else] is an extra." The film is set in Paris in 1968.) Of course, even this doesn't guarantee a solution, but it's kind of like science vs. organized religion: do we allow people to experiment, think for themselves, criticize, and such or have a small cadre tell everyone what to do and think? Regards, Dan From: Thirdeye Of Eris To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, March 23, 2010 11:49:27 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:41 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: Dan wrote: > > >Even were that so, that would not be "Capitalism" making choices. It would be people acting in a market making choices. This is sort of like saying Science runs experiments or has debates. The truth is people run experiments and debate about the data or theory. >>?And this brings up a more general point. It's not markets that do things. It's people. People act and when they interact voluntarily, markets are what we might see >> >Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do, start a flame war? >Unregulated voluntary economic interactions are precisely what >has led to this worldwide condition so objectionable to so many >people. (In Germany, it is known as "American conditions".) >Of course, we don't see suggestions here to outright replace >it with socialism, or with anything. > >But *something* has to be better than unregulated voluntary >economic exchanges between individuals! ?:-) ?That's so evil. > >Lee > > Personally, I don't think that any system of governance can fix anything unless the people under it decide to fix something...? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 13:47:25 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:47:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003240647r5e799bd6if78c231bfd9bf921@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 6:24 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > People jump on new diets all the time. If we had *scientific > proof* that this diet would do as you say, there would be > absolutely no shortage of takers. > > Naturally, almost none of this applies to CR, a painful and > unproven regimen. granted that the question was (as worded) was too easy. Of course if there were magic canned beans that granted immortality, you'd trade a small herd of sacred cows for them. :) The other parameters you called me on are also important for that hypothetical question to be answered. However, I posed that question as an alternative to the currently unavailable uploading grail. It seems obvious that many on this list would take advantage of the guaranteed-to-halt-aging diet. Given what we know about proper nutrition, why does anyone eat the "typical American diet"? I think it's because "it tastes good now" is more compelling to most than "enjoy long life by denying foody pleasures." Also, if you subscribe fully to the exponential improvements in technology leading to the singularity in your lifetime then there should be no reason to deny yourself because any damage you do today will be 'cured' in the near future. Or is my observation of the Singularity-cult mistaken? (yes, I know calling it a 'cult' is an unfair characterization.) From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 13:54:03 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:54:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/24/10, Dan wrote: > And, in terms of solutions, I'd > prefer the massive, decentralized, parallel process of hundreds of millions > or billions of individuals interacting peacefully and voluntarily over the > model of one or a few people directing all the rest. That is a misleading characterization. It's not an either / or situation. Your idealistic vision of 'hundreds of millions or billions of individuals interacting peacefully' could be called sheep. Unfortunately they are surrounded by a cadre of rapacious wolves (pretending to be clever sheep) with dens in Wall Street. It's not a case of a few people directing all the rest. We just want some gamekeepers with big guns to deal with the wolves. BillK From listsb at infinitefaculty.org Wed Mar 24 14:13:27 2010 From: listsb at infinitefaculty.org (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:13:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> El 2010-03-24 07:24, Lee Corbin escribi?: > People jump on new diets all the time. If we had *scientific > proof* that this diet would do as you say, there would be > absolutely no shortage of takers. > Naturally, almost none of this applies to CR, a painful and > unproven regimen. I wonder about that. 1) "Painful" isn't universally true (at least going by what CRers themselves say), and, more importantly 2) no putative life-extending regimen is likely ever to be scientifically verified in the way that other life-improving regimens can be verified, for the simple reason that the relevant endpoints are too difficult to measure (because one has to wait a century or so to measure them, or to verify proxy measurements). Anyone reasonable person who looks at the arguments and evidence for and against CR would have to conclude that mild to moderate CR (for "normal" people -- those without a predisposition to eating disorders, those who don't suffer from illnesses tht require ingestion of a lot of food, and so on) is vastly more likely to lengthen life than not. I find it puzzling that so few life-extensionists have even TRIED CR (to see whether "painful" is, for them, "too painful"). Brian From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 24 14:40:55 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:40:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <333038.83405.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I agree with you about the?rapacious wolves on Wall St. -- which is why I've, time and again, argued for removing their special privileges. The current situation is not one where everyone is free to peacefully and voluntarily interact. Instead, certain fat cats and others who are linked to the state get bailed out and other things in their favor that allow them to maintain their position even when they make mistakes. As for gamekeepers, the problem is the so called wolves are in bed with the gamekeepers -- and this will always be the case. After all, once you set up someone with a special position of power -- i.e., your gamekeepers -- someone is going to find a way to game that. (In fact, it's usually the predatory types who want regulation in the first place -- so that they can prey on others rather than worry about the vaguries of the marketplace or have to work at a real job. This is why a big bank will ask for bailouts rather than risk losing market share.) Had we had a free society of the kind I propose, the kind of crises we see would be very unlikely as big banks (Citi), other firms (e.g., GM),?and investors who made mistakes would lose money and, at the extreme,?close shop. There would also be no credit expansion to fund the sort of unsustainable booms like the dot-com one and the current one. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: BillK To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 9:54:03 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil On 3/24/10, Dan wrote: > And, in terms of solutions, I'd > prefer the massive, decentralized, parallel process of hundreds of millions > or billions of individuals interacting peacefully and voluntarily over the > model of one or a few people directing all the rest. That is a misleading characterization. It's not an either / or situation. Your idealistic vision of 'hundreds of millions or billions of individuals interacting peacefully' could be called sheep. Unfortunately they are surrounded by a cadre of rapacious wolves (pretending to be clever sheep) with dens in Wall Street. It's not a case of a few people directing all the rest. We just want some gamekeepers with big guns to deal with the wolves. BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From sparge at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 15:27:36 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:27:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Brian Manning Delaney wrote: > > Anyone reasonable person who looks at the arguments and evidence for and against CR would have to conclude that mild to moderate CR (for "normal" people -- those without a predisposition to eating disorders, those who don't suffer from illnesses tht require ingestion of a lot of food, and so on) is vastly more likely to lengthen life than not. I don't think it's that clear. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090123101224.htm "For lean mice ? and possibly for lean humans, the authors of a new study predict ? the anti-aging strategy known as caloric restriction may be a pointless, frustrating and even dangerous exercise." "For humans of normal weight, Sohal strongly cautions against caloric restriction. In a 2003 study, he and Forster found that caloric restriction begun in older mice ? both in DBA and leaner C57 individuals ? actually shortened life span." > I find it puzzling that so few life-extensionists have even TRIED CR (to see whether "painful" is, for them, "too painful"). I used it to drop 25 lbs, and it wasn't horrible, but it was unpleasant enough that I wouldn't want to do it long-term without more evidence that it's safe and effective. -Dave From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 24 15:15:44 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:15:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com><5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com><2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com><990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3938368B50A14FA38EBC27329F978023@spike> > ...On Behalf Of BillK > ... > Unfortunately they are surrounded by a cadre of rapacious > wolves (pretending to be clever sheep) with dens in Wall Street. > ...We just want some gamekeepers with big guns to deal with the wolves... BillK The problem is that the gamekeepers soon become the new wolves. Better solution: arm the sheep. spike From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 16:19:14 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:19:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BAA3B82.7080203@rawbw.com> BillK wrote: > On 3/24/10, Dan wrote: >> And, in terms of solutions, I'd >> prefer the massive, decentralized, parallel process of hundreds of millions >> or billions of individuals interacting peacefully and voluntarily over the >> model of one or a few people directing all the rest. > > ... > Your idealistic vision of 'hundreds of millions or billions of > individuals interacting peacefully' could be called sheep. > Unfortunately they are surrounded by a cadre of rapacious wolves > (pretending to be clever sheep) with dens in Wall Street. Even in the days of the so-called robber barons, many of whom such as Gould and Rockefeller, were perfectly honest, there were the very evil who freely bribed state, local, and federal officials. It was nothing short of scandalous, the newspapers being full of the corruption. Freedom will lead to inequality---is that tolerable? Today, the situation is worst in almost all ways (though better in a few). Instead of directly passing suitcases full of money to legislatures, today it's done with vast millions to re-election campaigns. Each corporation is "required" to shell out big time to each powerful political party for protection. And this is exactly the same concept, *protection*, used by gangsters. But it gets worse. With the clandestine invention of the Federal Reserve, which literally had to be done in secret without the public knowing who and why, the random gouging of depositors gave way to a system of the organized fleecing of the poor and middle classes by the bankers, who now also are in control of the government's monetary policies. But I totally agree with your line: > Unfortunately they are surrounded by a cadre of rapacious wolves > (pretending to be clever sheep) with dens in Wall Street. But you may be under the common illusion that regulation is the answer. No, the regulated become the regulators--- both in terms of protection and in terms of direct financial control. More bailouts are on the way. At "guess who's" expense. > It's not a case of a few people directing all the rest. We just want > some gamekeepers with big guns to deal with the wolves. The gamekeepers are always going to be in the pay of the wolves. Lee P.S. Sorry for the America-centric description. The same thing applies, perhaps not always so starkly, in all so-called "free markets" under regulation by powerful governments. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 24 16:21:06 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:21:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <333038.83405.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <333038.83405.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BAA3BF2.2040809@rawbw.com> Oops, Dan already said it better than I did. Dan wrote: > I agree with you about the rapacious wolves on Wall St. -- which is why I've, time and again, argued for removing their special privileges. The current situation is not one where everyone is free to peacefully and voluntarily interact. Instead, certain fat cats and others who are linked to the state get bailed out and other things in their favor that allow them to maintain their position even when they make mistakes. > > As for gamekeepers, the problem is the so called wolves are in bed with the gamekeepers -- and this will always be the case. After all, once you set up someone with a special position of power -- i.e., your gamekeepers -- someone is going to find a way to game that. (In fact, it's usually the predatory types who want regulation in the first place -- so that they can prey on others rather than worry about the vaguries of the marketplace or have to work at a real job. This is why a big bank will ask for bailouts rather than risk losing market share.) > > Had we had a free society of the kind I propose, the kind of crises we see would be very unlikely as big banks (Citi), other firms (e.g., GM), and investors who made mistakes would lose money and, at the extreme, close shop. There would also be no credit expansion to fund the sort of unsustainable booms like the dot-com one and the current one. > > Regards, > > Dan From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 24 16:25:53 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:25:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: <4141482F629C4B038356C1951F1F9577@DFC68LF1> Brian wrote: "I wonder about that. 1) 'Painful' isn't universally true (at least going by what CRers themselves say), and, more importantly 2) no putative life-extending regimen is likely ever to be scientifically verified in the way that other life-improving regimens can be verified, for the simple reason that the relevant endpoints are too difficult to measure (because one has to wait a century or so to measure them, or to verify proxy measurements). Anyone reasonable person who looks at the arguments and evidence for and against CR would have to conclude that mild to moderate CR (for 'normal' people -- those without a predisposition to eating disorders, those who don't suffer from illnesses tht require ingestion of a lot of food, and so on) is vastly more likely to lengthen life than not. I find it puzzling that so few life-extensionists have even TRIED CR (to see whether 'painful' is, for them, 'too painful')." But isn't "mild to moderate" CR comparable to simply eating healthfully? Eating healthfully means getting enough to sustain and not increase fat cells. More important than CR is to eat healthy and exercise. AND this to most people is very "painful". For me, it would be exceedingly painful to eat large portions of fried food - or any food for that matter. My body's cells would form a rebellion with gastritis, constipation, heart burn, and headaches. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 24 16:04:58 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:04:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com><4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> Message-ID: The term immortality is a misnomer. Immortality implies a No Exit syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life. Transhumanist prefer using terms like radical life extension or superlongevity, etc. to suggest a continued state of existence beyond biological parameters. (By the way, CR is not proven to actually extend life. It is also not proven to be healthy.) 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 Sarah Wood Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 2:50 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The "real" world > P.S. to Sarah: Mike specified something guaranteed to work, and work > extremely well for almost all people: not slowing, but halting aging. Ok, then I'll ask a slightly different question: what if there was a diet that dramatically slowed the aging process, thereby greatly increasing one's chances of living until the advent of some technology that made immortality possible? Sarah _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Mar 24 16:05:45 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:05:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4FC97CE15486480AB33C5DCCC6597970@DFC68LF1> 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 Mike Dougherty Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 6:12 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The "real" world On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Mike writes > >> I think uploading is not the only option. > > Hell, it's not *even* an option, now! > >> Oh, by "leave these things behind" you meant the design flaw of >> non-renewal due to age, right? ?:) > > We've described over and over the advantages of running on distributed > hardware > > ? ?safety > ? ?reduced need for backups > ? ?simple incremental hardware upgrades > > So, no, I think that what was meant was literally "leave behind". You > have a problem with that? ?:-) > > Why anything else? What other option compares at all to it? Compared to cloud computing the LeeCorbin runtimes? Nothing. ...though, as you say above - uploading isn't even an option, now. Taking better care of the hardware hosting your.. identity (however it may be defined) is probably a good compromise between self-destruction by debauchery and a cryotank wait for upload. I meant only to express that there may exist alternatives to uploading for the indefinite lifespan goal. The technology that lets us disassemble and model subneuronal processes will probably make it possible to create artificial systems before the uploading process is considered safe enough for production use. Artificial systems that enhance or support existing structures are probably more readily accepted than outright replacements. I would have never expected people to pay large amounts of money to have botulism toxin injected into their face, but Botox is doing well in the cosmetic 'enhancement' business. I was thinking also of the technology to, for example, restart cellular rejuvenation after age has slowed it to ineffectual levels. (or whatever causes the phenomenon known as "age") Suppose that a special diet would halt the process of aging and allow those who practice this restricted diet to literally live forever (barring physical injuries that induce a state of death) - what percentage of the world's population either could afford it or have the discipline to practice it unerringly? _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 16:44:10 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:44:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4141482F629C4B038356C1951F1F9577@DFC68LF1> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> <4141482F629C4B038356C1951F1F9577@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <62c14241003240944s63039f1ak3d3af4a58d7c2fb3@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > But isn't "mild to moderate" CR comparable to simply eating healthfully? > Eating healthfully means getting enough to sustain and not increase fat > cells. ?More important than CR is to eat healthy and exercise. ?AND this to > most people is very "painful". ?For me, it would be exceedingly painful to > eat large portions of fried food - or any food for that matter. ?My body's > cells would form a rebellion with gastritis, constipation, heart burn, and > headaches. This also supports my suspicion that maintaining health is a difficult chore for a majority of our population. We know how to eat healthfully, we frequently choose not to do so. How miserable will it be for the uploaders seeking to escape their flesh-based hardware if it turns out that there is actually a dependence between state of mind and state of body? :) (Not espousing a defensible position either way, just throwing it out there for consideration) From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 16:48:57 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:48:57 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <333038.83405.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <333038.83405.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Dan wrote: > Had we had a free society of the kind I propose, the kind of crises we see > would be very unlikely as big banks (Citi), other firms (e.g., GM),?and > investors who made mistakes would lose money and, at the extreme, > close shop. There would also be no credit expansion to fund the sort of > unsustainable booms like the dot-com one and the current one. > > Naww. You're still too idealistic. I don't think you've had much dealings with psychopath businessmen. ;) If there was nobody available to bail them out, or their reputation became so bad that they were running out of suckers, they would just call it quits and move to their Caribbean island. (Or, sometimes, it is enough to start up a new 'improved' company and carry on as usual). The next generation of wolves is always waiting to take over and start the scams all over again. Once the wolves see that the free society is so slow to react that they have time to take their winnings and run, there will be a never-ending supply of wolves. BillK From listsb at infinitefaculty.org Wed Mar 24 17:01:12 2010 From: listsb at infinitefaculty.org (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:01:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4141482F629C4B038356C1951F1F9577@DFC68LF1> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> <4141482F629C4B038356C1951F1F9577@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <4BAA4558.5010500@infinitefaculty.org> El 2010-03-24 12:25, Natasha Vita-More escribi?: > Brian wrote: [....] >> Anyone reasonable person who looks at the arguments and evidence for and >> against CR would have to conclude that mild to moderate CR (for 'normal' >> people -- those without a predisposition to eating disorders, those who >> don't suffer from illnesses tht require ingestion of a lot of food, and so >> on) is vastly more likely to lengthen life than not. I find it puzzling that >> so few life-extensionists have even TRIED CR (to see whether 'painful' is, >> for them, 'too painful')." > But isn't "mild to moderate" CR comparable to simply eating healthfully? > Eating healthfully means getting enough to sustain and not increase fat > cells. More important than CR is to eat healthy and exercise. AND this to > most people is very "painful". For me, it would be exceedingly painful to > eat large portions of fried food - or any food for that matter. My body's > cells would form a rebellion with gastritis, constipation, heart burn, and > headaches. Natasha, I'd say the question of the relation of "mild to mod." CR to health eating is tricky -- though I think it's a very important question. From all we now know, it seems that there is no threshold effect for CR. In other words, mild to mod. CR -- or, at least, mild CR -- is indeed "normal" healthful eating; or, to put it differently: normal healthful eating is healthful because it is, in fact, CR (though mild). Phytonutrients may play some role in the health benefits of normal healthy eating, but the evidence strongly suggests -- not everyone agrees with this of course -- it's the reduced (even if slightly reduced) energy-intake that matters, not the constitutes of hte diet (provided one isn't short on critical nutrients other than calories). I have a lot of friends who have gone on CR very gradually. They start eating just a wee bit less, get tests done, and see (slight) changes in the exact same parameters that change in people on more severe CR. But 1800 calories of health food is likely better than 1800 calories of junk food (well, for longevity purposes!), even if you took supplements with the junk food. But 1800 cals of, say corn chips and bean dip with a good multi-mineral/vitamin is almost certainly a better longevity bet for the avg. person than 2500-3000 cals or health food (everything else being equal). About exercise: I love exercise, but the better one eats, the less important aerobic exercise becomes for longevity, according to the lab animal data (mostly rodents) -- though longevity isn't everything, of course! (Response to Dave later, poss'ly tomorrow, after I've found my notes on Sohal. Off to conference now.) Best, Brian From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 24 16:40:54 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:40:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Lee Corbin ... > > Sarah had written > > > [Mike wrote] > > > > > ... - what percentage of the > world's population either could afford it or have the > discipline to practice it unerringly? > > Did you know that Spike, since age 15, never eats anything > that allows his six foot frame to exceed 125 pounds? The CR > you mention later about your own question... I was visiting family in LA this weekend. My sister in law is a major foody and a terrific cook. She and I began comparing notes, and I soon recognized something I have suspected for a long time: I have no taste. Back in the 70s, Cokacola and Pepsi advertised taste tests. I could never tell the difference, new coke, old coke, middle aged coke, Pepsi, all the cola brands, Dr. Pepper, RC, diet or regular, they all taste completely indistinguishable to me. So, I concluded that this makes it far easier for me to do CR, since all foods taste approximately the same. So now this is my thought experiment: if one became convinced that moderate CR would slow the aging process 10 to 20 percent, and the only way you could do moderate CR is to surgically switch off the taste sense, would you do it? For the purposes of this thought experiment, let us simplify and sweeten the deal by optimistically assuming 20% life extention (I actually think it is lower than that for modern western humans). Imagine that the ordinary life expectancy is 80 years, so you would subtract your current age from 80 and divide by 5 to get the number of years you would add to your life. Imagine that you can switch off your gustatory sense, so all your food cravings go away: any food is pretty much the same as any other. Assuming Obamacare pays for the surgery, do you do it? If it is reversible would you try it? spike From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 24 16:45:36 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:45:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <4BA9F914.2030004@rawbw.com> References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <6ADB50CF-AFB4-4E5B-93C0-68F7CB0B4F9C@bellsouth.net> <4BA9F914.2030004@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <05A1699D-1632-4E50-8C76-AD9AF400CC68@bellsouth.net> On Mar 24, 2010, at 7:35 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Of course that is incorrect. It was I, Lee, who wrote those > ironic words, *not* ThirdEye. Can you admit error on even > something so black and white as this? Yes. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chealey at gridsync.net Wed Mar 24 17:11:31 2010 From: chealey at gridsync.net (Christopher Healey) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:11:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3d1c82451003241011j1eb7546br30ecdde2168664fd@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/23 John Clark wrote: > I?know it's very unfashionable to say anything good about a > very large corporation, but I think Google's decision to withdraw > from the very large Chinese market because they no longer felt > comfortable with the oppressive censorship that government > imposed is commendable and is absolutely compatible with > their famous motto. One might also observe that by withdrawing, Google is disengaging along a number of dimensions that themselves can carry some positive influence over the outcome.? Perhaps the debate should be over whether maintaining that larger "contact patch" and staging a controlled influence burn is better or worse than breaking away and hitting them in one shot. I'm truly not sure which might be the better strategy in this case, from a purely outcome oriented perspective, over say 10 years.??But we're certainly wired for it to feel?better?sticking our principles to em'. It is nice to see Google focusing on a larger picture that corporate profits, but I wonder if this course is actually the most likely to lead to the largest change in censorship policy. -Chris From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 24 19:49:51 2010 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:49:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] SF authors who write about the singularity In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <388913.54438.qm@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Stefano wrote "If we take the term too literally, it should be impossible by definition to tell a post-singularity story, "singularity" being defined as the region in time or space for which we cease being able to make coherent predictions..." And this is why we should avoid confusing jargon. The singularity referred to by Kurzweil is the approach to infinity you get on a graph of 1/x, as x approaches 0. It is an exponentially increasing curve, used to represent exponentially increasing technological progress. Damien has used the term "The Spike" to represent the upwards spiking of a graph, and Charles Stross in his fiction uses the term "The acceleration". Singularity can also refer to the mathematical state of a black hole, as gravity approaches infinity. This sort of singularity has an event horizon beyond which light cannot escape, and indeed is a region in time or space where we can't observe what happens. If people keep getting confused by the terms used and start making inferences from similar terms, perhaps we should just call it The Really Steep Bit of the Technology Curve (with Important Capitalisation like all Important Ideas deserve). Tom From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 24 20:22:57 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:22:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: References: <43537.25556.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c21003230709o73b32e13m6f479dc1484deb67@mail.gmail.com> <5307.67891.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BA989CD.8080302@rawbw.com> <2b8f6cc91003232049i391ab73fj6116a0e8bb8a1405@mail.gmail.com> <990699.93577.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <333038.83405.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <132688.47812.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The point is, in a free society, you don't have to deal with psychopathic businessmen. If you know you're not going to be bailed out at taxpayers' expense (or via some other government program, such as credit expansion), then you'll likely take much more care in selecting who to hand your money to. Also, the number of people who have such fortunes that they can merely flee the country AND still life the high life is very small. In the long run, for such people, this is a losing proposition. Surely, some will still get lucky and escape, but that's true under any social system: a lucky few will get lucky. The point is, though, if will lived in a free society, the problem would be far more limited and self-limiting since there'd be no alternative avenue for these people to get away with it. In a free society, too, fleeing the country isn't likely to solve all your problems. If you have a bad reputation and everyone else knows about it, then it's going to be fairly hard for you to turn up somewhere else and expect them to be duped too. In my view, it's because of moral hazards created by bailouts and such plus the attitude that regulation works (it doesn't; it merely creates burdens for some and deludes most into believing the world is safer because there's some regulation in place) that people generally don't do the proper due dilegence on investments and the like. It's the unintended consequences of all these policies that have led to the bad outcomes. Of course, some of the policies probably don't intend to some public good -- whatever that is -- but merely toward some private benefit at public expense and then the policies are sold as supporting the public good. The recent wave of bank and auto bailouts were all of this sort. The public was not really helped in any way. Just some big executives and investors got to redistribute their losses to everyone else. Some have even pointed out, since this happens time and again, that the nature of all such regulations and policies is merely to insure the elites always win out, regardless of the fact that this causes periodic financial crises. I expect after everything calms down, in a few years, and all the new regulations are in place, we'll have another crisis and this will again be blamed on free markets, more regulations will be proposed, and the cycle will repeat. This does seem to be the nature of things in this area and it's rare in history where the alternative course is taken -- that of actually not bailing big investors, big banks, and big firms out and that of allowing them just to fail... It's rare, but not unheard of. In fact, the Panic of 1819 seems to have been a case of just that: the central bank inflated, some people got really wealthy, then the whole thing collapsed and the government did almost nothing to help them -- no bailouts, no new regulations, though there was some delay of debt payment. The world didn't end, but quite a few fat cats lost their fortunes. Regards, Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: BillK To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 12:48:57 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Dan wrote: > Had we had a free society of the kind I propose, the kind of crises we see > would be very unlikely as big banks (Citi), other firms (e.g., GM),?and > investors who made mistakes would lose money and, at the extreme, > close shop. There would also be no credit expansion to fund the sort of > unsustainable booms like the dot-com one and the current one. Naww. You're still too idealistic. I don't think you've had much dealings with psychopath businessmen.? ;) If there was nobody available to bail them out, or their reputation became so bad that they were running out of suckers, they would just call it quits and move to their Caribbean island. (Or, sometimes, it is enough to start up a new 'improved' company and carry on as usual). The next generation of wolves is always waiting to take over and start the scams all over again. Once the wolves see that the free society is so slow to react that they have time to take their winnings and run, there will be a never-ending supply of wolves. BillK ______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 24 20:49:56 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:49:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter Message-ID: The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides. This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than normal after a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document. One-third of those surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds. A more formal survey will be done in April. "There were a lot of beekeepers scrambling to fill their orders and that implies that mortality was high," said Penn State University bee researcher Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who worked on the USDA snapshot survey. Among all the stresses to bee health, it's the pesticides that are attracting scrutiny now. A study published Friday in the scientific journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One found about three out of five pollen and wax samples from 23 states had at least one systemic pesticide - a chemical designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant. ---------------- BillK From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 01:36:04 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:36:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <580930c21003230855l7eb1e2b9rf44745059bb4d7df@mail.gmail.com> References: <201003222223.o2MMNb70004459@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c21003230855l7eb1e2b9rf44745059bb4d7df@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003241836j477919c7nf99dba008d636e00@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone, I just finished reading the incredibly good "Anno Dracula," by Kim Newman. I realize it's not science fiction, but it is a truly great work of dark fantasy. This alternative history tells the tale of what would have happened to England if the heroes of "Bram Stoker's Dracula" had failed to defeat the dark prince... http://www.amazon.com/Anno-Dracula-Kim-Newman/dp/038072345X I think next I may be reading "The Golden Age," by John C. Wright. I have meant for so long to read it (and the entire trilogy), but still have not. "American Gods" swept me away as I listened to it in audiobook form. The main character's wife reminded me so much of someone I once dated. I saw just the other day "Mirror Mask." And despite some bad reviews I had read of it, considered the film visually stunning and emotionally touching. Michael Swanwick is one of my favorite authors and "Stations of the Tide" was the second of his works that I had read. The aging but very capable hero (I want to see a movie made with Patrick Stewart in the main role, but alas, he is getting old) appealed to me (I loved his "nano-anything box" built to look like a briefcase, lol). "Into the Drift" is another great Swanwick novel. The post-apocalyptic setting is quite eerie and the story both surprised and saddened me. A very unique contribution to that SF subgenre. I need to read "Jack Faust." I have a copy of "Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future" and also need to read that. lol Max, how good was the anthology? Any stories in particular that you would really recommend? John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 25 03:11:04 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:11:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of BillK > Subject: [ExI] Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter > > The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is > deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee > die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' > pollen and hives laden with pesticides. > > > > This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than normal after > a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial > bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document... BillK This report surprised me, for the local bees are doing well this year. My two citrus trees that I use as ant laboratories appear to be being beed above normal, and the lavenders are very bee-ey this week. The honeysuckle is more beesque than I have seen in the past four years. Perhaps it is that I am home this spring every day instead of just the weekends, being as I am jobless. Thanks for the link Billk! spike From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 25 03:57:12 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:57:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some In-Reply-To: References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com><4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> Natasha writes > The term immortality is a misnomer. Immortality implies a No Exit > syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life. Sorry---did you mean Sartre? (I only ask because there is indeed a web page devoted to Jean Paul Satre, and they do mean the same French writer who lived 1905-1980.) I don't follow the logic you're using at all---and I suspect that I am not alone. Literally taken, *immortality* means "failure to die", i.e., to have some form of continued experience that persists indefinitely over universe clock-time (though see [1]). Indeed, I could understand that for some psychological, polemical, and political reasons the term is not preferred, and not to be stressed. But it is far from being *any* kind of "misnomer" so far as I can see. > Transhumanist prefer using terms like radical life extension or > superlongevity, etc. to suggest a continued state of existence > beyond biological parameters. Not all transhumanists prefer any particular kind of terminology. However, I heartily concur that immortality itself frequently becomes an obsession. One extremely stalwart and forward thinking transhumanist, who everyone on this list has heard of, told me personally at one point many years ago that if he knew for absolute certainty that at some future time he would die, then he would be indifferent to continuing to live now. I will go so far as to agree that we probably ought to avoid use of the term. But we cannot deny its literal possibility, unless we want to start skating far from the truth. Lee [1] Considering the chances of me making it out of this century, I would be very happy to be downloaded into a small grain of sand on the shore of Sicily, such that I get my next year's experience during the next minute, the following year's experience during the following half-minute, and the year 3's experience during the next quarter-minute, and so on. While unlikely to be possible in terms of today's physics, I could not resist such a genuine offer of subjectively never reaching an end point, even if it meant being quite objectively dead after two minutes. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 25 04:03:39 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:03:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> Message-ID: <4BAAE09B.4050401@rawbw.com> Spike writes > So now this is my thought experiment: if one became convinced that moderate > CR would slow the aging process 10 to 20 percent, and the only way you could > do moderate CR is to surgically switch off the taste sense, would you do it? > > For the purposes of this thought experiment, let us simplify and sweeten the > deal by optimistically assuming 20% life extention (I actually think it is > lower than that for modern western humans). Imagine that the ordinary life > expectancy is 80 years, so you would subtract your current age from 80 and > divide by 5 to get the number of years you would add to your life. Imagine > that you can switch off your gustatory sense, so all your food cravings go > away: any food is pretty much the same as any other. > > Assuming Obamacare pays for the surgery, do you do it? If it is reversible > would you try it? Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Surely only those who live to eat (which is one valid choice) would demur. I couldn't blame a an extreme epicure who's chief pleasure in life is eating to prefer a few decades of meaningful life over a meaningless immortal one without pleasure. Lee From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 25 04:09:58 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:09:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? Message-ID: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> John Grigg wrote: >"American Gods" swept me away as I listened to it in audiobook >form. The main character's wife reminded me so much of someone I >once dated. I saw just the other day "Mirror Mask." And despite >some bad reviews I had read of it, considered the film visually >stunning and emotionally touching. I became a Neil Gaiman enthusiastic immediately upon reading his Sandman graphic novels. Although I have several of his books queued up to read, so far I've only read American Gods. Beautifully written and compelling. His Anansi Boys is now third on my list, after Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers and Damien's Dreaming Dragons. >Michael Swanwick is one of my favorite authors and "Stations of the >Tide" was the second of his works that I had read. Good to know, since I have a couple of his novels at hand and not yet read. In my reading of cyberpunky SF years ago, I managed to somehow completely miss his work. >I have a copy of "Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future" and also >need to read that. lol Max, how good was the anthology? Any >stories in particular that you would really recommend? I was thinking of reviewing that book (which I finished last month), but for now... the stories I enjoyed most were (not in any order): "Slow Tuesday Night" by R.A. Lafferty (amusing) "Understand" by Ted Chiang (excellent) "None So Blind" by Joe Haldeman (quite good) "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford (very good) "Toast: A Con Report" by Charles Stross (good) "Fossil Games" by Tom Purdom (good) "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek (excellent) "Steps Along the Way" by Eric Brown (good) "Border Guards" by Greg Egan (very good) I hated "Spook" by Bruce Sterling, although I didn't mention that to him when I saw him a couple of weeks ago at the 20th anniversary of the raid on Steve Jackson Games... Overall, I recommend the collection. It's too bad that I finished the John Varley Reader, since that would be perfect for the long flights in April to and from England. I do strongly recommend that collection to everyone who likes SF. It's not *especially* transhumanist, but Varley writes highly engaging short stories. (Of his novels, so far I've only read Steel Beach, which I remember being enjoyable.) Max From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 04:10:45 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:10:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some In-Reply-To: <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <62c14241003242110w12e928dcx1e0692c834f96a56@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:57 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Natasha writes > >> The term immortality is a misnomer. ?Immortality implies a No Exit >> syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life. > > Literally taken, *immortality* means "failure to die", i.e., to > have some form of continued experience that persists indefinitely > over universe clock-time (though see [1]). > I've watched too many movies to consider immortality to be anything short of *unable* to die. That's why I prefaced the anti-aging form of death avoidance to specifically rule out severe traumatic injury (like vaporizing oneself with a laser, being liquefied in a horrific chemical spill, or other gruesomely fantastic end) Even the "immortal" vampires can be killed. This is probably a psychological issue with the fact that humans want to imagine non-death, but the prospect of eternity is scary enough that we'd like to reserve a way out even for the bad guys if they're willing to repent. I digress... From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 25 04:23:18 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:23:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BAAE536.8040905@satx.rr.com> On 3/24/2010 11:09 PM, Max More wrote: > Varley writes highly engaging short stories. (Of his novels, so far I've > only read Steel Beach, which I remember being enjoyable. THE GOLDEN GLOBE is better still (in the same universe). Damien Broderick From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 25 09:32:11 2010 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:32:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil Message-ID: <572119.28940.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ---- > From: Dan > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 1:22:57 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Don't be evil > > The point is, in a free society, you don't have to deal with psychopathic > businessmen. If you know you're not going to be bailed out at taxpayers' expense > (or via some other government program, such as credit expansion), then you'll > likely take much more care in selecting who to hand your money to. But of course, the solution is to lobby for deregulation of?banking so that you don't have to care who you hand your money to because you can do so and be governmentally insured. Since at the end of the day, you can claim it was the governments fault for deregulating you. Especially if loaning money to people who can't afford to pay it back allows a politician to point at all the money going around and say "look how good the economy is doing". > Also, > the number of people who have such fortunes that they can merely flee the > country AND still life the high life is very small. In the long run, for such > people, this is a losing proposition. Surely, some will still get lucky and > escape, but that's true under any social system: a lucky few will get lucky. The > point is, though, if will lived in a free society, the problem would be far more > limited and self-limiting since there'd be no alternative avenue for these > people to get away with it. In a free society, too, fleeing the country > isn't likely to solve all your problems. If you have a bad reputation and > everyone else knows about it, then it's going to be fairly hard for you to turn > up somewhere else and expect them to be duped too. ? No need to?dupe them when you can simply pay them off. There is an old saying (dating back to ancient?Rome)?that "money has no provenance".?I think if Madoff had managed to escape to any number of countries without extradition treaty membership he would have lived like a king with his billions. And even if he *was* reviled in general, his heirs would have been far more respectable, despite their money coming from the same source. I am not suggesting this is right or proper, I am simply indulging in historically based cynicism. ? ?In my view, it's because of > moral hazards created by bailouts and such plus the attitude that regulation > works (it doesn't; it merely creates burdens for some and deludes most into > believing the world is safer because there's some regulation in place) that > people generally don't do the proper due dilegence on investments and the like. > It's the unintended consequences of all these policies that have led to the bad > outcomes. So you?think that there is no correlation between the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (Banking Act of 1933) in 1999 by the the Gramm?Leach?Bliley Act and the current global financial crisis? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act Of course, some of the policies probably don't intend to some > public good -- whatever that is -- but merely toward some private benefit at > public expense and then the policies are sold as supporting the public good. The > recent wave of bank and auto bailouts were all of this sort. The public was not > really helped in any way. Just some big executives and investors got to > redistribute their losses to everyone else. Some have even pointed out, since > this happens time and again, that the nature of all such regulations and > policies is merely to insure the elites always win out, regardless of the fact > that this causes periodic financial crises. ? Well then it seems a win-win situation for the elites. Win with deregulation and win with regulation. Of course the two can be be conflated when one passes legislation to deregulate something. I suppose that's why they are called elites. I expect after everything > calms down, in a few years, and all the new regulations are in place, we'll have > another crisis and this will again be blamed on free markets, more regulations > will be proposed, and the cycle will repeat. This does seem to be the nature of > things in this area and it's rare in history where the alternative course is > taken -- that of actually not bailing big investors, big banks, and big firms > out and that of allowing them just to fail... It's rare, but not unheard of. In > fact, the Panic of 1819 seems to have been a case of just that: the central bank > inflated, some people got really wealthy, then the whole thing collapsed and the > government did almost nothing to help them -- no bailouts, no new regulations, > though there was some delay of debt payment. The world didn't end, but quite a > few fat cats lost their fortunes. But titanosaurus was too big to fail! ? Stuart LaForge "What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight." - Joseph Joubert From pharos at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 10:47:35 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:47:35 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Free Music editor program Message-ID: This program might be of interest to the musicians on the list. You have 20 hours left to download the complete free version. MagicScore School is wonderful music notation and music writing software, offering the most advanced capabilities for music schools, students, teachers and music lovers. System Requirements: Windows 98/NT/2000/Me/XP/Vista/7 User comment: Excellent, and very unique software. I had installed this giveaway several years ago, and have not found a better or more powerful sheet music composer than this one. Screenshot: BillK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 15:03:55 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:03:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c21003250803s1b25493cv673b4440e72b0372@mail.gmail.com> On 24 March 2010 21:49, BillK wrote: > The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is > deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this > winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with > pesticides. > I think the truth is that they are living on the backs of dolphins. In fact, some researchers have found crop circles which can be deciphered to mean "Farewell, and thank you for all the nectar". :-D -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 15:13:28 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:13:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: <580930c21003250813j1a35ad2dr36743937f1cfa7f3@mail.gmail.com> On 24 March 2010 16:27, Dave Sill wrote: > "For humans of normal weight, Sohal strongly cautions against caloric > restriction. In a 2003 study, he and Forster found that caloric > restriction begun in older mice ? both in DBA and leaner C57 > individuals ? actually shortened life span." >From anedoctical experience I have it that the mildest caloric restriction (that is, not eating everytime everything you can, what used to be call "temperance") is probably better than the contrary in longevist term. Especially where the risk of famines is moderate to nil, so that bringing around some excess fat just-in-case does not contribute much to your life expectation. But whatever its effect might be, I am inclined to believe that the choice of what you eat and/or perhaps supplement is way more important for your health, weight control, and ultimately lifespan. -- Stefano Vaj From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 25 15:16:20 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:16:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some In-Reply-To: <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com><4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <6C2DB5F7C0B4496FA617368C40A8BF9B@DFC68LF1> Lee condescends: Natasha writes >>The term immortality is a misnomer. Immortality implies a No Exit >>syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life. >Sorry---did you mean Sartre? (I only ask because there is indeed a web page devoted to Jean Paul Satre, >and they do mean the same French writer who lived 1905-1980.) Yes, of course, and the well-known play is "No Exit". (I am now studying French, so I ought to have written Sartre.) >I don't follow the logic you're using at all Then I will gladly take you by the hand and see if I can help you move from one frame of thinking to a different frame of thinking. >Literally taken, *immortality* means "failure to die", i.e., to have some form of continued experience >that persists indefinitely over universe clock-time (though see [1]). My central issue is that for centuries the term immorality has had a deeply ingrained within the history of humankind on both personal and cultural levels. The fact that within a matter of decades, some people believe that the continuation of "personal existence(s)" beyond a physical/biological death is possible warrants a clear disassociation from the historical meaning of immortality. (see quote below) Just because we transhumanists believe in continued existence does not mean that the understanding and meaning, which has endowed the mass majority of humans for centuries, can be easily ignored. It seems propitious, to me anyway, to use a different term/phrasing or to aggressively redefine the word immortality. This does not skate away from the belief that we can live indefinitely. In fact, it grasps the central issue firmly and strongly and right smack in its face. Organisms in which no matter and energy are exchanged cease to exist in the material world. Yet throughout the world and throughout time, religious, spiritual, ritual, and tribal practices observe and experience death as a passage - a type of redemption from life or triumph over life. Regardless of the particular religious or secular view, purported universal beliefs suggest that death is an essential part of the life cycle, as in Taoism, and its occurrence, whether with or without an afterlife, gives full meaning to life . Despite ambiguity in anthropological recording of beliefs among groups of people over time, certain traces of similarities between the groups evidence a continuity in human understanding of death, and ways in which humans have attempted to cope with questions concerning the possible finality of death. For example, what is achieved by or realized in death? In his essay "The Soul and Death" Carl Jung writes ". the consensus (gun) gentium has decided views about death, unmistakably expressed in all the great religions of the world. . that the majority of these religions are complicated systems of preparation for death, so much so that life . actually has no significance except as a preparation for the ultimate goal of death." (Jung 1959, p.9) And that goal being one "in which the psyche reaches into obscurities far beyond the scope of our understanding." (p. 14) Looking over cultural beliefs this research touches briefly on the rituals of religious, spiritual and tribal practices, some of which views death as a transition, as stated by Carsten Korfmacher: "[o]ne popular criterion, associated with Plato, Descartes and a number of world religions, is that persons are immaterial souls or pure egos. On this view, persons have bodies only contingently, not necessarily; so they can live after bodily death." (Korfmacher 2006) One of the oldest peoples in the world, going back to perhaps 35,000 years, the San Bushmen of southern Africa , participated in a physically exhausting practice of transcending time. Here the Shaman performed a ritual dance, known as the Great Trance Dance, for the purpose of releasing and transporting their psyche into the spirit world in an out-of-body "half-death". This ritual was a transference of the Shamans' spirits into the world of the dead to harness spiritual powers a means to crossover into the spirit world and communicate with the dead, and also those were in the process of dying. In another time and location, approximately 2900 to 1800 BC, the ancient civilization of Sumerians believed that death was a necessary step and determined by the Gods. Not only was death necessary in the eyes of the Sumerians, it was thought of as a type of beginning which the gods have preserved for them. Yet, this beginning was actually the bodily descension into a dark and dismal hell-like underworld - the netherworld where the dead became immortal ghost ("Gidim") for eternity. This sense of death as a "beginning" is also found in Egyptian religious practices, as described in The Egyptian Book of the Dead . After physical death, the body was mummified and its or life force , continued on to an afterlife. Eventually the life force would need to be reunited with the physical body in order to become an immortal spirit. Because the body could not travel from the tomb to the afterlife, its personal identity , would journey from the physical body to the afterlife and join its life force. The notions of afterlife are also found in the beliefs of Christianity. In Genesis III, ur -humans Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and became mortal beings, bringing death into the world as a result of their sin. Yet this mortality is bodily. According to most interpretations of the Bible, Christians remain potentially immortal beings who may be resurrected as a new life in a reality known as heaven. For the Navajo, the Dine (people), in Arizona, peyote rituals of death and rebirth rites transform identity where one can begin anew - cleansing the spirit and developing greater insights in harmony. This ritual has value because at death, the Navajo believe the spirit will travel to other worlds beyond Earth. Actions in this world will hold deep consequences in the other worlds. (Vita-More 2008, 2-3) Even though we transhumanists consider immortality to reflect a state of continued life after physical/biological death in favor of a synthetic/artificial existence, that does not and cannot currently separate the term immortality from the external environment of transhumanism and which has deeply ingrained the notion of immortality as (1) having mystical, mythic or religious meaning; or (2) being in a perpetual state of stasis (no way out). >Indeed, I could understand that for some psychological, polemical, and political reasons the term is not preferred, >and not to be stressed. But it is far from being *any* kind of "misnomer" so far as I can see. Misnomer means "unsuitable" or "misleading". In order for it to be more in keeping with a transhumanist perspective, the word immortality needs to be aggressively redefined, in my view anyway. Or, let alone to live in its historical meaning. >>Transhumanist prefer using terms like radical life extension or >>superlongevity, etc. to suggest a continued state of existence beyond biological parameters. >Not all transhumanists prefer any particular kind of terminology. This may or may not be true. Regardless, folks can use whatever terms they want, even though it may not be helpful when trying to market living longer, curing disease, bio-synthetic bodies, and artificial bodies, virtual forms, and whole brain emulation as a viable alternative to death. >However, I heartily concur that immortality itself frequently becomes an obsession. One extremely stalwart and >forward thinking transhumanist, who everyone on this list has heard of, told me personally at one point many years >ago that if he knew for absolute certainty that at some future time he would die, then he would be indifferent to >continuing to live now. A forward thinker can also be sad or depressed. >I will go so far as to agree that we probably ought to avoid use of the term. Natasha From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 25 15:16:42 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:16:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Recall: immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some Message-ID: Natasha Vita-More would like to recall the message, "[ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some". -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 1229 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Mar 25 15:37:37 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:37:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some In-Reply-To: <62c14241003242110w12e928dcx1e0692c834f96a56@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com><4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com><4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> <62c14241003242110w12e928dcx1e0692c834f96a56@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <207309D8072D48578E0928BD22052734@DFC68LF1> I condescend - Mike writes: >>> The term immortality is a misnomer. ?Immortality implies a No Exit >>> syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life. >>Literally taken, *immortality* means "failure to die", i.e., to have >>some form of continued experience that persists indefinitely over >>universe clock-time (though see [1]). >I've watched too many movies to consider immortality to be anything short of *unable* to die. That's why I prefaced the anti-aging form of death avoidance to specifically rule out severe traumatic injury (like vaporizing oneself with a laser, being liquefied in a horrific chemical spill, or other gruesomely fantastic end)< >Even the "immortal" vampires can be killed. This is probably a psychological issue with the fact that humans want to imagine non-death, but the prospect of eternity is scary enough that we'd like to reserve a way out even for the bad guys if they're willing to repent. I digress...< Maybe my historical hand-waving is less significant than the issues of current representations. Natasha From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 15:40:28 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:40:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <62c14241003240944s63039f1ak3d3af4a58d7c2fb3@mail.gmail.com> References: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <4BAA1E07.5040203@infinitefaculty.org> <4141482F629C4B038356C1951F1F9577@DFC68LF1> <62c14241003240944s63039f1ak3d3af4a58d7c2fb3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003250840u50c5e473o37b206c30b1ca823@mail.gmail.com> On 24 March 2010 17:44, Mike Dougherty wrote: > This also supports my suspicion that maintaining health is a difficult > chore for a majority of our population. ?We know how to eat > healthfully, we frequently choose not to do so. The reason may simply be that we disrupt our spontaneous ethological self-regulation by assuming substances which we are not adapted to feed on, but have added or replaced our "natural" dietary habits simply because they are economically and demographically more effective for any given society. After Atkins, if anything, we should know that hi-carbo food, starting from the cereals and the like who are the basis of the nutrition of 95% plus of human beings, provoke addiction and tolerance in human beings - even though it may be perfectly healty for some insects. Little surprise then that we have accordingly to "fight" life-long battles against overweight, which indeed are a difficult and frustrating chore for many people. I assume that somebody trying to leave on coca leaves would be faced with the opposite problem... -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 15:47:15 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:47:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> Message-ID: <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> On 24 March 2010 17:40, spike wrote: > So now this is my thought experiment: if one became convinced that moderate > CR would slow the aging process 10 to 20 percent, and the only way you could > do moderate CR is to surgically switch off the taste sense, would you do it? What does "slowing the aging process" mean? If I were to get cryosuspended one day a week, or to travel at a relativist speed, indeed my aging process would be "slowed" for outsiders, but the real point would be to live *more*, not just *at a slower pace*, would it not? Now, the suspect exists that even if some life-extending effects were actually produced by CR, you would simply be trading duration of life against intensity... Would it really be such a big deal? -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 15:54:28 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:54:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003250854t5815bc9cyeb9a93e7bacb2cfa@mail.gmail.com> On 25 March 2010 05:09, Max More wrote: > "Slow Tuesday Night" by R.A. Lafferty (amusing) I love RAF, even though not much of its production is H+-relevant (see however his masterwork, Fourth Mansions) > "Border Guards" by Greg Egan (very good) My favourite Egan's novels are Schild's Ladder, Permutation City, Diaspora, in that order. -- Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 25 16:18:16 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:18:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <580930c21003250854t5815bc9cyeb9a93e7bacb2cfa@mail.gmail.com> References: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c21003250854t5815bc9cyeb9a93e7bacb2cfa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BAB8CC8.5090306@satx.rr.com> On 3/25/2010 10:54 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > My favourite Egan's novels are Schild's Ladder, Permutation City, > Diaspora, in that order. They are fine books, but I still feel fond of his first sf novel, QUARANTINE, which provides clever justification for one of his often rather affectless protagonists. Damien Broderick From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 16:22:31 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:22:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some In-Reply-To: <207309D8072D48578E0928BD22052734@DFC68LF1> References: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> <62c14241003242110w12e928dcx1e0692c834f96a56@mail.gmail.com> <207309D8072D48578E0928BD22052734@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <62c14241003250922v4f58752cw72711fdf5d3aa326@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > Maybe my historical hand-waving is less significant than the issues of > current representations. > Perhaps, but I enjoyed reading it. It's interesting to note that there are smart people on the internet* who rationally examine this topic (among others). * compared to the seemingly endless supply of nonsense-blog writers and "first!" commenters :) From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 25 16:28:58 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:28:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com><4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com><4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Stefano Vaj > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:47 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] The "real" world > > On 24 March 2010 17:40, spike wrote: > > So now this is my thought experiment: if one became convinced that > > moderate CR would slow the aging process 10 to 20 percent, and the > > only way you could do moderate CR is to surgically switch > off the taste sense, would you do it? > > What does "slowing the aging process" mean?...Stefano Vaj If CR slows aging process 20%, then it takes 6 yrs to gather the infirmities that one would ordinarily get in five. So if you would ordinarily have 30 yrs to live, then you get 36, assuming one is fifty at the start of the experiment. Here's where I am going with this: I am trying to figure out why CR apparently is somewhat less effective in life extension for modern humans than it is for other mammals. With those guys the delta is about 20 to 25 percentish, whereas I think with humans it is less than that, more like about 10 to 15. I have a theory on it: we modern humans kinda sorta do CR, even if we don't really think about it. Consider: the really high fat health disaster foods are available, but we don't eat them all that often: we don't pig out every day on Krispy Kreme donuts and twinkies, rather most of us don't. Those who do are easily identified. We work during the day, so we don't just eat all the time, even tho we could. Now as a thought experiment, imagine that we had *any* kind of food we wanted at any time, processed modern tech-food, and imagine that we did not know that there was any connection between eating and flab. If that were the case, we would pretty much all be really flabby. But we do know that we must eat at least somewhat sensibly, even those who mostly disregard the information all around us, perhaps at least a little hold it in check. Women especially already restrict the diet, in order to fit current fashion trends, and perhaps plenty of men do as well. And of course there are at least some restrictions because of food costs. So to some extent I would argue that we already do CR to some limited extent, so that more CR may help some, but not as much as it would if we were already doing none at all. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 16:44:32 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:44:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> References: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> Message-ID: <62c14241003250944t375dea94x1c3a12080f70cdbf@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 12:28 PM, spike wrote: > So to some extent I would argue that we already do CR to some limited > extent, so that more CR may help some, but not as much as it would if we > were already doing none at all. I wonder what "stress" a lab rat feels in control vs. CR diet experiments. Perhaps humans have other uncontrolled variables that make CR appear less advantageous by comparison. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 16:52:33 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:52:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <4BAB8CC8.5090306@satx.rr.com> References: <201003250410.o2P4AC4c015599@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c21003250854t5815bc9cyeb9a93e7bacb2cfa@mail.gmail.com> <4BAB8CC8.5090306@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003250952v7c28a207x95a8046b05632baf@mail.gmail.com> On 25 March 2010 17:18, Damien Broderick wrote: > They are fine books, but I still feel fond of his first sf novel, > QUARANTINE, which provides clever justification for one of his often rather > affectless protagonists. Yes, it's the "science" there, with its absurd (re)presentation of a "quantistic" world, which is intolerably flawed for me... -- Stefano Vaj From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 25 16:56:28 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:56:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to be in humans? Message-ID: <201003251656.o2PGufFV019818@andromeda.ziaspace.com> spike: >Here's where I am going with this: I am trying to figure out why CR >apparently is somewhat less effective in life extension for modern >humans than it is for other mammals. With those guys the delta Have you read Aubrey's thoughts on why calorie restriction is unlikely to extend human life spans by more than 2 or 3 years? See pages 28 to 30 of Ending Aging. His more detailed argument is in a paper that I haven't found online, except for the abstract: The Unfortunate Influence of the Weather on the Rate of Ageing: Why Human Caloric Restriction or Its Emulation May Only Extend Life Expectancy by 2-3 Years http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?doi=10.1159/000082192 Much research interest, and recently even commercial interest, has been predicated on the assumption that reasonably closely-related species - humans and mice, for example - should, in principle, respond to ageing-retarding interventions with an increase in maximum lifespan roughly proportional to their control lifespan (that without the intervention). Here, it is argued that the best-studied life-extending manipulations of mice are examples of a category that is highly unlikely to follow this rule, and more likely to exhibit only a similar absolute increase in maximum lifespan from one species to the next, independent of the species' control lifespan. That category - reduction in dietary calories or in the organism's ability to metabolize or sense them - is widely recognized to extend lifespan as an evolutionary adaptation to transient starvation in the wild, a situation which alters the organism's optimal partitioning of resources between maintenance and reproduction. What has been generally overlooked is that the extent of the evolutionary pressure to maintain adaptability to a given duration of starvation varies with the frequency of that duration, something which is - certainly for terrestrial animals and less directly for others - determined principally by the weather. The pattern of starvation that the weather imposes is suggested here to be of a sort that will tend to cause all terrestrial animals, even those as far apart phylogenetically as nematodes and mice, to possess the ability to live a similar maximum absolute (rather than proportional) amount longer when food is short than when it is plentiful. This generalization is strikingly in line with available data, leading (given the increasing implausibility of further extending human mean but not maximum lifespan in the industrialized world) to the biomedically and commercially sobering conclusion that interventions which manipulate caloric intake or its sensing are unlikely ever to confer more than 2 or 3 years' increase in human mean or maximum lifespan at the most. I though the following link would yield the whole paper, but it seems dead: http://www.sens.org/node/files/sens/weatherPP.pdf Max From spike66 at att.net Thu Mar 25 19:31:24 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:31:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to be in humans? In-Reply-To: <201003251656.o2PGufFV019818@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003251656.o2PGufFV019818@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4525AFD4E88241BB89A7F3B4F6F22E4C@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Max More > Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to > be in humans? > > spike: > > >Here's where I am going with this: I am trying to figure out why CR > >apparently is somewhat less effective in life extension for modern > >humans than it is for other mammals. With those guys the delta > > Have you read Aubrey's thoughts on why calorie restriction is > unlikely to extend human life spans by more than 2 or 3 > years? See pages 28 to 30 of Ending Aging. > ... > http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?doi=10.1159/ 000082192 > > ... Max Thanks Max! Ja I agree mostly with his conclusions. With humans there are so many confounding and conflicting factors, the whole model just gets too complicated to even estimate a benefit to CR. For instance, there are so many factors that may benefit one aspect of health at the expense of another, such as running. If one runs every day on pavement for instance, it is really good for the heart and lungs, but bad for the knees and hips. If one has access to one of those nifty modern rubber tracks, that helps the knees but implies one lives in the big city, increasing the risk that some prole will run over one with his Detroit or knife one for his cell phone. If one is extreme enough to do CR, one likely also does their risk management more carefully, sees the medics more often and is more likely to make expensive medical interventions to extend life. That being said, one of my most memorable exercises in high school was in dissecting a cat, and marvelling at how similar or analogous it was to humans. One can find a direct analogue to every human organ in the cat, and the tissue characteristics are remarkably similar. Cat lung tissue for instance really is a lot like a human lung tissue; rather we should say they sure look about the same, both at the macro level and under the microscope. Consequently, the conclusion is compelling that since CR works for mammals and other beasts, it should work for proles. The way I explain the apparent lower benefit is that we already reap some of the CR benefits by our lifestyles. Final note: brains are an example of an organ that works fundamentally differently in humans vs non-human beasts. I have personally witnessed what I think is an example of obsessive compulsive behavior in a cat. The details of this I will share if anyone expresses interest. If brains and other organs show similarities between humans and non-humans, and CR extends life in every beast in which it has been measured, it stands to reason it should work to some extent in humans. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 25 20:20:41 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:20:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Teach a Computer to Recognize Attractiveness in Women Message-ID: <2d6187671003251320ub004fc2t2e9f4c20197aaefd@mail.gmail.com> "The discovery is a step towards developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs such as face recognition technologies." http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6829 John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Mar 25 20:43:07 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:43:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to be in humans? In-Reply-To: <4525AFD4E88241BB89A7F3B4F6F22E4C@spike> References: <201003251656.o2PGufFV019818@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4525AFD4E88241BB89A7F3B4F6F22E4C@spike> Message-ID: <4BABCADB.80705@satx.rr.com> On 3/25/2010 2:31 PM, spike wrote: > Consequently, the conclusion is compelling that since CR works for mammals > and other beasts, it should work for proles. The way I explain the apparent > lower benefit is that we already reap some of the CR benefits by our > lifestyles. The usual argument is that we've already got most of the life-extending upregulating and downregulating genomic benefits as a result of selection. But I do like the weather cycle theory; it fits nicely as a subroutine in my Famous Crackpot Theory of 300 Year Cultural Cycles (given a workout in my book THEORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS, Deakin University Press, available just about nowhere). Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Thu Mar 25 22:08:00 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:08:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to be in humans? Message-ID: <201003252208.o2PM8Ain001039@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Unless I'm misinterpreting you, Damien, you are saying that Aubrey's argument as to why caloric restriction is unlikely to yield more than 2 to 3 years of life extension is stupid and crackpotish. I'm not committed either way on the matter, but his argument does seem fairly plausible to me and doesn't contradict existing data that I'm aware of. (We will have to wait another couple of decades for useful data on non-human hominids.) So, why exactly are you dismissing Aubrey's critiquie of caloric restriction so harshly? What are you counter-arguments? Thanks, Max >On 3/25/2010 2:31 PM, spike wrote: > > > Consequently, the conclusion is compelling that since CR works for > > mammals and other beasts, it should work for proles. The way I > > explain the apparent lower benefit is that we already reap some of the > > CR benefits by our lifestyles. > >The usual argument is that we've already got most of the life-extending >upregulating and downregulating genomic benefits as a result of >selection. But I do like the weather cycle theory; it fits nicely as a >subroutine in my Famous Crackpot Theory of 300 Year Cultural Cycles >(given a workout in my book THEORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS, Deakin >University Press, available just about nowhere). > >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 Thu Mar 25 22:21:25 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:21:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to be in humans? In-Reply-To: <201003252208.o2PM8Ain001039@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003252208.o2PM8Ain001039@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BABE1E5.7000106@satx.rr.com> On 3/25/2010 5:08 PM, Max More wrote: > Unless I'm misinterpreting you, Damien, You are. > you are saying that Aubrey's > argument as to why caloric restriction is unlikely to yield more than 2 > to 3 years of life extension is stupid and crackpotish. I'm saying (explicitly, and with capital letters, no less) that my own theory, in my own book, is Crackpot. I didn't mention stupid anywhere, probably because I don't think I'm stupid. Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 26 02:23:53 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:23:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How effective is caloric restriction likely to be inhumans? Message-ID: <201003260224.o2Q2O8P1018794@andromeda.ziaspace.com> >On 3/25/2010 5:08 PM, Max More wrote: > > > Unless I'm misinterpreting you, Damien, > >You are. Okay. But I still don't understand what you *were* saying. It would probably have made sense if I had your book. >I didn't mention stupid anywhere, No, that was my addition. >probably because I don't think I'm stupid. Well, no one else thinks you're stupid, so if *you* thought you were stupid... that would be stupid. (On looking again at my previous email, I see two typos in two lines, which makes me feel stupid, or at least sloppy.) Max From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 26 06:07:37 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:07:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some In-Reply-To: <6C2DB5F7C0B4496FA617368C40A8BF9B@DFC68LF1> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com><62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com><4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com><62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com><4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BAADF18.4030003@rawbw.com> <6C2DB5F7C0B4496FA617368C40A8BF9B@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <4BAC4F29.8070205@rawbw.com> Natasha writes > Lee condescends: Did not! :-) > Natasha writes > >>> The term immortality is a misnomer. Immortality implies a No Exit >>> syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life. >> >> Sorry---did you mean Sartre? (I only ask because there is indeed a web >> page devoted to Jean Paul Satre, and they do mean the same French writer >> who lived 1905-1980.) > > Yes, of course, and the well-known play is "No Exit". (I am now studying > French, so I ought to have written Sartre.) I apologize for the apparent condescension; in truth, I swear, I had some uncertainty. But after I found the same error still describing the same writer, I should have rephrased. But hell, people are into all sorts of things I never heard of, especially in niche movements like ours. (Furthermore, I had not heard of "No Exit". Please don't jump to the assumptions of condescension or arrogance.) >> I don't follow the logic you're using at all > > Then I will gladly take you by the hand and see > if I can help you move from one frame of thinking > to a different frame of thinking. Thanks! I like learning other ways of thinking---it amounts to having one's ideas criticized. >> Literally taken, *immortality* means "failure to die", >> i.e., to have some form of continued experience >> that persists indefinitely over universe clock-time (though see [1]). > > My central issue is that for centuries the term immorality has had a deeply > ingrained within the history of humankind on both personal and cultural > levels. The fact that within a matter of decades, some people believe that > the continuation of "personal existence(s)" beyond a physical/biological > death is possible warrants a clear disassociation from the historical > meaning of immortality. (see quote below) Yes, I can see why we would want such a dissociation. > Just because we transhumanists believe in continued existence does > not mean that the understanding and meaning, which has endowed the > mass majority of humans for centuries, can be easily ignored. It > seems propitious, to me anyway, to use a different term/phrasing That I understood from your previous message---and probably most of us have had an intuition that this was the purpose of stressing "life extension" and related phrases over the years. Even Ettinger ought to have titled his book differently. > This does not skate away from the belief that we can live indefinitely. In fact, it > grasps the central issue firmly and strongly and right smack in its face. Yes. Good. > Misnomer means "unsuitable" or "misleading" or just *wrong*. I ought to have read the former meanings instead of taking the latter---but you will still find that many people who aspire to exactly the same kind of life extension we do consider it to be a form of immortality, and will continue to do so. > In order for it to be more in keeping with a transhumanist perspective, > the word immortality needs to be aggressively redefined, in my view anyway. You'll *never* get away with it. No one ever succeeds in being able to direct the meaning that words have, or take on (I stand to be corrected). Best to avoid the term. > Or, let alone to live in its historical meaning. That can work. We can try avoiding the term most of the time. However, sometimes it's such a time/word saver that it's going to be very difficult to stop using it entirely. > > Not all transhumanists prefer any particular kind of terminology. > > This may or may not be true. Few sentences that employ the word "all" hold up to literal examination. I noticed 20 years ago or so that I had adopted the habit of hedging my sentences, merely by avoiding "all" and "every", usually in favor of "most" or "almost all". > Regardless, folks can use whatever terms they > want, even though it may not be helpful when trying to market living longer, > curing disease, bio-synthetic bodies, and artificial bodies, virtual forms, > and whole brain emulation as a viable alternative to death. Yes. Lee >> I heartily concur that immortality itself frequently becomes an >> obsession. One extremely stalwart and forward thinking transhumanist, >> who everyone on this list has heard of, told me personally at one >> point many years ago that if he knew for absolute certainty that >> at some future time he would die, then he would be indifferent to >> continuing to live now. > > A forward thinker can also be sad or depressed. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 26 06:16:44 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:16:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA84C3A.2090109@rawbw.com> <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BAC514C.20507@rawbw.com> Stefano writes > On 24 March 2010 17:40, spike wrote: >> So now this is my thought experiment: if one became convinced that moderate >> CR would slow the aging process 10 to 20 percent, and the only way you could >> do moderate CR is to surgically switch off the taste sense, would you do it? > > What does "slowing the aging process" mean? > > If I were to get cryosuspended one day a week, or to travel at a > relativist speed, indeed my aging process would be "slowed" for > outsiders, but the real point would be to live *more*, not just *at a > slower pace*, would it not? > > Now, the [suspicion] exists that even if some life-extending effects were > actually produced by CR, you would simply be trading duration of life > against intensity... > > Would it really be such a big deal? That would entirely depend on one's values, and also how well the cravings can be fought, both of which clearly vary a lot from person to person. In Spike's case, he'd mentioned that he simply didn't seem to have as much enjoyment of taste as others seemed to (if I did not misunderstand). Like I said, some live to eat---and a lot of folks are on this spectrum. I doubt if anyone on this list will demur from Spike's challenge, i.e., surrender life-that-goes-on-and-on-forever just so they can enjoy good food instead of mush. Lee From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Mar 26 07:33:45 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:03:45 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Free Music editor program In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc1003260033gc720b8dl53e717a83459d27e@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/25 BillK : > This program might be of interest to the musicians on the list. > > You have 20 hours left to download the complete free version. > > > > MagicScore School is wonderful music notation and music writing software, > offering the most advanced capabilities for music schools, students, > teachers and music lovers. > > System Requirements: Windows 98/NT/2000/Me/XP/Vista/7 > > User comment: > Excellent, and very unique software. I had installed this giveaway several > years ago, and have not found a better or more powerful sheet music composer > than this one. > > Screenshot: > > > > BillK Sibelius is the gold standard in this area. This one looks ok, a bit more simplistic, but still, a lot cheaper! I'm afraid I find it really difficult to get excited about temporarily free beer software though. It's the 90s type of free*. Meanwhile there's a lot in the open source space, some are supposed to be pretty good. My wife tells me that Lilypond is the one that all the free** music sites use as standard. Checking it out, it's based on TeX, and very much inside that philosophy; you write markup and it emits impeccable scores. I like the look of that, but I showed it to my wife and, paraphrasing, she said "wtf?". There are free** GUIs for lilypond around, like GNU Denemo, but they all look a little primitive. GUIs for these markup based tools are usually more trouble than they're worth, imo. * not free ** actually free -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Mar 26 08:07:49 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:37:49 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Data, Data Everywhere In-Reply-To: <201003231757.o2NHvjH2019764@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003231757.o2NHvjH2019764@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003260107m6a1d5006v8018ba2705caed91@mail.gmail.com> On 24 March 2010 04:27, Max More wrote: > Some here may be interested in an 8-part special report on the information > explosion in The Economist: > > Data, Data Everywhere > Kenneth Cukier > The Economist, Feb 25th 2010 > http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15557443 > http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=15557443 > > Max Good article Max. It took me a while to figure out where the rest of the 8 parts were: they appear to be accessible via a box of links over on the right. -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From sparge at gmail.com Fri Mar 26 10:54:35 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:54:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Data, Data Everywhere In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003260107m6a1d5006v8018ba2705caed91@mail.gmail.com> References: <201003231757.o2NHvjH2019764@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <710b78fc1003260107m6a1d5006v8018ba2705caed91@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 4:07 AM, Emlyn wrote: > > It took me a while to figure out where the rest of the 8 parts were: > they appear to be accessible via a box of links over on the right. Also sequentially via a "Next article" link at the bottom of each article. -Dave From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 26 13:58:43 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:58:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> References: <62c14241003230458u4cf36c02p171d133a88df1a15@mail.gmail.com> <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> Message-ID: <580930c21003260658n5d411f58sb5d4f4c333ce4a3b@mail.gmail.com> On 25 March 2010 17:28, spike wrote: >> What does "slowing the aging process" mean?...Stefano Vaj > > If CR slows aging process 20%, then it takes 6 yrs to gather the infirmities > that one would ordinarily get in five. ?So if you would ordinarily have 30 > yrs to live, then you get 36, assuming one is fifty at the start of the > experiment. That's crystal clear, but the sense of my question was: what is the point, if you slow down not just ageing, but everything else as well? Not implying that CR does just that. But I took intermittent cryosuspensions or life at a relativistic speed as examples that not all method to "slow the ageing process" are equal... -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Fri Mar 26 14:18:43 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:18:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: <580930c21003260658n5d411f58sb5d4f4c333ce4a3b@mail.gmail.com> References: <4BA8EB6B.6010508@rawbw.com> <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> <580930c21003260658n5d411f58sb5d4f4c333ce4a3b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/26/10, Stefano Vaj wrote: > That's crystal clear, but the sense of my question was: what is the > point, if you slow down not just ageing, but everything else as well? > > Not implying that CR does just that. > > But I took intermittent cryosuspensions or life at a relativistic > speed as examples that not all method to "slow the ageing process" are > equal... > > Intermittent cryosuspension could be useful to bypass the ten years of depression (as suggested by Onion magazine). Though I think I would like a safety check that someone would wake me up if something major needed my attention. ;) BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 26 16:40:54 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:40:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The "real" world In-Reply-To: References: <62c14241003231611l40724f7fg15dc76891917150e@mail.gmail.com> <4BA9880D.2040403@rawbw.com> <4BA9F668.4080802@rawbw.com> <38CDD07F5D3C46E8AF0FB8267E4F2732@spike> <580930c21003250847p3506ff77r5b41ab656cf9205c@mail.gmail.com> <4552A37893A84832814E6370DAA8DE6F@spike> <580930c21003260658n5d411f58sb5d4f4c333ce4a3b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003260940h7955356bldc93cf60d9d60318@mail.gmail.com> On 26 March 2010 15:18, BillK wrote: > Intermittent cryosuspension could be useful to bypass the ten years of > depression (as suggested by Onion magazine). Of economic depression, possibly. But if you are personally depressed, I assume you can only bet a price reduction of Prozac... :-D -- Stefano Vaj From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 27 05:31:52 2010 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:31:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Don't be evil In-Reply-To: <572119.28940.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <572119.28940.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4BAD9848.3080704@rawbw.com> The Avantguardian wrote: > [Dan wrote] >> >> The point is, in a free society, you don't have to deal with psychopathic >> businessmen. If you know you're not going to be bailed out at taxpayers' expense >> (or via some other government program, such as credit expansion), then you'll >> likely take much more care in selecting who to hand your money to. > > But of course, the solution is to lobby for deregulation of banking so > that you don't have to care who you hand your money to because you can > do so and be governmentally insured. Since at the end of the day, you > can claim it was the government's fault for deregulating you. That's exactly what the finance quants want to do: deregulate one-half of the problem, so that they can reap massive rewards by not having to try as hard to circumvent the system. The answer is not to deregulate half the system but to slowly extricate the government entirely. Here is analogy that makes the point: Instead of a $100,000 government guarantee to every individual depositor---which creates a vast potential for mischief, imagine a 100,000 volt potential difference between a wire and ground, with only some reasonably good insulation (regulation) preventing a discharge. Now in the case of merely physical systems, which are not wily and creative, you have a chance that this can reach steady- state, at least for a rather long term. But if the (now $250,000) potential difference is being attacked by the cleverest people that your society can produce, there is nothing, really, that will prevent an ultimate discharge. (It's no wonder that the very brightest have deserted the sciences for high finance. What an awful and destructive shame.) http://www.amazon.com/Quants-Whizzes-Conquered-Street-Destroyed/dp/0307453375 So, you are right. Yet you did not address Dan's point directly, if you go back and read what he said. > Especially if loaning money to people who can't afford to > pay it back allows a politician to point at all the money > going around and say "look how good the economy is doing". Right, though you left out the part where they also say, "and look how many poor people we are helping with our new laws making it possible for them to buy homes, and forcing those mean and nasty bankers to be nicer." >> In my view, it's because of >> moral hazards created by bailouts and such plus the attitude that regulation >> works (it doesn't; it merely creates burdens for some and deludes most into >> believing the world is safer because there's some regulation in place) that >> people generally don't do the proper due diligence on investments and the like. >> It's the unintended consequences of all these policies that have led to the bad >> outcomes. > > So you think that there is no correlation between the repeal > of the Glass-Steagall Act (Banking Act of 1933) in 1999 by > the the Gramm?Leach?Bliley Act and the current global financial > crisis? > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act I don't know about Dan, but I agree with you that this was a contributing factor, but a factor that merely accelerated what had to happen anyway, once, as you say, a situation is created wherein a vast amount of money is allocated to people (both poor and rich) who will not be able to pay it back (after the interest rates rise, or after their highly profitable games of "hot potato" come to an end). >> Of course, some of the policies probably don't intend to some >> public good -- whatever that is -- but merely toward some private benefit at >> public expense and then the policies are sold as supporting the public good. The >> recent wave of bank and auto bailouts were all of this sort. The public was not >> really helped in any way. Just some big executives and investors got to >> redistribute their losses to everyone else. Some have even pointed out, since >> this happens time and again, that the nature of all such regulations and >> policies is merely to insure the elites always win out, regardless of the fact >> that this causes periodic financial crises. > > Well then it seems a win-win situation for the elites. Win with deregulation > and win with regulation. You got it. So long as huge amounts of money are paid to poor people who'll not be able to pay it back, and are in effect given (created) anew with each "advance" of financial innovation, and so long as the government stands ready to guarantee all these---from Fannie Mae to Freddy Mac, from bailouts of big loser banks to individual depositors who need show no discretion, but who just give their money to whatever FDIC backed risk-taking bank, indeed those financial elites always win. Now if the government were to just stop supporting these disastrous activities, there would be no more loans to people who won't be able to pay them back, because the (free) bankers would be too wary. There would be no Freddie or Fanny to be able to step in, because there'd be no government guarantees backing them. There would be no government bailouts, so the quants would be much more cautious, and have take their lickings when their schemes fail. And finally, there would be no huge $250,000 guaranteed potential for each individual depositor, so that they too would have incentive to bank only with reliable firms having long, good, and very solid reputations. If we don't slowly unwind from all this, a huge huge crash of practically everything, all around the world, becomes just a matter of time. Lee From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 27 16:26:48 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:26:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hang gliding spot Message-ID: If anyone here ever wants to take up hang gliding, look at this site and scroll down to photo number 9. I recognized it as a picnic area I used to frequent many years ago, a cliff that overlooks the Owens Valley in southern Taxifornia, about an hour and a half north of the town of Ridgecrest: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/puppies-eating-ice-cream/ That where the dog is standing is about 1000 meters above the valley floor way down there. On a good hot updraft day, one can take off from there and soar all afternoon. The takeoff spot is actually a little to the right of the right edge of this photo, and it isn't really a cliff exactly. The ground drops away at about pi/4 radians from horizontal, so it is functionally a cliff ideally suited for the purposes of hang gliding but not for suicide, depending on how one looks at hang gliding. And now back to our regular programming. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sat Mar 27 17:40:10 2010 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:40:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] hang gliding spot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Spike, you didn't do that just to make us OD on puppy cuteness, did you? -Dave From max at maxmore.com Sat Mar 27 18:38:18 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:38:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? Message-ID: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Damien wrote: >Mostly good choices. DARWINIA is interesting, but look for SPIN as well; >it's brilliant. I've moved it up my "to read" list. Darwinia took a while to get into, but then I started enjoying it a lot. I found the ending a little disappointing but, in general, liked Wilson's style of writing. >Peter Watts's BLINDSIGHT is perhaps the best book of the >last decade. Thanks for the recommendation. Now own a copy and have moved it up to reading position #6. >Swanwick's JACK FAUST. The TITAN trilogy is worth >perservering with, although it has its long dull stretches. Have you >tried Stan Robinson's RED, GREEN, BLUE MARS trilogy? (You might find the >political ethos disagreeable.) No, I haven't. I remember considering that some time ago, but was put off by reviews. >Charlie's MERCHANT PRINCES series is lots >of fun, although it loses focus as it goes on. I might get to that series after catching up with some of his others, starting with Iron Sunrise and then Accelerando and Glasshouse. > Alas, sf has been mostly >replaced by vast fatasies (sic), which are mostly not nearly as >interesting as Stross's faux-fantasies-sf-in-disguise. Ha! Did you just coin that? A quick google didn't reveal previous use in that sense. It's not just fatasies that I avoid, I mostly avoid excessively long SF of any kind. That's why I have yet to read (no doubt good or excellent) novels by Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon -- 1168 pages, argh!; Anathem -- 1008). To Stefano (I think): Yes, I also read a few Poul Anderson books. Wasn't one of my top authors though. Way back then, in addition to the authors I think I already mentioned, I did read a lot of Isaac Asimov (though mostly only particularly enjoyed his robot stories), and a fair bit of Clifford D. Simak, and... lots of others. QUESTION (to Damien, especially, but to other long-time SF readers): Mentioning Asimov reminds me of a parody essay(?)/story(?) that I'm pretty sure was written by John Sladek, in which various well know SF authors names are amusingly skewed, so that, for instance, Isaac Asimov becomes (something like) I Click As I Move. Can anyone tell me what book/article/collection I'm thinking of? Max From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 27 19:05:41 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 19:05:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Max More wrote: > QUESTION (to Damien, especially, but to other long-time SF readers): > Mentioning Asimov reminds me of a parody essay(?)/story(?) that I'm pretty > sure was written by John Sladek, in which various well know SF authors names > are amusingly skewed, so that, for instance, Isaac Asimov becomes (something > like) I Click As I Move. Can anyone tell me what book/article/collection I'm > thinking of? > > >From Wikipedia: John Sladek's parodic short story "Broot Force" (supposedly written by "I-Click As-I-Move") concerns a group of Asimov-style robots whose actions are constrained by the "Three Laws of Robish", which are "coincidentally" identical to Asimov's laws. The robots in Sladek's story all manage to find logical loopholes in the Three Laws, usually with bloody results. Sladek later wrote a novel, Tik-Tok (1983), in which a robot discovers that his so-called "asimov circuits" are not restraining his behavior at all, making him in effect a sociopath; he comes to doubt whether "asimov circuits" are even technically possible, deciding that they are simply a pseudo-religious belief held by robots. BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 27 19:12:01 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:12:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fatasies In-Reply-To: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BAE5881.7030201@satx.rr.com> On 3/27/2010 1:38 PM, Max More wrote: >> Alas, sf has been mostly >> replaced by vast fatasies (sic), which are mostly not nearly as >> interesting as Stross's faux-fantasies-sf-in-disguise. > Ha! Did you just coin that? Alas, no. British sf writer and lit prof Adam Roberts, probably on his blog. (My impression, which might be wrong, is that most of the US fatasy writers are themselves lumberingly obese--although the Aussie women fatasy scribblers tend to be slenderish and attractive. Dunno why.)** Damien Broderick ** e.g.: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 27 19:21:42 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 19:21:42 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Max More wrote: > QUESTION (to Damien, especially, but to other long-time SF readers): > Mentioning Asimov reminds me of a parody essay(?)/story(?) that I'm pretty > sure was written by John Sladek, in which various well know SF authors names > are amusingly skewed, so that, for instance, Isaac Asimov becomes (something > like) I Click As I Move. Can anyone tell me what book/article/collection I'm > thinking of? > > And, if you're interested in SF parody, I've just found this nice article Set Phasers to 'Spoof' SFX magazine column by David Langford: issue #40, July 1998 in which he comments: "I've always wanted to assemble a collection of Best SF Parodies, but editors flee screaming at the thought of marketing a book which actually requires readers to know about other books". BillK From max at maxmore.com Sat Mar 27 19:21:41 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:21:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? Message-ID: <201003271921.o2RJLnD4024714@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Thanks Bill. I seem to remember, though, that this was just one of several parodies of SF writers by Sladek. Unfortunately, most of his work is hard to find. I did read Tik-Tok, and also Roderick (now in a new edition, I see). Can't tell, from Wikipedia or Amazon, where "Broot Force" (and possibly the other stories) appear. Amazon doesn't say what's inside his collections. Max >On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Max More wrote: > > QUESTION (to Damien, especially, but to other long-time SF readers): > > Mentioning Asimov reminds me of a parody essay(?)/story(?) that I'm > > pretty sure was written by John Sladek, in which various well know SF > > authors names are amusingly skewed, so that, for instance, Isaac > > Asimov becomes (something > > like) I Click As I Move. Can anyone tell me what > book/article/collection I'm > > thinking of? > > > > > > >From Wikipedia: > >John Sladek's parodic short story "Broot Force" (supposedly written >by "I-Click As-I-Move") concerns a group of Asimov-style robots >whose actions are constrained by the "Three Laws of Robish", which >are "coincidentally" identical to Asimov's laws. The robots in >Sladek's story all manage to find logical loopholes in the Three >Laws, usually with bloody results. Sladek later wrote a novel, >Tik-Tok (1983), in which a robot discovers that his so-called >"asimov circuits" are not restraining his behavior at all, making >him in effect a sociopath; he comes to doubt whether "asimov >circuits" are even technically possible, deciding that they are >simply a pseudo-religious belief held by robots. > > > >BillK >_______________________________________________ >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 27 19:24:20 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:24:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BAE5B64.2090509@satx.rr.com> On 3/27/2010 2:05 PM, BillK quoth: > The robots in Sladek's > story all manage to find logical loopholes in the Three Laws, usually > with bloody results. Sladek later wrote a novel, Tik-Tok (1983), in > which a robot discovers that his so-called "asimov circuits" are not > restraining his behavior at all, making him in effect a sociopath; he > comes to doubt whether "asimov circuits" are even technically > possible, deciding that they are simply a pseudo-religious belief held > by robots. Indeed. In my novella "The Ballad of Bowsprit Bear's Stead" (hint: reprinted in UNCLE BONES), my robots Marx and Smith describe their own Three Laws: ======== "Tell me, are you robots hard-wired to tell the truth?" "Categorically," Marx affirmed stoutly. "If you'll forgive me, sir," Smith added, "that was a rather pointless exchange. You've run up against the paradox of the Cretan Liar, sir. If Marx is a liar, how can you trust a word he says?" "Quite so." I cudgeled my brains. Stepping closer, I discerned a line of print stamped into their looming hulls, one in English, one in Mandarin. Illiterate in either, I asked Roger, "Is that the statutory warrant that these robots are programmed to obey the Three Laws? Answer yes or no." "Yes." With a note of resonant ritual, Marx said: "We avow our adherence to the Three Laws of Microprocessors." "First," said Smith, " 'Thou shalt love mankind with thy whole mind and thy whole heart and thy whole soul.' " "Second," cried Marx, " 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' " "Third," finished Smith, clashing its heels together in a crisp salute, " 'Thou shalt love thyself.' " I was shaken; I'd imagined the behemoths under the control of a more stringent algorithm than that. "It seems rather open to interpretation." "Ethics is like that," Marx said. "It's a G?del problem, like the Cretan Liar. Don't fret, though, sir. We're situationalists, but we opt from a rather comprehensive metaphysical consensus." =============== I rather like to think that Eliezer's AIs will follow similar situationalist guidance. Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Sat Mar 27 19:42:56 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:42:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? Message-ID: <201003271943.o2RJhEER021898@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Excellent. That column seems to answer my question: Sladek's parody appears in his The Steam-Driven Boy (which is available, but pricey). Langford (who I heard speak in the 80s when he spoke to the Oxford SF group, OUSFG) also mentions an *early* favorite of mine -- E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series. I still remember reading a passage from Children of the Lens in English class (I was maybe 11 at the time). A marvelous passage, in my mind, depicting someone ascending through higher levels of thought. Neither the teacher nor the rest of the class seemed to appreciate it. Max >And, if you're interested in SF parody, I've just found this nice article > > >Set Phasers to 'Spoof' >SFX magazine column by David Langford: issue #40, July 1998 From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 27 22:48:20 2010 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:48:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c21003271548p58f07727oe53a6bbf4318563e@mail.gmail.com> On 27 March 2010 19:38, Max More wrote: > I might get to that series after catching up with some of his others, > starting with Iron Sunrise and then Accelerando and Glasshouse. Accelerando is probably a must, owing to its nature of patchwork of parasited transhumanist concepts in narrative form, even though it is far from a masterwork, or for that a matter a very consistent and entertaining novel, IMHO. -- Stefano Vaj From max at maxmore.com Sun Mar 28 03:11:14 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:11:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] South Park -- cryonics plus Richard Dawkins Message-ID: <201003280311.o2S3BPhi013834@andromeda.ziaspace.com> South Park, season 10, episode 12: Go God Go (concluded in episode 13). http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1012 http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1013 (Aired November 2006.) Cartman tries to cryogenically freeze himself so that he doesn't have to wait for the new Nintendo machine, and Ms. Garrison falls for the new Evolution teacher (Richard Dawkins) and becomes an Atheist. Cartman ends up in the year 2546, where the United Atheist Alliance are at war with the Allied Atheist Alliance (and the Sea Otters) over their differing versions of the scientific truth. Kids of the future make crank calls to the past using the Crank Prank Timephone. If you have never watched South Park, I'm not sure what you'll make of this. If you like SP, you shouldn't miss this episode. Max From giulio at gmail.com Sun Mar 28 08:39:56 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:39:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: Darwinia is great, I liked it a lot. I am now reading Daemon http://www.thedaemon.com/ and Breakpoint http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0703.html?printable=1 Both very good and interesting from a transhumanost PoV. On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 8:38 PM, Max More wrote: > Damien wrote: > >> Mostly good choices. DARWINIA is interesting, but look for SPIN as well; >> it's brilliant. > > I've moved it up my "to read" list. Darwinia took a while to get into, but > then I started enjoying it a lot. I found the ending a little disappointing > but, in general, liked Wilson's style of writing. > >> Peter Watts's BLINDSIGHT is perhaps the best book of the >> last decade. > > Thanks for the recommendation. Now own a copy and have moved it up to > reading position #6. > >> Swanwick's JACK FAUST. The TITAN trilogy is worth >> perservering with, although it has its long dull stretches. Have you >> tried Stan Robinson's RED, GREEN, BLUE MARS trilogy? (You might find the >> political ethos disagreeable.) > > No, I haven't. I remember considering that some time ago, but was put off by > reviews. > >> Charlie's MERCHANT PRINCES series is lots >> of fun, although it loses focus as it goes on. > > I might get to that series after catching up with some of his others, > starting with Iron Sunrise and then Accelerando and Glasshouse. > >> ?Alas, sf has been mostly >> replaced by vast fatasies (sic), which are mostly not nearly as >> interesting as Stross's faux-fantasies-sf-in-disguise. > > Ha! Did you just coin that? A quick google didn't reveal previous use in > that sense. It's not just fatasies that I avoid, I mostly avoid excessively > long SF of any kind. That's why I have yet to read (no doubt good or > excellent) novels by Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon -- 1168 pages, argh!; > Anathem -- 1008). > > To Stefano (I think): Yes, I also read a few Poul Anderson books. Wasn't one > of my top authors though. Way back then, in addition to the authors I think > I already mentioned, I did read a lot of Isaac Asimov (though mostly only > particularly enjoyed his robot stories), and a fair bit of Clifford D. > Simak, and... lots of others. > > QUESTION (to Damien, especially, but to other long-time SF readers): > Mentioning Asimov reminds me of a parody essay(?)/story(?) that I'm pretty > sure was written by John Sladek, in which various well know SF authors names > are amusingly skewed, so that, for instance, Isaac Asimov becomes (something > like) I Click As I Move. Can anyone tell me what book/article/collection I'm > thinking of? > > Max > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From giulio at gmail.com Sun Mar 28 08:43:30 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:43:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: <580930c21003271548p58f07727oe53a6bbf4318563e@mail.gmail.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c21003271548p58f07727oe53a6bbf4318563e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I loved Accelerando, but I found Glasshouse boring. Halting State is very interesting: it is not a grand transhumanist vision but a good technical and sociological extrapolation of current trends to circa 2020, especially interesting for computer professionals. Also, it is the only good book I ever read which is written in second person ("you say this, you do this"), which is very difficult but Stross achieves a good result. On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 27 March 2010 19:38, Max More wrote: >> I might get to that series after catching up with some of his others, >> starting with Iron Sunrise and then Accelerando and Glasshouse. > > Accelerando is probably a must, owing to its nature of patchwork of > parasited transhumanist concepts in narrative form, even though it is > far from a masterwork, or for that a matter a very consistent and > entertaining novel, IMHO. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Mar 29 12:22:15 2010 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 05:22:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Send in the dwarfs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <208781.57150.qm@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I don't see canned monkeys in space as being any kind of a solution, except perhaps as a sop to those people who insist on remaining biological (and why wouldn't they be happy with remaining on earth in that case?). The most realistic scenario seems to me to be the idea of sending out robotic probes equipped with the means of constructing routers and 'computronium' habitats for uploads. Then the brown dwarfs become destinations, not just convenient slingshot-providers. How much more room in the galaxy is there when you're talking about housing entire civilisations inside bean-can-sized habitats instead of massive constructs with biological support systems? If you've read Greg Egan's 'Incandescence', there's a pretty good description of a galaxy-spanning megacivilisation with light-speed travel, that could exist right now, and we'd have no clue about it. Maybe there is no Fermi Paradox, no Great Filter, and the place is swarming with people. The sky wouldn't look any different, and we'd stand an extremely slim chance of accidentally intercepting (and decoding) any signals between nodes. We already know about the problems with Jupiter brains etc., and it could be that they're just not worth doing. Get routers up there, develop uploading tech., a Gamma-ray internet, and we might find there are more alien civilisations than we can shake a stick at, and room for plenty more. Ben Zaiboc From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Mar 29 15:39:50 2010 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:39:50 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Send in the dwarfs. In-Reply-To: <208781.57150.qm@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <208781.57150.qm@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mar 29, 2010, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Maybe there is no Fermi Paradox, no Great Filter, and the place is swarming with people. The sky wouldn't look any different No the sky would look very different, for one thing there would be much more infrared and radio waves and much less visible light, ultraviolet, and X rays because civilizations would be using low entropy high frequency electromagnetic radiation to do work and giving off high entropy low frequency waste radiation; in short if the universe is swarming with intelligence the universe should look engineered. It doesn't. Either the place is not swarming with people or for some unknown reason intelligence can't build things at large scales. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Mar 29 18:01:16 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:01:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers Message-ID: <3D09688889AB4FFCAA5C2DFF2DEAF65A@spike> There was a recent Sierra Club activity wherein the proles were urged to turn out all the lights at 830 pm local time: http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2009/03/turn-your-lights-out-for-ear th-hour-march-28-830-pm.html This brought back pleasant memories of a game my wife and I used to play often on Saturday evenings before my son was born. We called it Pioneers, or later, after reading Willa Cather, renamed Ooohhh Pioneers. To help our European friends understand, I offer a concise history of the US. In 1849, gold was discovered in Taxifornia, resulting in bands of rapacious white people charging across the plains from the American east coast, destroying everything in their path like swarms of locusts. My wife and I wished to emulate these pioneers by turning off or not using any technology that would have been unavailable to 1850s proles. So, everything that uses electricity, off. No phone, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury. Young childless couple. What do you suppose happened next? In all those Ooooohhh Pioneers games, it never failed. We haven't played since Isaac was born, but the Lights Out Saturday Night brought back fond memories. Interestingly, this would be a perfect example of a principle I call the Law of Unintended But Easily Foreseen Ultimate Consequences, or LUBEFUC. Half hour after those lights go out, do let me assure you, the outcome is as foreseeable as the sunrise. The couple is desperate, wildly pawing at each other in the darkness, wardrobe malfunctions occur, birth control devices will be difficult to locate and utilize because the damn lights are out. Result: nine months hence, right around Christmas of 2010, a number of little FUCs will come into being. The Sierra Club reminds the participants to not light candles, for one candle is twenty times worse for the environment than a single light bulb. But they fail to calculate or even estimate how destructive for the environment is the birth of a single little FUC, especially a modern white prosperous video-game playing beef-devouring prole. They fail to calculate or even estimate the impact on a young environmentally conscious couple who will be missing in action for years if not decades, from their former activity, immediately upon the birth of their little FUC. Environmental activism will be pushed waaaaaay down on their list of priorities, which will suddenly have a large number of new, expensive and urgent line items. Do let me calmly assure you on this point. The Lights Out For the Earth Hour exercise is perhaps the most environmentally destructive activity ever dreamed up by any organization. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Mar 29 21:28:08 2010 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:28:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Hyperagency and Hope talk online Message-ID: <201003292128.o2TLSOw9012121@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I found out recently that a talk I gave to the Metanexus Institute conference in 2009 is available online: "Hyperagency and Hope: Critiquing Human Limitationism" http://www.vimeo.com/9860229 (It's about 16 minutes.) Apart from my talk, this part of the day included Natasha Vita-More and Aubrey de Grey, as well as the Metanexus Institute's Hava Tirosh Samuelson. The panel discussion was especially interesting and productive -- but is not yet online. After our talks, I was pleasantly surprised by the generally positive response to transhumanism from the audience (who seemed to be of numerous religions and humanist views). Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher The Proactionary Project Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 29 21:54:15 2010 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:54:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Hyperagency and Hope talk online In-Reply-To: <201003292128.o2TLSOw9012121@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003292128.o2TLSOw9012121@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <4BB12187.6000303@satx.rr.com> On 3/29/2010 4:28 PM, Max More wrote: > I found out recently that a talk I gave to the Metanexus Institute > conference in 2009 is available online: > > "Hyperagency and Hope: Critiquing Human Limitationism" > http://www.vimeo.com/9860229 Excellent talk! From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Mar 29 23:44:24 2010 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:14:24 +1030 Subject: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers In-Reply-To: <3D09688889AB4FFCAA5C2DFF2DEAF65A@spike> References: <3D09688889AB4FFCAA5C2DFF2DEAF65A@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc1003291644w41e6bbdav2b0d959c693099a2@mail.gmail.com> 2010/3/30 spike : > The Lights Out For the Earth Hour exercise is perhaps the most > environmentally destructive activity ever dreamed up by any organization. > > spike lol Spike. No doubt many of those involved would sympathise with your reasoning (and so hotly deny an impending baby boom). Me, I'm pretty people are the super goal, and so grumbling about their environmental impact is missing the point; more people == better (but it is a good idea to figure out how to more or less maintain standards of living while the population grows, of course). How do you expect to get a decent borg cube going with a measly 6 billion people, after all? -- Emlyn http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 00:44:51 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:44:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What SF do you plan to read next? In-Reply-To: References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c21003271548p58f07727oe53a6bbf4318563e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003291744lca79f1dica7f5fc171ec83ff@mail.gmail.com> I read Tik-Tok in my early twenties (I think?) and loved it. I view Bender, the rascally robot from Futurama, as a sort of pop culture descendant of that literary creation. But of course Bender is much better behaved... John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 01:00:11 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:00:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fatasies In-Reply-To: <4BAE5881.7030201@satx.rr.com> References: <201003271838.o2RIcXav016823@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4BAE5881.7030201@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003291800m4a4d46cj3fdc101c6544fdae@mail.gmail.com> Damien wrote: (My impression, which might be wrong, is that most of the US fatasy writers are themselves lumberingly obese--although the Aussie women fatasy scribblers tend to be slenderish and attractive. Dunno why.)** >>> Damien, shame on you for your very politically incorrect case of "lookism!" lol I will say that this would make for an interesting $200,000 academic grant proposal... ; ) But I have noticed how many female fantasy authors are on the big and homely side (including some Aussies). One reason transhumanism attracts me is that I want to see these women transformed through science (and their book royalties) into the types of heroines they write about in their mega-long fantasy series. And then they can be wooed by their no longer outwardly nerdy male fans who have been modded out to look like the guys on the covers of historical romance novels! It will then be a much happier world... John : ) P.S. When I met mega-selling author Heather Graham at the WHC in SLC, she told me for a fun (and eye-opening) time I should attend the Romance Writers of America Annual Conference. And for ease of publishing, she encouraged me to make my first novel a romance! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 01:19:57 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:19:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Hyperagency and Hope talk online In-Reply-To: <201003292128.o2TLSOw9012121@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201003292128.o2TLSOw9012121@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187671003291819n72ef58bat996816ebf5cc8d1f@mail.gmail.com> > > Max More wrote: > Apart from my talk, this part of the day included Natasha Vita-More and > Aubrey de Grey, as well as the Metanexus Institute's Hava Tirosh Samuelson. > The panel discussion was especially interesting and productive -- but is not > yet online. > I was there at ASU (a big shout out to you and Natasha!) and was very impressed at how well the two of you expounded on transhumanism. But I really hope the panel discussion you mentioned gets put online (and soon!). Professor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson's extremely emotional and spirited defense of her views and beliefs (which she seemed to perceive as being under attack from transhumanism) was deeply touching for me. I think everyone on this email list needs to watch the footage to gain greater sensitivity regarding how others may react to transhumanism. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 30 03:04:37 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:04:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers In-Reply-To: <710b78fc1003291644w41e6bbdav2b0d959c693099a2@mail.gmail.com> References: <3D09688889AB4FFCAA5C2DFF2DEAF65A@spike> <710b78fc1003291644w41e6bbdav2b0d959c693099a2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <60C4E0A756074154BF2F8A92C8CFACCA@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn > Subject: Re: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers > > 2010/3/30 spike : > > The Lights Out For the Earth Hour exercise is perhaps the most > > environmentally destructive activity ever dreamed up by any > organization. > > > > spike > > lol Spike. > > No doubt many of those involved would sympathise with your > reasoning (and so hotly deny an impending baby boom)... There is something else too. We moderns have a wildly high level of sensory input constantly during the time we are awake: we play video games with the TV playing in the background, possibly while reading email. We live in a contantly frenetic information environment, and all that stuff relies on electricity. Willa Cather alluded to one of the big challenges of the pioneer life: the long stretches of crushing, oppressive boredom. We just have no idea. I challenge you: turn off everything, any night, just for a while. See how long it takes you to crumble in a whimpering heap under the non-stress of sudden information vacuum. Do try it. For just half an hour, or 15 minutes. Do. Get a large number of people doing that and I can calmly assure you the result will be fucking. I recognize that the previous sentence sounds like it is missing a word at the end, but this is one of those cases where the term is used not as the universal adjective but rather in the more literal sense. Naked twister time. Given a large enough number, and if even a very small fraction will result in an unexpected pregnancy, and some fraction of those will choose to go to term. If even one extra birth occurs per million participants, the environmental impact will far outweigh the savings of a million people turning off electricity for an hour. > ...How do you expect to get a decent borg cube going > with a measly 6 billion people, after all? Emlyn I expect the borg will be spherical, but I get your drift. I too agree that people are both the problem and the solution, but mostly the solution. spike From giulio at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 10:48:48 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:48:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Apocalyptic AI - book presentation and discussion in Second Life, Tuesday March 30, 10am PST In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Reminder: today March 30, 10am PST, 1pm EST, 7pm Continental EU, 6pm UK SLURL and info here http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/apocalyptic-ai-book-presentation-and.html > Oxford University Press - Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in > Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, by Robert M. > Geraci. > > See my review of this excellent book. Robert has done a lot of field > reconnaissance work behind transhumanist lines in Second Life. The > book has a full report of Robert's field work and his interpretation > of the spirit of transhumanism, and the spirit of virtual worlds. This > book has started many interesting (and often vigorous) discussions in > both transhumanist and Second Life interest groups. > > Robert will come to Second Life for a book presentation and discussion > on Tuesday March 30, at 10am PST. The talk will take place in the > Singularity Club (which can be seen in the background of the picture) > on the Transvision Nexus island. Please follow this SLURL to teleport, > and bring interesting questions. > > New World Notes - Oxford Press Book on Digital Age Spirituality Argues > Second Life Provides Platform For Innovative Religious Thinking: The > ultra-prestigious Oxford University just published a book devoted to > theology in the digital age: Apocalyptic AI Visions of Heaven in > Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. It's written > by Manhattan College professor Robert Geraci, known in Second Life as > Soren Ferlinghetti (pictured), and unsurprisingly, a whole chapter is > devoted to Second Life, and conversations with several well-known > Extropians (sometimes called transhumanists), who often see Second > Life as a means for transcending the human body. > > From the publishers' site: "Description: Apocalyptic AI, the hope that > we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live > forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting > everything from the world view of online gamers to government research > funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci > offers the first serious account of this "cyber-theology" and the > people who promote it. > > Drawing on interviews with roboticists and AI researchers and with > devotees of the online game Second Life, among others, Geraci > illuminates the ideas of such advocates of Apocalyptic AI as Hans > Moravec and Ray Kurzweil. He reveals that the rhetoric of Apocalyptic > AI is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of > Judaism and Christianity. In both systems, the believer is trapped in > a dualistic universe and expects a resolution in which he or she will > be translated to a transcendent new world and live forever in a > glorified new body. Equally important, Geraci shows how this worldview > shapes our culture. For instance, Apocalyptic AI has influenced > funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, helping to > prioritize robotics and AI research. It has become the ideology of > choice for online gamers, such as those involved in Second Life; it > has had a profound impact on the study of the mind; and it has > inspired scientists and theologians alike to wonder about the super > robots of the future. Should we think of robots as persons? What kind > of morality would intelligent robots espouse? > > Apocalyptic AI has become a powerful force in modern culture. In this > superb volume, Robert Geraci shines a light on this belief system, > revealing what it is and how it is changing society." > From p0stfuturist at yahoo.com Tue Mar 30 05:42:24 2010 From: p0stfuturist at yahoo.com (Post Futurist) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:42:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers In-Reply-To: <60C4E0A756074154BF2F8A92C8CFACCA@spike> Message-ID: <218206.9649.qm@web59908.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> "Given a large enough number, and if even a very small fraction will result in an unexpected pregnancy, and some fraction of those will choose to go to term.? If even one extra birth occurs per million participants, the environmental impact will far outweigh the savings of a million people turning off electricity for an hour. >Spike" You can back this up; after the great power?failure of '65, and other "blackouts" the birthrate ticked up. So tell, say,?fundamentalists that, and they will never suggest turning off the electricity again-- even for half an hour periods. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Mar 30 15:26:07 2010 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:26:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Apocalyptic AI - book presentation and discussion inSecond Life, Tuesday March 30, 10am PST In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm in SL now looking at the bilboard. Looks great! 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 Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 5:49 AM To: cosmic-engineers at googlegroups.com; cosmeng at googlegroups.com; ExI chat list; transumanisti at yahoogroups.com; transfigurism at googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [ExI] Apocalyptic AI - book presentation and discussion inSecond Life, Tuesday March 30, 10am PST Reminder: today March 30, 10am PST, 1pm EST, 7pm Continental EU, 6pm UK SLURL and info here http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/apocalyptic-ai-book-presentation-an d.html > Oxford University Press - Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in > Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, by Robert M. > Geraci. > > See my review of this excellent book. Robert has done a lot of field > reconnaissance work behind transhumanist lines in Second Life. The > book has a full report of Robert's field work and his interpretation > of the spirit of transhumanism, and the spirit of virtual worlds. This > book has started many interesting (and often vigorous) discussions in > both transhumanist and Second Life interest groups. > > Robert will come to Second Life for a book presentation and discussion > on Tuesday March 30, at 10am PST. The talk will take place in the > Singularity Club (which can be seen in the background of the picture) > on the Transvision Nexus island. Please follow this SLURL to teleport, > and bring interesting questions. > > New World Notes - Oxford Press Book on Digital Age Spirituality Argues > Second Life Provides Platform For Innovative Religious Thinking: The > ultra-prestigious Oxford University just published a book devoted to > theology in the digital age: Apocalyptic AI Visions of Heaven in > Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. It's written > by Manhattan College professor Robert Geraci, known in Second Life as > Soren Ferlinghetti (pictured), and unsurprisingly, a whole chapter is > devoted to Second Life, and conversations with several well-known > Extropians (sometimes called transhumanists), who often see Second > Life as a means for transcending the human body. > > From the publishers' site: "Description: Apocalyptic AI, the hope that > we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live > forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting > everything from the world view of online gamers to government research > funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci > offers the first serious account of this "cyber-theology" and the > people who promote it. > > Drawing on interviews with roboticists and AI researchers and with > devotees of the online game Second Life, among others, Geraci > illuminates the ideas of such advocates of Apocalyptic AI as Hans > Moravec and Ray Kurzweil. He reveals that the rhetoric of Apocalyptic > AI is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of > Judaism and Christianity. In both systems, the believer is trapped in > a dualistic universe and expects a resolution in which he or she will > be translated to a transcendent new world and live forever in a > glorified new body. Equally important, Geraci shows how this worldview > shapes our culture. For instance, Apocalyptic AI has influenced > funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, helping to > prioritize robotics and AI research. It has become the ideology of > choice for online gamers, such as those involved in Second Life; it > has had a profound impact on the study of the mind; and it has > inspired scientists and theologians alike to wonder about the super > robots of the future. Should we think of robots as persons? What kind > of morality would intelligent robots espouse? > > Apocalyptic AI has become a powerful force in modern culture. In this > superb volume, Robert Geraci shines a light on this belief system, > revealing what it is and how it is changing society." > _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 17:42:10 2010 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:42:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 47 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:54 AM, Post Futurist wrote: > > "Given a large enough number, and if even a very > small fraction will result in an unexpected pregnancy, and some fraction of > those will choose to go to term.? If even one extra birth occurs per million > participants, the environmental impact will far outweigh the savings of a > million people turning off electricity for an hour. >>Spike" > > You can back this up; after the great power?failure of '65, and other "blackouts" the birthrate ticked up. So tell, say,?fundamentalists that, and they will never suggest turning off the electricity again-- even for half an hour periods. "As often happens, however, people formed predetermined conclusions and then tried to fit the data to them. The birth rate nine months after the blackout did not show a statistically significant difference from the rate of birth recorded during the same period in any of the five previous years. " http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/blackout.asp Keith From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 30 17:15:41 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:15:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] check out front and center headline Message-ID: <099E8FBFBB6E4EF8BA803683A0CF4B05@spike> These guys have been getting more and more mainstream bad press, but this is the first time CNN has put a Co$ story front and center video. Take the ten minutes, watch the whole thing: http://www.cnn.com/ http://vodpod.com/watch/3333327-scientology-under-scrutiny?pod=buffalohair I noticed they use right at the end the old standard accusations. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 18:45:41 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:45:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers In-Reply-To: <218206.9649.qm@web59908.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <60C4E0A756074154BF2F8A92C8CFACCA@spike> <218206.9649.qm@web59908.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/30/10, Post Futurist wrote: > You can back this up; after the great power?failure of '65, and other > "blackouts" the birthrate ticked up. So tell, say,?fundamentalists that, > and they will never suggest turning off the electricity again-- > even for half an hour periods. > > Keith If you want your Digest comments to go into the appropriate thread, you have to change the Subject field to the thread you are replying to. The Exi-chat volume is not very high currently, so I doubt that the Digest format is really needed at present and it can cause your response to come in late after you wait for the Digest to be sent out. On 3/30/10, Keith Henson wrote: > "As often happens, however, people formed predetermined conclusions > and then tried to fit the data to them. The birth rate nine months > after the blackout did not show a statistically significant difference > from the rate of birth recorded during the same period in any of the > five previous years. " > > http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/blackout.asp > > Keith From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 30 23:56:35 2010 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:56:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage Message-ID: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> This CNN article tells of public anger against Japanese videogame makers who let players commit virtual rape. I wonder where future technological advances will take this matter... And can the courts and law enforcement curtail it? http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/japan.video.game.rape/index.html?hpt=C1 John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 31 02:57:08 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:57:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mersenne primes again Message-ID: Non-math fans, do hit the delete key quickly, thanks. If you wonder what is making Mersenne prime people crazy as hell these days, consider this graph. On the horizontal is the sequential number of the Mersenne prime; observe there are 47 known now. On the vertical is the natural log of the exponent: the first Mersenne prime is 2^2-1 so the first y is ln(2) or about 0.693, the second is 2^3-1, so ln(3) etc. The more or less log-linear relationship held for over 500 years, then in 2003 for some very odd reason which is still way beyond my (or anyone else's) ability to explain, the last 8 of the known Mersennes clustered, they went off on a completely new trajectory. Isn't nature weird? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Outlook.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 37198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 08:14:24 2010 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:14:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Apocalyptic AI - book presentation and discussion in Second Life, Tuesday March 30, 10am PST In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/apocalyptic-ai-book-presentation-and.html As I expected, Robert gave a great presentation and answered many questions from the audience. Topics: Transhumanism as a modern Apocalyptic AI religion, anthropology and sociology of Second Life, future "apocalyptic" technologies such as mind uploading to virtual reality. I recorded full video and audio of the 30 min presentation: Video: Apocalyptic AI - book presentation and discussion in Second Life, Tuesday March 30, 10am PST, on blip.tv http://giulioprisco.blip.tv/file/3421537/ I could only record the presentation and not the very, very interesting questions and answers session which followed. I hope other participants could record also the Q/A. On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Reminder: today March 30, 10am PST, 1pm EST, 7pm Continental EU, 6pm UK > > SLURL and info here > > http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/03/apocalyptic-ai-book-presentation-and.html > >> Oxford University Press - Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in >> Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, by Robert M. >> Geraci. >> >> See my review of this excellent book. Robert has done a lot of field >> reconnaissance work behind transhumanist lines in Second Life. The >> book has a full report of Robert's field work and his interpretation >> of the spirit of transhumanism, and the spirit of virtual worlds. This >> book has started many interesting (and often vigorous) discussions in >> both transhumanist and Second Life interest groups. >> >> Robert will come to Second Life for a book presentation and discussion >> on Tuesday March 30, at 10am PST. The talk will take place in the >> Singularity Club (which can be seen in the background of the picture) >> on the Transvision Nexus island. Please follow this SLURL to teleport, >> and bring interesting questions. >> >> New World Notes - Oxford Press Book on Digital Age Spirituality Argues >> Second Life Provides Platform For Innovative Religious Thinking: The >> ultra-prestigious Oxford University just published a book devoted to >> theology in the digital age: Apocalyptic AI Visions of Heaven in >> Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. It's written >> by Manhattan College professor Robert Geraci, known in Second Life as >> Soren Ferlinghetti (pictured), and unsurprisingly, a whole chapter is >> devoted to Second Life, and conversations with several well-known >> Extropians (sometimes called transhumanists), who often see Second >> Life as a means for transcending the human body. >> >> From the publishers' site: "Description: Apocalyptic AI, the hope that >> we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live >> forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting >> everything from the world view of online gamers to government research >> funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci >> offers the first serious account of this "cyber-theology" and the >> people who promote it. >> >> Drawing on interviews with roboticists and AI researchers and with >> devotees of the online game Second Life, among others, Geraci >> illuminates the ideas of such advocates of Apocalyptic AI as Hans >> Moravec and Ray Kurzweil. He reveals that the rhetoric of Apocalyptic >> AI is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of >> Judaism and Christianity. In both systems, the believer is trapped in >> a dualistic universe and expects a resolution in which he or she will >> be translated to a transcendent new world and live forever in a >> glorified new body. Equally important, Geraci shows how this worldview >> shapes our culture. For instance, Apocalyptic AI has influenced >> funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, helping to >> prioritize robotics and AI research. It has become the ideology of >> choice for online gamers, such as those involved in Second Life; it >> has had a profound impact on the study of the mind; and it has >> inspired scientists and theologians alike to wonder about the super >> robots of the future. Should we think of robots as persons? What kind >> of morality would intelligent robots espouse? >> >> Apocalyptic AI has become a powerful force in modern culture. In this >> superb volume, Robert Geraci shines a light on this belief system, >> revealing what it is and how it is changing society." >> > From pharos at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 08:41:24 2010 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:41:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Mobile Phone Speech to Text working OK now Message-ID: Dragon Dictation works on the iPhone. Google also has speech to text on the Android phones. Quote: Out of the Box Perfect Speech Recognition Here's a signal on the future of conversational interfaces. I'm creating this blog by speaking into my iPhone. My words are simply being transcribed into text using a cool free iPhone speech dictation program called Dragon Dictation. I suppose that composing thoughts this way will take some getting used to. It's amazing that the text is coming out perfectly nearly every time, maybe because I am intentionality speaking slowly and I must be speaking nearly generic English, easiest for the Dragon recognizer. People who speak with regional dialects or accents may not achieve the same accuracy in their transcriptions. For now, the Dragon service works only while online. Google has similar speech to text capabilities for Android phones integrated across applications like search, e-mail, and maps. This capability will seem trivial to kids in the future, but it it's astounding to me! --------------- etc. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 11:21:13 2010 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:21:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] mersenne primes again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2010/3/30 spike > > The more or less log-linear relationship held for over 500 years, then in > 2003 for some very odd reason which is still way beyond my (or anyone > else's) ability to explain, the last 8 of the known Mersennes clustered, > they went off on a completely new trajectory. Isn't nature weird? > > Nah, nature isn't weird - it's natural. People's expectations are weird. First they're weird for being right, then they're weird for being wrong. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Mar 31 15:01:01 2010 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:01:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] mersenne primes again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <927277.42108.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Actually, we're going to fix that in the next release.?Nature or expectations, I'll leave that for the reader to guess. :) Regards, Dan From: Mike Dougherty To: ExI chat list Sent: Wed, March 31, 2010 7:21:13 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] mersenne primes again 2010/3/30 spike > >The more or less log-linear relationship held for over 500 years, then in 2003 for some very odd reason which is still way beyond my (or anyone else's) ability to explain, the last 8 of the known Mersennes clustered, they went off on a completely new trajectory.? Isn't nature weird? >? Nah, nature isn't weird - it's natural. ?People's expectations are weird. ?First they're weird for being right, then they're weird for being wrong. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 31 16:46:30 2010 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:46:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] mersenne primes again Message-ID: <566310.37183.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Fascinating, spike. I wonder if anyone has done a statistical analysis of the series to determine if the perceived change has statistical significance. Any idea? A statistician should find it possible to say something like "The slope deviated at Mersenne prime number 38, and we know this with x% confidence." (Statistical significance generally requires an x equal to or greater than 95.) -gts --- On Tue, 3/30/10, spike wrote: From: spike Subject: [ExI] mersenne primes again To: "'ExI chat list'" Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 10:57 PM Non-math fans, do hit the delete key quickly, thanks. ? If you wonder what is making Mersenne prime people crazy as hell these days,?consider this graph.? On the horizontal is the sequential number of the Mersenne prime; observe?there are 47 known now.? On the vertical is the natural log of the exponent: the first Mersenne?prime is 2^2-1 so the first y is ln(2) or about 0.693, the second is 2^3-1, so ln(3) etc.? ? The more or less log-linear relationship held for over 500 years, then in 2003 for some very odd reason which is still way beyond my (or anyone else's) ability to explain, the last 8 of the known Mersennes clustered, they went off on a completely new trajectory.? Isn't nature weird? ? ? -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 17:53:52 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:53:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/30 John Grigg : > This CNN article tells of public anger against Japanese videogame makers who > let players commit virtual rape.? I wonder where future technological > advances will take this matter...? And can the courts and law enforcement > curtail it? Do you really want to curtail it? Sure, you're offended, so am I, but does that trump free speech? Also, generational rebellion/coming of age typically manifests with something like this. A cultural expression that is "in your face" toward the established order. In my time it was long hair on boys, peace, love, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. the next gen folks went for nihilism and gangsta rap. Then came a rollback/reaction to all that hedonism, with a rise of the religious "all war all the time" authoritarian worship whack jobs. Take a deep breath. The point of attacking your meme set is to make your head explode. (Figuratively, of course.) Smile. It's okay. Kids will still end up good people, despite "Grand Theft Auto" or "RapeLay". For sure though, think on it. It's a great lesson in human nature, yours and theirs. Best, Jeff Davis "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." P.J. O'Rourke From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 18:32:04 2010 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:32:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Send in the dwarfs. In-Reply-To: References: <208781.57150.qm@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2010/3/29 John Clark : > On Mar 29, 2010, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > Maybe there is no Fermi Paradox, no Great Filter, and the place is swarming > with people. ?The sky wouldn't look any different > John Clark responded: > No the sky would look very different,...if the universe is swarming with intelligence the universe should look engineered. It doesn't. ******************** The definitions here are not "tight" enough to justify drawing conclusions. The universe -- even the galaxy -- is big. For the "swarming" to show up, it would have to be correspondingly large. If the swarming were smaller it could easily be lost in the vast expanse of all that space, the infrared emissions lost in the primordial microwave background. Then too, what are the ecological characteristics of biological swarms, robotic swarms, or cyborg hybrid swarms? Unbridled expansion -- per Malthus -- may be the rule, or it may not, and has not proven so with humanity here on Earth. The same intelligence in a larger galactic system may bring with it (similar?) self-limiting characteristics. It seems to me that the space of possibility here is so large that any conclusion is necessarily premature. More discussion, more analysis, more data, and a greater understanding of physics is required. If the galaxy is chock-a-block with brown dwarfs -- one every 4.5 light years in all directions -- that's a lot of computronium to starlift, construct, and colonize. > Either the place is not swarming with people or for some unknown reason intelligence can't build things at large scales. "Swarming", but not swarming at so large a scale. I think Occam would approve. Best, Jeff Davis "My guess is that people don't yet realize how "handy" an indefinite lifespan will be." J Corbally From wingcat at pacbell.net Wed Mar 31 19:08:57 2010 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:08:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage In-Reply-To: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <338900.22348.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> This has been known of for many years, and is hardly the most extreme example out there.? The news is that word of this is just now hitting mainstream media. Pirating is widespread enough that it is available effectively for free, though one may have to spend a few hours searching (and possibly, have been exposed enough to think of the right keywords to search on).? As with any freely available and popular* data, it has been archived around the world, and is impossible to eradicate by any means that call a lot of attention to it. * Popular precisely because it elicits such a moral panic without directly inflicting harm on anyone - with the arguable exception of the person playing the game, who has unarguably consented.? (At least, from their own point of view, but part of the point of such acts is sometimes to demonstrate that their own point of view, not the law's or any other person's, is the only thing controlling actions like obtaining and playing this game.? Since said other points of view declare it "forbidden" but fail to convincingly explain the reasons why - and fallbacks like "because I will punish you if I find out" only mean that it has to be done in stealth, as in the fabled Spartan mindset - said other points are rejected.? The disconnect often has to do with the value placed on perception by third parties, which tends to be higher the older one gets, and thus the more aware one is of the reliance one has on the rest of society.) --- On Tue, 3/30/10, John Grigg wrote: This CNN article tells of public anger against Japanese videogame makers who let players commit virtual rape.? I wonder where future technological advances will take this matter...? And can the courts and law enforcement curtail it? http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/japan.video.game.rape/index.html?hpt=C1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ismirth at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 19:42:47 2010 From: ismirth at gmail.com (Isabelle Hakala) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:42:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage In-Reply-To: <338900.22348.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> <338900.22348.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Honestly I feel we should have more outlets for people to deal with their bizarre and socially unacceptable fantasies so that they may work through them. We make such fantasies such a big huge bad thing that most people won't deal with what is behind them, thus they build up, and later if there is a trigger or a break of some sort, the person might actually do the thing. However, if people could act out these fantasies in a safe way, and thus deal with what is behind them, I think it would be very therapeutic for them. Lots of people have rape fantasies. And it would be a great way for people to work through them without having to experiment with their significant other. The people that would justify that the video game made them think it was ok to rape people, would simply have come up with some other justification in their minds, if they would actually rape someone. You can't stop people from being bad if that is what they are going to be. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Isabelle Hakala "Any person who says 'it can't be done' shouldn't be interrupting the people getting it done." "Do every single thing in life with love in your heart." 2010/3/31 Adrian Tymes > This has been known of for many years, and is hardly the most > extreme example out there. The news is that word of this is > just now hitting mainstream media. > > Pirating is widespread enough that it is available effectively for > free, though one may have to spend a few hours searching > (and possibly, have been exposed enough to think of the right > keywords to search on). As with any freely available and > popular* data, it has been archived around the world, and is > impossible to eradicate by any means that call a lot of > attention to it. > > * Popular precisely because it elicits such a moral panic > without directly inflicting harm on anyone - with the arguable > exception of the person playing the game, who has unarguably > consented. (At least, from their own point of view, but part of > the point of such acts is sometimes to demonstrate that their > own point of view, not the law's or any other person's, is the > only thing controlling actions like obtaining and playing this > game. Since said other points of view declare it "forbidden" > but fail to convincingly explain the reasons why - and fallbacks > like "because I will punish you if I find out" only mean that it > has to be done in stealth, as in the fabled Spartan mindset - > said other points are rejected. The disconnect often has to > do with the value placed on perception by third parties, which > tends to be higher the older one gets, and thus the more > aware one is of the reliance one has on the rest of society.) > > > --- On *Tue, 3/30/10, John Grigg * wrote: > > This CNN article tells of public anger against Japanese videogame makers > who let players commit virtual rape. I wonder where future technological > advances will take this matter... And can the courts and law enforcement > curtail it? > > > http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/japan.video.game.rape/index.html?hpt=C1 > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 31 21:03:15 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:03:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mersenne primes again In-Reply-To: <566310.37183.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <566310.37183.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <43A8F27F63AE4E1A9792705FF506F430@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Gordon Swobe > Subject: Re: [ExI] mersenne primes again > > Fascinating, spike. > > I wonder if anyone has done a statistical analysis of the > series to determine if the perceived change has statistical > significance. Any idea? Ja, anyone has, I have been doing these a number of different ways, and the significance of the weirdness depends on how you calculate it. Thanks for giving me a legitimate entry back into areas relevant to extropy. > A statistician should find it possible to say something like > "The slope deviated at Mersenne prime number 38, and we know > this with x% confidence." Ja keep reading. > > (Statistical significance generally requires an x equal to or > greater than 95.)... -gts The concept of statistical significance worries me, for I have seen so many examples of why it can actually lead to our fooling ourselves. We have arbitrarily set up the 95%ile threshold for statistical significance, or 2 standard deviations, but why 2 exactly? Why not 1.9 or 2.1 or e sigmas? Reason: our textbooks from college statistics arbitrarily chose 2 sigma since back in the old old days when I was going there, before calculators, we had those charts in the back of the book, and they were graduated in tenths of a sigma, and the integers were bolded to make them easy to find during the test. This helped determine the perfectly arbitrary 95%ile criterion for statistical significance, and I argue that this shortcut may be more harmful than helpful. Consider a discussion that went on here recently: New York blackout, nothing to do, was there a baby boom 9 months later? From a statistical significance point of view there was not. You can filter that data any way you want, rolling average, interval slope, Butterworth filtering, quaternion regression, it just doesn't matter: you will never find that particular needle in that particular haystack. Do the same thought experiment Drake equation style: a million homes without power, about half of those homes with opposite gender couples, a quarter of those without nature's own birth control devices (young children), half of those with fertile couples, a tenth of those copulating because of nothing else to do, a tenth of a percent of those resulting in an unexpected pregnancy and a quarter of those deciding to carry to term, and you get about 1 to 4 extra births per million, something that would never be noticed by the local hospitals or statisticians, but hypothetically perfectly valid. Next, consider the poker player who is dealt an ace high royal flush the first deal of the evening. The gambler is thinking "WOW! I have been playing poker with these guys every Saturday night for thirty years and I have NEVER seen a royal flush!" Not surprising because the probability of a royal flush is about 1 in 650,000. The next hand she gets a deuce of spades, trey of hearts, 6 of clubs, 10 of spades and a jack of diaminks, she thinks "Damn, nada." But the second hand is just as unlikely as the first, and she has never seen this particular hand either in all those thirty years. Point: we must be very careful to not fool ourselves. I have a digital sim that suggests to me the weirdness of the last 8 Mersenne primes clustering the way they do is about 30 in 10,000, a three sigma event, which should not be so surprising. But I think I may have underaccounted for the last two being not just anomalously close, but a superanomaly. One last point. The last 8 Mersennes form a kind of hockey stick, but what if the ratios of the last 8 primes been anomalously large instead of anomalously small? We conjecture that there are infinitely many Mersenne primes, but had the hockey stick been pointed up instead of down, many of us would (most probably incorrectly) conclude that there is a finite number of Mersenne primes. More later. Assignment please: think about everything you know regarding the definition of statistical significance, and what it means to you. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 31 21:44:32 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:44:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Jeff Davis ... > Do you really want to curtail it? Sure, you're offended, so > am I, but does that trump free speech? Also, generational > rebellion/coming of age typically manifests with something > like this. A cultural expression that is "in your face" > toward the established order. In my time it was long hair on > boys, peace, love, sex, drugs, and rock and roll... > For sure though, think on it. It's a great lesson in human > nature, yours and theirs... Best, Jeff Davis I am with you Jeff, and I do agree: the young and rebellious seem to seek out ways to be specifically offensive to the older generation, and they seem to succeed consistently. In our misspent youth it was sex, drugs and rock n roll, now it is rap, saggy pants, and so forth, but time marches on. The next generation must find new and imaginative ways to be offensive, to smash their grandparent's idols. I think I already see the next wave coming, and I can assure you we will not like it: racisim will come roaring back, with a vengeance. I see what appears to be anti-Semitism everywhere these days. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 31 22:03:11 2010 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:03:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage In-Reply-To: <338900.22348.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <2d6187671003301656r3ffb5e11g81c0e4e491a2e1cd@mail.gmail.com> <338900.22348.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <229826E335E64F23BCF3C5BF4435F4AA@spike> ...On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage This has been known of for many years... * Popular precisely because it elicits such a moral panic without directly inflicting harm on anyone - with the arguable exception of the person playing the game, who has unarguably consented... Adrian Ja. The trick then would be to create a subroutine game that is the counterpart to this one. In the RapeLay genre the point of view is the groper/rapist, so we create an embedded virus which launches automatically and causes the point of view to shift pi radians, turning the hunter into the hunted. The rapist stalks his quarry and closes in, but is unexpectedly apprehended by the authorities, then is placed in a small cell with an oddly friendly galoot who stole a car by carrying it away on his back. Then the game shifts from stalking an innocent lass to how one alludes Bubba, while one's shrieks of terror are ignored by the local constabulary as Bubba's former roommates make bets on how long you will maintain your rectal virginity. What fun we could have with that, and possibly even create a sim with educational value and some socially redeeming qualities. spike From wingcat at pacbell.net Wed Mar 31 23:03:43 2010 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:03:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage In-Reply-To: <229826E335E64F23BCF3C5BF4435F4AA@spike> Message-ID: <685672.85298.qm@web81602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 3/31/10, spike wrote: > Ja.? The trick then would be to create a subroutine > game that is the > counterpart to this one.? In the RapeLay genre the > point of view is the > groper/rapist, so we create an embedded virus which > launches automatically > and causes the point of view to shift pi radians, turning > the hunter into > the hunted. Counterproductive. The player, upon discovering this is anything other than what was promised, stops playing the "broken" version and reverts to searching for the real one. Such an attempt can reinforce the desire to prove that outside forces - like whoever tried to propagate the counterpart game - have no ability to control the player's behavior, leading in some cases to actions that ignore the desire to not harm anyone. In other words, something like that could cause someone to rape, who otherwise wouldn't.