From kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com  Mon Aug  1 05:49:16 2011
From: kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com (Kevin G Haskell)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 01:49:16 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Moon Bases Not Needed (Keith Hanson)
Message-ID: <CAEUzo3LVoLcG26x_wo6WxRoVxjNFZWitnR_OPazWz-+XefuCLw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:42:21 -0700, Keith Hanson wrote:




On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 5:00 AM,  Kevin Haskell <kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> (Why would we need moon bases if we hope to evolve, soon??)

>I presume this refers to the technological singularity, but the
>operative words you use are "hope to" and soon.  "Hope" and "soon" are
>vague.  If we run out of cheap energy before major technical advances,
>the carrying capacity of the earth on sustainable energy is 1-2
>billion people.  What happens to the rest of them?

While I used the terms "Hope" and "soon," and you are correct in saying they
are a bit vague, so are the words you used "If,"  "What happens...?", and
the assumption that the carrying capacity for people should we run out
fossil fuels will wither down to 1-2 billion people.

This latter one is a big assumption, but I do want to make it clear that I
am in no way in opposition to the development in use of alternative sources
of energy.  I encourage their use, in fact, just in case we run low on
fossil fuels at some future point.  But one thing keeps happening with
fossil fuels, and that is, every time the prediction is made that we are
going to run out, the opposite has been true as populations have increased.
Oil reserves are higher than ever, and more deposits and sources continue to
found in large quantities.

Secondly, if the world should suddenly begin to believe that they are in
fact peaking out with fossil-fuels, then long before then, as the price of
these fuel increase because of scarcity in the market, alternative sources
of energy should become much more competitive as they evolve in complexity,
and become competitive on a price per watt basis.  This doesn't even factor
in the fact that if necessary, nuclear power has long been producing a lot
of power globally, and could be used in place of fossil fuels should they
become scarce, or alternatives 'still' are not up for prime time.

> (Wasting money on moon bases would only divert trillions of dollars from
money that should be otherwise be directed at something productive for the
human race.)

>There are two ways to mine the moon without having a base there at
>all.  Do it with robots/teleoperated devices or a mining crawler in
>the end of a lunar elevator.  It is possible to imagine ways to spend
>trillions of dollars to set up moon base, but that's why it is
>extremely unlikely it will be done.

>On the other hand, a beamed energy propulsion project to reduce the
>cost of getting to GEO down to $100/kg is a reasonable way to solve
>the energy problem.

>  http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7898


>Keith

I don't think the technology you are using is anywhere the time frame close
to where we are headed as compared to the Singularity.  I could be wrong,
but that technology seems awfully unrealistic anytime soon.  It certainly
can be a technology that we keep working on as one of the many alternative
possibilities, and I would never rule it out, but I am just saying that,
compared to the rate at which computers are evolving, the Singularity is
likely to occur sooner, or, at the very least, other sources of less
complicated forms of alternative energy.

Lastly, it also depends on another great "if" we are able to locate
sufficient materials that can be used for energy consumption on earth.
Materials on the moon may be very limited in scope as to what they produce.

Thank you for that link.  It appears to be a very good source of
information, and I've saved it for future reference.

Best,
Kevin
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From kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com  Mon Aug  1 06:32:19 2011
From: kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com (Kevin G Haskell)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 02:32:19 -0400
Subject: [ExI] No Moon Bases Needed (Eugen Leitl)
Message-ID: <CAEUzo3KM04E1622L8nAM_YGEpishq5ka8cfpswMn=pn+6aSddQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:56:41 +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote

>On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 08:24:08PM -0400, Kevin G Haskell wrote:

> (Why would we need moon bases if we hope to evolve, soon?  Who >would pay
> for)
> >Evolving is hard work, and takes a lot of resources. Might be not
> >so soon as many think.

> (Evolving is hard work, but it is happening faster and faster already,
and)

>People are exactly the same as 50 kiloyears ago.

It is hard to see where one is in terms of evolution when one is inside
their particular time-frame, nor is it easy to see when they are located in
a local that was further advanced a certain amount of years ago, for
instance, the US, than other places on the planet, say, Africa, for
instance.  But while comparatively to the past and to the location, not only
only have far less advanced people on earth been able to 'evolve' through
unimaginable forms of communication that was imperceptible 50 years ago, but
to a slightly lesser extent, so have the previously developed nations.

The way our brains are wired are altering, but will alter even faster as we
begin to more closely interact with computers, and to literally be able to
download information directly into our brains.

> (the heavy resources should be invested in something that is realistic at)

>>The US troop tent air conditioning budget is bigger than NASA.
>>The wars are at 4 terabucks already and counting.

>There is heavy resource spending allright, and it's all poppycock.

I am in total agreement that less should be spend on US overseas troop
deployment, and more on NASA (which is another way the US military can
benefit, anyway.)  But this in no way means that money should be spent on
putting bases on the moon.  Investments can be directed into various
agencies from the military that can both assist those agencies, and the
military, such as into speeding up robotics research and computer research
and development, both of with will be greatly contributing to H+
development, and moves toward the Singularity.

> (this point.  The greatest resource is the human mind, soon to be the
> Transhuman mind, and if the Transhumans find a need to go the moon, >then
> they will do so much more quickly and efficiently.)

>You've fallen prey to the Singularity cult. Our 'friends from the future'
>are out worst enemies, because the make us sit there in langurous >apathy.

>Don't ask what the future can do for you, ask what you can do for the
>future. Orelse there won't be any future for you.

In this instance that you quoted, I wasn't even talking about the
Singularity (although I do believe continued development 'will' lead to it,)
but to Transhumanism. That is not something that is leading to apathy, but
to quite a bit of excitement and resources being invested into more H+
tech.  If we can continue along this path, like it or not, our "friends from
the future" will arrive, and hopefully, they will actually be friends, and
not of any other sort.

> (There are so many things with the article in this link that I can't even
> begin dissecting it.  While not just extrapolate the numbers that humans)

>You're not supposed to dissect it but to look at the numbers and realize
>we're running out of time.

If I didn't dissect 'any' of it, I wouldn't have realized that the article
was making egregious assumptions.  I looked at the numbers, and came to no
such conclusions.

> (will use in the next million years?  How about throwing out any
assumption)

>Don't worry your pretty little head about the next megayear, rather think
>about the next century.

The point I was making, beautiful, was that if the article was going to be
absurd, why not just absurdity to the next level?

> (of technological advances, or that population is expected to become
stable)

>You haven't read the article. Technology can't create something from
>nothing.

What you just wrote does not address the sentence you quoted, but regarding
the article, I never said that technology comes from nothing.  It comes from
the resource of the human mind using resources from the rest of the earth.
That's why we have what we have today.

> (in less then 50 years to between 9 and 10 billion people? These >
>numbers
> provided in the article are absurd.)

>The numbers aren't absurd (up to where they start exceeding the speed >of
light).
>It's just a Kardashev roadmap.

Yes they are.  One can take any map (or any computer program, for that
matter) and throw whatever inaccuracies one wants in at any point,
especially the beginning, and get whatever results are desired.  If the
information isn't accurate when it is put into the map or program, one will
get completely inaccurate feedback and data.

> > (resources on bettering humanity through Transhumanism and working
toward
> the)
>
> >You see many resources spent on transhumanism?
>
>>(Increasingly, yes, and I wish to see that trend continue at an every)

Garcon, I'd like to have whatever he's having. It's heady stuff.

Escargot with garlic butter, and observation of the amazing technologies
that are being developed.

> (quickening pace.  I more Capitalistic system would do wonders.)

>Capitalistic system. Yes, I'm sure it's all what it takes.

A Capitalistic System that will managed globally by an elite technocratic
class I call "The Philosopher-Technocrats," which would not necessarily be a
monolithic group, but would work together to ensure that high-tech systems
work as smoothly throughout the world so all kinds of progress is made, and
to ensure laws keep up with the developments.  In a sense, I wish to see
this class of people replace the present slow-motion elite, reduce the size
of global government, a make it much freer for people to produce at a higher
rate with superior quality.

> > (Singularity.  Wasting money on moon bases would only divert trillions
of
> > dollars from money that should be otherwise be directed at something
> > productive for the human race.)
>
> >MWh feed, clothe and house people. With real information ecology,
> >MHw will directly power people.
>
> MWh is? I think I get the gist, and have to say, the only way we hope to
> feed, clothe, and house people, is through continued freeing of state-run
> nations to market-based ones, as we have been seeing happen world-wide.
Good
> intentions aren't enough, nor realistic.  Well-reasoned self-interested is
> the most empathetic people can be by providing the wealth needed to
produce
> the goods and services need for all people.)

>Less dogma, more traction.

What dogma?  I am seeing progress on a daily basis that shocks me out of the
water.  You aren't?

Kevin
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From kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com  Mon Aug  1 06:39:44 2011
From: kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com (Kevin G Haskell)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 02:39:44 -0400
Subject: [ExI] No Moon Bases Needed (John Grigg)
Message-ID: <CAEUzo3Jr6=WZzAyos92LWkj9tavvNeqcp5eeSzGo6Rg-sN1VCg@mail.gmail.com>

>>On Fri, 29 Jul 2011 02:06:48 -0700, John Grigg Wrote:
>>Eugen Leitl wrote:
>>You've fallen prey to the Singularity cult. Our 'friends from the future'
>>are out worst enemies, because the make us sit there in langurous
>>apathy.

>>Don't ask what the future can do for you, ask what you can do for the
>>uture. Or else there won't be any future for you.

>Eugen, I am so glad you're here to talk sense to the dreamers like Kevin
>and myself.  I personally think there will be a Singularity, but that it
will
>robably happen at least several decades later than Ray Kurzweil >predicts.


>John  : )

Glad you see it happening, too, John. Personally, I'm more 'optimistic'
about when the Singularity will occur than either Kurzweil or yourself.
Providing that we can keep a growing global economy, without destroying
ourselves first, I think we have a chance of hitting the Singularity by the
mid-to-late 2020s.

Kevin :)
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Mon Aug  1 18:30:12 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 11:30:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Natural law
References: <CAPy8RwYbTBBsjLkSUqm_YcQUzd8frnE5rgaf+4-cQFRBCq9i2w@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E249D22.20004@susaro.com>
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Message-ID: <1312223412.51330.YahooMailNeo@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Maybe he was using it merely as a synonym for "me no like," but I doubt it.
?
Also, there's a difference between hyperbole and the natural law use of criminal. The two are not the same. To wit, natural law, especially as conceived by libertarians who see it as the basis for some of their views (note that not all libertarians agree on this), would clearly delineate in most cases between what's criminal in natural law terms, what's criminal according to actual laws, and what's merely distasteful or repugnant.
?
With regard to "legal tradition," the natural law argument is usually that even these must be tested. They are not accepted merely because being customary, old, or respected. In fact, natural law arguments were often deployed against time honored traditions, such as the right of conquest in the New World.
?
One should also be careful here. Something like common law has been around in many places -- not just Anglo-Saxon England and places it conquered. The more wider concept is polycentric law -- law where there is no one central monopoly on legal authority. That actually seems to have been the norm in many times and places and might even be the default state for humans if not for any social organism that's similar to humans.
?
Regading changing the law, as I've pointed out before, natural law theory has for centuries been used to do just that: do act as a framework to critique extant legal codes and alter them. And, as pointed out above, one can be a criminal by a natural law standard and yet not be one by a government law. Merely pointing out that that's not what the state or government law means by "criminal" ignores this. (I'm well aware of how legal positivists approach this.)
?
On Aristotle's views of slavery, etc., one need not accept them to accept the basic tenet of natural law. In fact, I think part of the problem for many people is not so much that the idea in the abstract is wrong, but that natural law has sometimes been deployed for positions they disagree with and that they otherwise believe are wrong (often rightfully so).
?
When you state that natural law "restrains human groups from giving themselves the laws of their choice, implicitely denying, inter alia, any kind of truly democratic legislative process and international-law principle of non-interference," I think you're overlooking two important points here. The first is that the libertarian natural law view would put restraint on interference in general. For instance, it would be very difficult for the US to carry out any of its war were it under this sort of law. First off, it would lose the power to tax and use violence against its subjects -- a necessary component of being able to use violence against people in other countries. Natural law in this sense doesn't condone violating rights -- even if a justification is given such that violating rights is supposed to restore or protect rights. In other words, one can't steal from one person to right a wrong for another if the former had nothing to do with the latter.
?
The second is that "human groups" is a loaded term, especially in terms of self-determination. The libertarian view is that selves have a right to self-determination and groups only have such a right by derivation. In other words, there are no groups rights over and beyond individual rights. And the problem here would be that one person or a small group would claim to self-determine everyone else's life. And thus libertarian natural law view is such groups can only self-determine voluntarily. For instance, if you want to become Amish along with others, that's fine, but you don't have any right to force others to do so -- even if you claim or indeed do have a majority in a certain region.
?
And this would play out for transhumans and posthumans too. They can voluntarily deal with others, but cannot coerce others --? even if they sincerely believe it's for everyone's benefit.
?
Finally, in this view, there would be right to prevent others from transhuman or posthuman experimentation -- provided it violated no one else's rights. (In fact, libertarianism would permit self-destruction of the sort traditionalists and most actual legal codes today wouldn't allow. For instance, suicide would not be illegal.)
?
Regards,
?
Dan

From: Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
To: Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 7:24 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Natural law/was Re: Libertarianism wins again...


2011/7/26 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

Don't you agree? He seemed to me to be using it in a different sense -- specifically, in an extra-legal sense, such as one where one might even judge actual laws to be criminal.

I think there are two aspects here. 

The first is a linguistic and rhetorical abuse, which is btw rather recent, extending the normal meaning of "crime" from "a breach of criminal law" to any behaviour which may be distasteful or repugnant to the speaker.

The second may have to do with the specific legal tradition of Anglo-Saxon countries, where much of criminal law is of a common-law, not statutory, origin, so that one can argue that a behaviour is or should be a "crime" on the basis of the "old and honoured customs of the country", which statutes themselves should not breach unless for exceptional reasons. But, hey, witchcraft has been for a long time a common-law crime.


My guess is most legal theorists who appeal to something other than just, "Hey, this is just what the rulers define as 'criminal,' so we must completely assent to their decrees, never questioning this ever,"

No. Positive law theorists would simply say that the law is... what it is, and you ignore it at your risk. More precisely, that as long as it is in force (factually, not "in the book") it defines what is a lease, what is a subcontractor, what is a taxable income and what is a crime. But they have nothing to say about the opportunity to change it through reform or revolution. On the contrary, if you do not like a law making a criminal of yourself, this makes it even more urgent to change it, does it not?
?

But, then, by that usage, there's no reason to share Will's outrage at corporations being the "biggest organized criminals of all." They might be, but this might only mean they've violate arbitrarily set up rules and no more. (There would also be no difference between me waking up today and deciding, arbitrarily, "Will and Stefano are the biggest criminals of all" and similarly expressing my outrage -- save that I'm unlikely to persuade too many others about this... Thankfully so!:)

Outrage at corporations may well be justified because i) they breach laws that in fact they would be legally obliged to comply with, and you think compliance with existing law to be everybody's duty, or because ii) they behave in ways that you would like to see forbidden by criminal law, even if they currently are not, or that you merely find distasteful or immoral.


It's the tenet, rather, that there are objective laws that human made laws should conform to and these are based on the nature of humans.

Yes. Aristotles' argument that there are "slaves by convention" and "slaves by nature"... :-)
?

Also, natural law in the libertarian sense and even before basically supported "self-determination, diversity and change" because it restrains human-made law from trampling personal autonomy. 

Basically, it restrains human groups from giving themselves the laws of their choice, implicitely denying, inter alia, any kind of truly democratic legislative process and international-law principle of non-interference.

But, in more practical and on-topic terms, it paves the way to international conventions aimed at a global repression of any temptation for a posthuman change. Because, hey, if "everybody" agrees that it is "unnatural" to mess your your "natural right to genetic imperfection", we certainly cannot allow Estonia or Thailand to do any differently, can we?

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Mon Aug  1 20:07:06 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 13:07:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Moon Bases Not Needed
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB7Dy-1o5sZAibmS21VGCkbJi1DPBTjay2+BXqauU+=vJA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 5:00 AM,   Kevin G Haskell <kgh1kgh2 at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> I don't think the technology you are using is anywhere the time frame close
> to where we are headed as compared to the Singularity.

I take it from looking at your Google page that you are not a
technology heavy kind of person.

The technological singularity is generally thought to incorporate both
nanotechnology and AI.

At present we are making progress on both fronts, but the path to
either of them is not clear, not even close to clear.  Neither is the
time frame to get there.

The path to low cost transport into space is a hard engineering task
and a bigger financial task, but there are multiple ways to do it and
no real breakthroughs are required.

> ?I could be wrong,
> but that technology seems awfully unrealistic anytime soon. ?It certainly
> can be a technology that we keep working on as one of the many alternative
> possibilities, and I would never rule it out, but I am just saying that,
> compared to the rate at which computers are evolving, the Singularity is
> likely to occur sooner, or, at the very least, other sources of less
> complicated forms of alternative energy.

You might be right.  The big unknown is the political will.  Japan and
to a slightly lesser extent, China don't have a lot of other energy
choices.

> Lastly, it also depends on another great "if" we are able to locate
> sufficient materials that can be used for energy consumption on earth.
> Materials on the moon may be very limited in scope as to what they produce.

We know the bulk composition of lunar rock.  As much as a third of the
mass of thermal type power satellites can be heat sink fluid made of
finely ground rock and low pressure gas.  Alternately, silicon for PV
cells can be refined from lunar rock.

Getting it off the moon is much less complicated than was proposed in
the 1970s.  Spectra fiber is strong enough to build a lunar elevator
out through L1.

> Thank you for that link. ?It appears to be a very good source of
> information, and I've saved it for future reference.

It's only a snapshot of thinking at that time.  There may be better
approaches, such as replacing the Skylon with a microwave heated air
dropped stage.

Keith

> Best,
> Kevin



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug  1 23:49:01 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 17:49:01 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Roads in Africa (was Re:  People are the same?)
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYg=2Un+LknsCq_yH63yTRucBLPg-hxM=DQFtV=D=j0dQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 5:35 PM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> At the end of The West Wing, CJ Craig is offered ten billion dollars
> for one important project of her choose. She chooses roads in
> Africa. Ten billion dollars would not take us to what you describe.
> I think that, wisely spent, it would take us space-based industrialization
> and settlement.

Has any serious economist/scientist proposed this? What are the
arguments? It sounds interesting and plausible, but I'd like to hear
more.

-Kelly


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug  1 23:35:20 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 17:35:20 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Rejecting Socrates/was Re: Libertarianism wins again...
In-Reply-To: <4E2F99CF.6040306@canonizer.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaLjSAcymUwYWOR7gw2cEE6p=peG+vVheThq8=vND2mHA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 10:53 PM, Brent Allsop
<brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Kelly,
>
> Good responses!

Thanks. Sorry for the delayed reply, was out of town and no computer
over the weekend.

> I have a question for you, do you believe we will ever approach perfect
> justice? ?And if so, how much do you think the Gods that inherit an immortal
> heaven, will owe to those who created it for them, taking them billions of
> years of struggle, for free?

Perfect justice seems out of reach... here's why. It is always easier
to tear down a building than to build it. It is always easier to
commit vandalism than to create a great work of art... Crime will
always be easier than justice for the same reason, that entropy is on
the side of the criminal, and not on the part of the law keeper. So it
would seem that crime will be with us for a very long time, though
certainly the nature of the crimes committed will change very much. Of
course as extropians, we fight against entropy, but I don't think
we'll win this one.

> Out of everything humanity thinks about, what percentage of time do we spend
> on history, today, despite how much information we lack, or how hard it is
> to get what little we can get? ?I'm sure we spend way more than 1% of all
> our time on history, but lets just stay conservative. ?So even if a super
> AI, approaching infinite abilities, 1% of infinite is still approaching
> infinite. ?And would such work, with the ultimate goal of achiving a history
> of knowing what every last human did and thought, their entire life? ?And
> would working on and towards all this perfect justice and perfect history be
> nothing more than watching leave it to Beaver?

I understand that super intelligences would have no trouble
understanding the working minds of all beings in history (up to a
certain point in history where the super intelligences begin to become
more than can be processed) Yet, it will be the work of these more
recent minds that will be of greatest importance to the
super-intelligences of tomorrow. Just as we today care more about
current events than history, I believe that will continue to be the
case. For it to be otherwise would be watching reruns of Leave it to
Beaver. Not that there's anything wrong with spending some of your
time watching Leave it to Beaver, it just doesn't generally contribute
much to your current life, other than mild entertainment. How often do
you watch news from even two weeks ago?

Saying that the future super-intelligences will spend all their time
studying us is similar to us spending all our time studying our
ancestors. And while there is some fun in genealogy, and certainly
some interesting things to think about in terms of questions about
evolution and history, those past thinking pursuits are nostalgic and
empty past a certain point. Living in the present, for the future, is
much more enriching than constantly pursuing the past, don't you
think?

> I believe we are not in a simulation for the very same reason I hope there
> is no sentient God of any kind hiding from us. ?This is because creating
> such, and then hiding from us creations like that, would be inhumane,
> immoral and obviously, for so many reasons, unnecessary.

Not at all. Suppose that I created a simulation of myself in a
particular set of circumstances for the sole purpose of having that
copy of my mind write a computer program towards a particular purpose.
I would want that copy of my mind to be fully engaged in that
activity, but also to be having a rich and fulfilling life (which
contributes to good programs) rather than being a slave tied to a
keyboard. Giving that copy of myself knowledge that it is a copy, and
will "die" in three months when the program is written would have a
negative impact on my goal, that of writing the program, and so I can
see myself hiding such information from myself. I do not see this as
being inhumane, and the opposite would be inhumane... Imagine getting
up in the morning aware that you were a simulation that was being run
ONLY for the purposes of accomplishing a particular task... That would
SUCK. The task would not get completed, and it would overall be
horrid.

> For example, we
> can create abstract simulations, that behave exactly like us, yet for which
> there is nothing like it to be such beings. ?Such beings, even though they
> will act as if they are in pain, as they watch their loved one die, will not
> really phenomenally feel anything like we do... ?Sure, it's not a great
> argument, but still, I certainly HOPE we are not in any kind of terrible
> simulation, and that there is some way to accomplish whatever such would
> accomplish, without us having to suffer through all this terrible primitive
> isolation...

Why do you have the idea that being in a simulation would be terrible?
I'm not implying that you are God because you run a simulation. Nor
does the runner of said simulation put themselves in the position of
God.

> You said you feel sorry for the future members of your religion.

Well, I have no religion myself, but I think Mormonism is uniquely
qualified to survive into the transhumanist future because of its
structure. The continuous revelation aspect of the religion allows it
to be malleable to the point that it need to in order to survive.

> I don't
> think it will be quite like that. ?Emagine through some freak one time
> miracle, we managed to extract and reproduce a single human being from
> 50,000 years ago, and all of his life long experiences. ?Certainly such a
> being would be very popular today, some would even consider that he would be
> worshiped, in a way, and given anything he wants, especially compared to the
> life he lived 50,000 years ago. ?I think of it being more like that. ?More
> of a respect for what he was and did, than seeking any kind of guidance from
> us, or anything.

I think we would put him in a cage at the zoo. He might be a curiosity
for a few moments, but we couldn't learn anything much relevant to
today from such a creature. He would be missing all the context
between then and now. And once he learned the context, he would just
be one of us, uninteresting, with a day job.

> So, you don't think I should wonder if those future AGIs will all know
> intimate details, far more than I can remember it myself, of just how
> successful my last sexual encounter with my wife was, how it felt for both
> of us, and all the rest of every intimate details about my entire mortal
> life? ?Do you have any interest, at all, ?of knowing all such about all of
> your ancestors, especially if such only took up less than 1% of everything
> you can do?

Well, to be honest, I don't have much interest in my parent's or
grandparent's sex lives... That's just TMI for me!!! Thanks, but no
thanks. :-) As for us being the "gods" of the future, that would
require a form of ancestor worship that I don't think would be
consistent with ultra high intelligence. Our view of an intelligent
future is congruent, but our view of what they will do with their
intelligence differs. Hopefully, we'll both live to see who is right.
:-)  Do I still get to be a transhumanist? :-)

-Kelly



From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Tue Aug  2 00:56:04 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:56:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Roads in Africa (was Re:  People are the same?)
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwYg=2Un+LknsCq_yH63yTRucBLPg-hxM=DQFtV=D=j0dQ@mail.g
	mail.com>
References: <CAPy8RwYg=2Un+LknsCq_yH63yTRucBLPg-hxM=DQFtV=D=j0dQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201108020056.p720uVY4024822@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

I wrote:

 > At the end of The West Wing, CJ Craig is offered ten billion dollars
 > for one important project of her choose. She chooses roads in
 > Africa. Ten billion dollars would not take us to what you describe.
 > I think that, wisely spent, it would take us space-based industrialization
 > and settlement.

Kelly replied:

>Has any serious economist/scientist proposed this? What are the
>arguments? It sounds interesting and plausible, but I'd like to hear
>more.

Which? Roads in Africa or space-based industrialization?

Roads in Africa is apparently argued in depth by Bj?rn Lomborg.
I brought the subject of how to spend $10G to change the world
up on my Google+ page, where Perry Metzger and another friend
have been arguing about it. (Other friend cited Lomborg; Perry
wants to spend the $ on MNT. I might split the money 70/30 between
space and MNT.)

If you meant space, Keith might be the best to point you to a current
analysis. What I posted was my SWAG from ongoing reading about
the topic since well before G. Harry Stine's 1975 The Third Industrial
Revolution and Brian O'Leary's more rigorous 1982 two-volume
Space Industrialization.

Stine, or the popular treatments by Bova (The High Road) or
to a lesser extent Pournelle (A Step Farther Out) are the best starting
points I know of before delving into something more current, detailed,
and rigorous.

Fellow paleos -- while we're talking about space, who was the
extropian back when at Boeing who'd been asked to come up with
all the ways he could think of to go to space cheaper than the shuttle
and told us he'd thought of over a hundred?


-- David.




From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Tue Aug  2 00:33:56 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 20:33:56 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Roads in Africa (was Re: People are the same?)
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwYg=2Un+LknsCq_yH63yTRucBLPg-hxM=DQFtV=D=j0dQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPy8RwYg=2Un+LknsCq_yH63yTRucBLPg-hxM=DQFtV=D=j0dQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyHH+M7oJa+pBFwA7iEeBvE-fC0AWy0ew7P+kUC_+EQyyg@mail.gmail.com>

More useful might be a process to make durable building materials (for roads
and buildings) out of dirt.  An old friend once suggested a dirt-moltenator.
 Teach a man to fish sort of thing.
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug  2 09:02:14 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 10:02:14 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
Message-ID: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>

I used to think that Astroturf lobbying was just a couple of campaigns
like those protest groups created by the tobacco industry to support
smokers freedom rights to smoke themselves to death, but I now realise
that today it is standard operating procedure for every big
corporation, as a part of their PR campaigns.

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Astroturfing>

Quote:
Astroturfing is a form of propaganda whose techniques usually consist
of a few people attempting to give the impression that mass numbers of
enthusiasts advocate some specific cause. In the UK this technique is
better known as "rent-a-crowd" after the successful "rent-a-crate"
business

The term "astroturfing" is also used to describe public relations
activities aimed at "falsely creating the impression of independent,
popular support by means of an orchestrated and disguised public
relations exercise....designed to give the impression of spontaneous
support for an idea/product/company/service," according to the
Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Social Media
Guidelines.
-------------


Another name is to call them 'cashroots' campaigns to contrast them
with grassroots campaigns.
And the point is that supporters of these corporate funded campaigns
are fully convinced of the rightness of their cause.

<http://www.prwatch.org/node/8498>
Quote:
That the anger is real doesn't make it any less manufactured. It's
literally a product, the sum of a public relations campaign
orchestrated by some of the wealthiest interests in the country. The
goal is to scare ordinary Americans, who've been shaken up by the
economic crash of 2008, into opposing health care reforms intended to
help protect them from insurance industry practices that hurt real
people every day. As Rachel Maddow noted, the industry's profits have
literally quadrupled while countless Americans have been denied
coverage or squeezed with higher premiums for policies riddled with
loopholes.

This recent controversy over health reform is partly the product of a
well-financed disinformation campaign by groups like "FreedomWorks,
Inc." That's the name of a registered non-profit that is greatly
funded by undisclosed for-profit corporations. Before this group was
re-branded with a fancy new name, leaked documents showed that 85
percent of its funding came from huge donations from big companies,
like Philip Morris, and right-wing foundations, like those funded by
the mega-rich Scaifes. This was under its former name, "Citizens for a
Sound Economy" (CSE). Because its brand new name is more Orwellian
than I can stand, I'm just going to call it "F-Works" from here on
out.
---------------



With all these cashroots campaigns, "Follow the money!"  Where does
their funding come from? Though that can sometimes be very difficult
to find out.


BillK


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Tue Aug  2 14:26:39 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 07:26:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

The "newspaper of record", The New York Times just published Robert? Ettinger's obituary": 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/30ettinger.html


?John K Clark
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Tue Aug  2 15:32:23 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:32:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo. com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

John Clark wrote:

>The "newspaper of record", The New York Times just published 
>Robert  Ettinger's obituary":
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/30ettinger.html

It seems to be more accurate than the Washington Post obit
but the tone is insulting.

Have any of the obits gone into why cryonics might be prudent?
Cryonics as an ambulance through time, the prospects of
molecular nanotechnology, and the assessment that a slim
chance of revival is better than none, could be presented in
lay terms in a sentence apiece.

Hell, I'm writing a children's book on cryonics, for ages 4-8.
(Among several other book I have written or am writing for kids
on extropian themes.) It's not hard to explain.


-- David.



From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug  2 15:53:20 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 16:53:20 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 4:32 PM, David Lubkin wrote:
> It seems to be more accurate than the Washington Post obit
> but the tone is insulting.
>
> Have any of the obits gone into why cryonics might be prudent?
> Cryonics as an ambulance through time, the prospects of
> molecular nanotechnology, and the assessment that a slim
> chance of revival is better than none, could be presented in
> lay terms in a sentence apiece.
>
>


That's not the way public 'news' type organisations work.

If they did say why cryonics might be prudent, then for the sake of
so-called 'balanced' reporting, they would also have to give equal
column inches (or time) to explaining why cryonics is NOT a good idea.

They even do that with things like evolution or exploring space or
regulating giant banks.


BillK


From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Tue Aug  2 16:05:28 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 09:05:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1312301128.46040.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

As far as I'm aware, there is no such rule regarding print media in the US. Also, the Fairness Doctrine is basically, in my understanding, no longer in force in regard to broadcast media in the US. In other words, nothing legal prevents the NY Times or any newspaper in the US from taking a pro- or anti- cryonics stance. (Add to this, the NY Times does have opinion columns that do take controversial stances on issues. AFAIK, that paper is not obligated to provide equal column inches to opposing viewpoints.)
?
Regards,
?
Dan
From: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT

That's not the way public 'news' type organisations work.

If they did say why cryonics might be prudent, then for the sake of
so-called 'balanced' reporting, they would also have to give equal
column inches (or time) to explaining why cryonics is NOT a good idea.

They even do that with things like evolution or exploring space or
regulating giant banks.

BillK
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 4:32 PM, David Lubkin wrote:
> It seems to be more accurate than the Washington Post obit
> but the tone is insulting.
>
> Have any of the obits gone into why cryonics might be prudent?
> Cryonics as an ambulance through time, the prospects of
> molecular nanotechnology, and the assessment that a slim
> chance of revival is better than none, could be presented in
> lay terms in a sentence apiece.
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Tue Aug  2 16:19:01 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:19:01 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.g
	mail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201108021619.p72GJUex026207@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Bill K wrote:

>That's not the way public 'news' type organisations work.
>
>If they did say why cryonics might be prudent, then for the sake of
>so-called 'balanced' reporting, they would also have to give equal
>column inches (or time) to explaining why cryonics is NOT a good idea.
>
>They even do that with things like evolution or exploring space or
>regulating giant banks.

It seems to me that in the *obituary* of a not-evil major figure in
a field, it's appropriate to discuss why *that person* thought
it was a prudent endeavor. Without any column-inches devoted
to counterpoint.

For a notable whose grave will be pissed on, they should also
present another viewpoint.


-- David.



From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug  2 16:40:42 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 17:40:42 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <1312301128.46040.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312301128.46040.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjYDoaET-1jWy_mFnH27f7ArDTxZyq4kut=6i8XFo=3gQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/2 Dan wrote:
> As far as I'm aware, there is no such rule regarding print media in the US.
> Also, the Fairness Doctrine is basically, in my understanding, no longer in
> force in regard to broadcast media in the US. In other words, nothing legal
> prevents the NY Times or any newspaper in the US from taking a pro- or anti-
> cryonics stance. (Add to this, the NY Times does have opinion columns that
> do take controversial stances on issues. AFAIK, that paper is not obligated
> to provide equal column inches to opposing viewpoints.)
>
>

I think you are right to say there are no applicable laws for general
news. (The Equal Time rule is for politics only).

But see:
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Objectivity_%28journalism%29>

Quote:
In the context of journalism, objectivity may be understood as
synonymous with neutrality.
It refers to the prevailing ideology of newsgathering and reporting
that emphasizes eyewitness accounts of events, corroboration of facts
with multiple sources and balance of viewpoints.

Some historians, like Gerald Baldasty, have observed that
"objectivity" went hand in hand with the need to make profits in the
newspaper business by selling advertising. Publishers did not want to
offend any potential advertising customers and therefore encouraged
news editors and reporters to strive to present all sides of an issue.
----------------


BillK


From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Tue Aug  2 20:24:46 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 13:24:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjYDoaET-1jWy_mFnH27f7ArDTxZyq4kut=6i8XFo=3gQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312295199.62094.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108021532.p72FWtPH006617@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAL_armiZtsAWyGDR-tux-Rnb83-j-XmCZATP7mE+dC1w3m6taw@mail.gmail.com>
	<1312301128.46040.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAL_armjYDoaET-1jWy_mFnH27f7ArDTxZyq4kut=6i8XFo=3gQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1312316686.73543.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Are you a regular reader of the NY Times? In my view, they do not present a neutral view. Nor do they strive to present all views on a topic. For instance, the anarchist or libertarian positions hardly ever grace its pages. Why is that?
?
Regards,
?
Dan
From: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Robert Ettinger's obituary in NYT

2011/8/2 Dan wrote:
> As far as I'm aware, there is no such rule regarding print media in the US.
> Also, the Fairness Doctrine is basically, in my understanding, no longer in
> force in regard to broadcast media in the US. In other words, nothing legal
> prevents the NY Times or any newspaper in the US from taking a pro- or anti-
> cryonics stance. (Add to this, the NY Times does have opinion columns that
> do take controversial stances on issues. AFAIK, that paper is not obligated
> to provide equal column inches to opposing viewpoints.)

I think you are right to say there are no applicable laws for general
news. (The Equal Time rule is for politics only).

But see:
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Objectivity_%28journalism%29>

Quote:
In the context of journalism, objectivity may be understood as
synonymous with neutrality.
It refers to the prevailing ideology of newsgathering and reporting
that emphasizes eyewitness accounts of events, corroboration of facts
with multiple sources and balance of viewpoints.

Some historians, like Gerald Baldasty, have observed that
"objectivity" went hand in hand with the need to make profits in the
newspaper business by selling advertising. Publishers did not want to
offend any potential advertising customers and therefore encouraged
news editors and reporters to strive to present all sides of an issue.
----------------

BillK
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Tue Aug  2 20:52:35 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 13:52:35 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Dawn Spacecraft Begins Science Orbits of Vesta
Message-ID: <1312318355.38386.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/feature_stories/spacecraft_begins_science_orbits.asp
?
Should be interesting to?hear what sort of composition and structure are surmised from the data.
?
Regards,
?
Dan
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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Aug  2 21:11:30 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:11:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dawn Spacecraft Begins Science Orbits of Vesta
In-Reply-To: <1312318355.38386.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1312318355.38386.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E386802.1050308@satx.rr.com>

On 8/2/2011 3:52 PM, Dan wrote:

> Should be interesting to hear what sort of composition and structure are
> surmised from the data.

I'm hoping for good video of dinosaurs snarling at each other in the 
immense sweaty Venusian swamps, and at least a couple of clear shots of 
Adamski saucers piloted by long-haired Nordics.

Damien Broderick


From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug  3 00:11:37 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 20:11:37 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Dawn Spacecraft Begins Science Orbits of Vesta
In-Reply-To: <4E386802.1050308@satx.rr.com>
References: <1312318355.38386.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4E386802.1050308@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <426CE512-D68B-4E01-9BB6-DA9A970BD2BD@yahoo.com>

Those did come in on the early feeds. You must have missed them. But, happily, the worldwide conspiracy -- the one keep the general public (and the specific public) unawares of ET, Bigfoot, Nessie, and all that -- acted swiftly to suppress them, preventing years of misinformation from going to waste.

Regards,

Dan

On Aug 2, 2011, at 17:11, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> On 8/2/2011 3:52 PM, Dan wrote:
> 
>> Should be interesting to hear what sort of composition and structure are
>> surmised from the data.
> 
> I'm hoping for good video of dinosaurs snarling at each other in the immense sweaty Venusian swamps, and at least a couple of clear shots of Adamski saucers piloted by long-haired Nordics.
> 
> Damien Broderick



From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Wed Aug  3 00:59:06 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 17:59:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Dawn Spacecraft Begins Science Orbits of Vesta
In-Reply-To: <426CE512-D68B-4E01-9BB6-DA9A970BD2BD@yahoo.com>
References: <1312318355.38386.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4E386802.1050308@satx.rr.com>
	<426CE512-D68B-4E01-9BB6-DA9A970BD2BD@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy3qc2fbZo9r3XEyASr9XHyXq8PKKLDkZ8oLmGJ6kJSekQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Coast to Coast AM- with George Noory, a frequent guest by the name of
Richard C. Hoagland predicted that Vesta is covered with the remains of a
long deserted alien base.  He even stated that NASA finally wants to share
the truth this time...

http://recognizereality.com/ufos-aliens/astroid-vesta-the-game-changer

A major UFO/Paranormal conference happened in Phoenix and I had looked
forward to attending, since I have never been to one.  But I quickly soured
on the idea when I learned that a "basic pass" to the event was $250!!!  I
guess that keeps out the people who are not true believers with
deep pockets! lol

John  : )
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug  3 04:27:08 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 22:27:08 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 3:02 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> With all these cashroots campaigns, "Follow the money!" ?Where does
> their funding come from? Though that can sometimes be very difficult
> to find out.

A rather large number of them can be traced back to George Sorros...
at least the left leaning ones...

As for people on the right being opposed to health care, while there
may have been astroturfing, there is also a legitimate grass roots
objection to the government taking over yet another sector of the
economy... As I am sure there is on the left as well.

-Kelly



From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug  3 18:06:46 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 11:06:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Swedish man caught trying to split atoms at home
Message-ID: <1312394806.87256.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

http://news.yahoo.com/swedish-man-caught-trying-split-atoms-home-153341057.html
?
Fairly benign stuff.
?
Dan
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Wed Aug  3 20:00:27 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 22:00:27 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Swedish man caught trying to split atoms at home
In-Reply-To: <1312394806.87256.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1312394806.87256.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a5nQtwOZ8CZSJTMgM=rd5Cky-+D5+OA_Xnaj2ehT0=UAw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/3 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

>
> http://news.yahoo.com/swedish-man-caught-trying-split-atoms-home-153341057.html
>
> Fairly benign stuff.
>

Why, somewhat blasphemous, was it not? :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug  3 21:10:12 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 14:10:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Swedish man caught trying to split atoms at home
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a5nQtwOZ8CZSJTMgM=rd5Cky-+D5+OA_Xnaj2ehT0=UAw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1312394806.87256.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAPoR7a5nQtwOZ8CZSJTMgM=rd5Cky-+D5+OA_Xnaj2ehT0=UAw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1312405812.5932.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I was commenting on what the guy was doing. He wasn't making a Gt weapon, after all. Then again, possession of such weapons would likely give one a different standing with regard to the police, no?
?
Regards,
?
Dan
From: Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
To: Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Swedish man caught trying to split atoms at home


2011/8/3 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

http://news.yahoo.com/swedish-man-caught-trying-split-atoms-home-153341057.html
>
>Fairly benign stuff.

Why, somewhat blasphemous, was it not? :-)?
-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Aug  3 23:37:38 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 19:37:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Dawn Spacecraft Begins Science Orbits of Vesta
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy3qc2fbZo9r3XEyASr9XHyXq8PKKLDkZ8oLmGJ6kJSekQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1312318355.38386.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4E386802.1050308@satx.rr.com>
	<426CE512-D68B-4E01-9BB6-DA9A970BD2BD@yahoo.com>
	<CAGSKFy3qc2fbZo9r3XEyASr9XHyXq8PKKLDkZ8oLmGJ6kJSekQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLhz8XJeXOsgkFKEC99fpcnUqNPBsnPjtg_CxTWkX=Pdw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/2 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:
> On Coast to Coast AM- with George Noory, a frequent guest by the name of
> Richard C.?Hoagland predicted that Vesta is covered with the remains of a
> long deserted alien base.??He even stated that?NASA finally wants to share
> the truth this time...

Wouldn't NASA want to share anything they can use to keep people
employed?  I'm thinking door-to-door sales may not be out of the realm
of possibility soon.

"And with your industrial-sized order of Tang, you'll get a free
Space-pen at no additional cost (just pay separate S&H)"



From moulton at moulton.com  Thu Aug  4 05:19:35 2011
From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton)
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:19:35 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Project in forecasting and decision making
Message-ID: <4E3A2BE7.9030602@moulton.com>


There appears to be a project in forecasting and decision making that is
selecting final volunteers.  The appear to be offering some token
honorarium.  For more info see:

http://goodjudgmentproject.blogspot.com/2011/08/final-registration-begins.html

http://surveys.crowdcast.com/s3/ACERegistration

Fred



From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 07:21:35 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 08:21:35 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Very Old Don't Always Have Healthy Habits
Message-ID: <CAL_armgsE2TQtQNovsz0Arr-gHhrD2TcGgesUZOA871XkFcuNA@mail.gmail.com>

Longevity Genes May Protect Them From Unhealthy Lifestyles

<http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20110803/very-old-dont-always-have-healthy-habits>

Quote:
Aug. 3, 2011 -- Forget the stereotype pairing up longevity with clean living.

Men and women who live to age 95 and beyond, it seems, are overall no
better than the general population when it comes to health habits such
as watching their weight, eating well, and exercising, according to a
new study.

"They are just as bad as the rest of us," says researcher Nir
Barzilai, MD, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York.
-----------
Exactly what percent of the population could have these exceptional
genes isn't known.

However, as Perls points out, studies done in the Seventh Day
Adventist community, known for their healthy choices, suggest
following good health habits could add up to eight more years of life.

"What that tells me is, the average bunch of us has the genetic makeup
in the presence of good health habits that should get us to our late
80s," he says, adding the additional with years to the average U.S.
life expectancy of about 80.

If you want to get beyond 88, he says, you may have to have the lucky
longevity genes.
---------------------



BillK


From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 11:46:32 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 13:46:32 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Very Old Don't Always Have Healthy Habits
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgsE2TQtQNovsz0Arr-gHhrD2TcGgesUZOA871XkFcuNA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgsE2TQtQNovsz0Arr-gHhrD2TcGgesUZOA871XkFcuNA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a5Yjn3wQKCvJXj7-x7DquJmohdyuBQD0NsTJDd+z8t2tQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 4 August 2011 09:21, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Longevity Genes May Protect Them From Unhealthy Lifestyles
>
> <
> http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20110803/very-old-dont-always-have-healthy-habits
> >
>
> Quote:
> Aug. 3, 2011 -- Forget the stereotype pairing up longevity with clean
> living.
>
> Men and women who live to age 95 and beyond, it seems, are overall no
> better than the general population when it comes to health habits such
> as watching their weight, eating well, and exercising, according to a
> new study.
>

OTOH, this may also indicate that what is generally considered as "healthy
habits" are not necessarily a recipe for longevity.

Some may have to do with "living less/slower in order to live for a longer
time", such as caloric restriction or very bland habits.

Other imply that those who live longer do not do that because of their
drinking plenty of water (anedoctical but disturbingly frequent correlations
exist between being 100+ and not having drunk any water to speak of for
decades...) strenuous aerobic exercise, reducing fat and protein ratio in
one's diet, keeping away from alcohol, etc..

--
Stefano Vaj
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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 12:37:22 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 05:37:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The "Transcendent Man Live" presentation,
	and where it succeeded and failed
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy1ehNaL933ojq1JXOW-XgRyh4O7e2UPjr_xgD=ttUpZFQ@mail.gmail.com>

I had only done a cursory glance at the "Transcendent Man Live" advertising
(by Kurzweil and also Fathom) when I went to see it.  At the box office, I
was told the ticket price was $15.00.  I was offended that something I had
already seen online (the Transcendent Man documentary) was so expensive
(rising movie ticket prices is a big pet peeve of mine).  I had thought the
August 3rd presentation was the documentary with maybe 15-30 minutes of
live panel talk tacked on at the end.  And so I turned around and went home.

But when I went onto FB and read postings by friends, I realized my mistake!
lol  And unfortunately, it seems that attendance rates were dismally low
across the nation.  I tend to think the advertising which had the
words "Transcendent Man" in large print, confused not just me, but many
people, into making them think the live show was essentially the
documentary! Argh!!!

Alex Lightman did a review of the show on his FB page, that gave it a
positive, but somewhat mixed report.  He was very impressed by Kurzweil and
Kamen (especially Kamen's inventions that could solve the third world's
terrible need for clean water and energy), but felt Wozniak was out of date
with current tech, and that Kaku (despite in some ways doing
quite well) sounded like he was quoting from his "Physics from the Future"
book.  Kaku was actually corrected by Kurzweil about the second law of
thermodynamics, and later revealed himself to have a simplistic and
inaccurate view of the science behind longevity research.  Lightman also
felt that Tam Le, Quincy Jones, and also the panel host were all out
of their league there, and that Deepak Chopra was a gloom and doomer who
wanted to be the center of attention, and should have had his sound
connection turned off...

I realize this event will in time be available on DVD (I've heard that it
will be out within a mere thirty days), but I wish I had gotten to see it on
the big screen, and with other people who enjoy the same things I do.  I
asked the theater manager how many tickets had been sold for it, and he told
me thirty.  I wonder if anyone there was someone I would have known...
Damn!  Anyway, I hope every five or ten years that Kurzweil does an event
like this one.  It would be a cool way for him to explain/expound on how his
predictions are coming along.


John Grigg
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From natasha at natasha.cc  Thu Aug  4 14:02:09 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc)
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:02:09 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The "Transcendent Man Live" presentation,
	and where it	succeeded and failed
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy1ehNaL933ojq1JXOW-XgRyh4O7e2UPjr_xgD=ttUpZFQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy1ehNaL933ojq1JXOW-XgRyh4O7e2UPjr_xgD=ttUpZFQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110804100209.w5p7com6oc8wowgg@webmail.natasha.cc>



   Thanks John. Great post but on a personal level, Alex Lightman's  
opinion is not one that I value.

   Quoting John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:

> I had only done a cursory glance at the "Transcendent Man Live" advertising
> (by Kurzweil and also Fathom) when I went to see it.? At the box office, I
> was told the ticket price was $15.00.? I was offended that something I had
> already seen online (the Transcendent Man documentary) was so expensive
> (rising movie ticket prices is a big pet peeve of mine).? I had thought the
> August 3rd presentation was the documentary with maybe 15-30 minutes of
> live panel talk tacked on at the end.? And so I turned around and went home.
>
> But when I went onto FB and read postings by friends, I realized my mistake!
> lol? And unfortunately, it seems that attendance rates were dismally low
> across the nation.? I tend to think the advertising which had the
> words "Transcendent Man" in large print, confused not just me, but many
> people, into making them think the live show was essentially the
> documentary! Argh!!!
>
> Alex Lightman did a review of the show on his FB page, that gave it a
> positive, but somewhat mixed report.? He was very impressed by Kurzweil and
> Kamen (especially Kamen's inventions that could solve the third world's
> terrible need for clean water and energy), but felt Wozniak was out of date
> with current tech, and that Kaku (despite in some ways doing
> quite well) sounded like he was quoting from his "Physics from the Future"
> book.? Kaku was actually corrected by Kurzweil about the second law of
> thermodynamics, and later revealed himself to have a simplistic and
> inaccurate view of the science behind longevity research.? Lightman also
> felt that Tam Le, Quincy Jones, and also the panel host were all out
> of their league there, and that Deepak Chopra was a gloom and doomer who
> wanted to be the center of attention, and should have had his sound
> connection turned off...
>
> I realize this event will in time be available on DVD (I've heard that it
> will be out within a mere thirty days), but I wish I had gotten to see it on
> the big screen, and with other people who enjoy the same things I do.? I
> asked the theater manager how many tickets had been sold for it, and he told
> me thirty.? I wonder if anyone there was someone I would have known...
> Damn!? Anyway, I hope every five or ten years that Kurzweil does an event
> like this one.? It would be a cool way for him to explain/expound on how his
> predictions are coming along.
>
>
> John Grigg
>


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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 14:53:58 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 16:53:58 +0200
Subject: [ExI] The "Transcendent Man Live" presentation,
 and where it succeeded and failed
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy1ehNaL933ojq1JXOW-XgRyh4O7e2UPjr_xgD=ttUpZFQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy1ehNaL933ojq1JXOW-XgRyh4O7e2UPjr_xgD=ttUpZFQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a7Ou70iUJ_i3O7MaEVkOtuPNaRTiRGCH5t=1oVnfwVwcQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/4 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>

> I realize this event will in time be available on DVD (I've heard that it
> will be out within a mere thirty days), but I wish I had gotten to see it on
> the big screen.


I just got the DVD (or is it just the documentary?) and plan to inspect it
during the week-end, hoping that a 65' plasma will give it enough justice.
:-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 15:39:53 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 08:39:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The "Transcendent Man Live" presentation,
 and where it succeeded and failed
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a7Ou70iUJ_i3O7MaEVkOtuPNaRTiRGCH5t=1oVnfwVwcQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy1ehNaL933ojq1JXOW-XgRyh4O7e2UPjr_xgD=ttUpZFQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a7Ou70iUJ_i3O7MaEVkOtuPNaRTiRGCH5t=1oVnfwVwcQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy0AOmO0a92v78PXnk164DBR5HzEzxm1hfG1pUccbLm5_w@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/4 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>

> 2011/8/4 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
>
>> I realize this event will in time be available on DVD (I've heard that it
>> will be out within a mere thirty days), but I wish I had gotten to see it on
>> the big screen.
>
>
> I just got the DVD (or is it just the documentary?) and plan to inspect it
> during the week-end, hoping that a 65' plasma will give it enough justice.
> :-)
>


Yes, what you have is the "Transcendent Man" documentary, which is not to be
confused with the later "Transcendent Man Live" panel discussion film that
was theatrically broadcast on August 3rd! lol

I'm quite certain that your 65' plasma will not do it justice...  You need
to see it on a giant theater screen, while surrounded by hundreds of
enthusiastic uber-nerds!  Oh, well...

John  : )
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From rloosemore at susaro.com  Thu Aug  4 17:07:35 2011
From: rloosemore at susaro.com (Richard Loosemore)
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:07:35 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>

On 8/3/11 12:27 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 3:02 AM, BillK<pharos at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> With all these cashroots campaigns, "Follow the money!"  Where does
>> their funding come from? Though that can sometimes be very difficult
>> to find out.
> A rather large number of them can be traced back to George Sorros...
> at least the left leaning ones...
Laughable.

Can you cite your evidence that "a rather large number of" the 
astroturfing organizations are traceable back to George Soros?

The fact that you might *prefer* the people you do not like to be 
responsible for them does not change reality.

Of all the many astroturf situations I have heard about over the last 
decade, the overwhelming majority were right-wing or libertarian funded.

The only time I have heard a journalist do a He-Said-She-Said and try to 
mention a supposedly left-wing astroturf, to balance mention of a 
right-wing one, that organisation was one that I (and many other people 
I know) actually joined, and actively support with email protests .... 
hence manifestly not a cashroots organization at all, but a genuine one.


Richard Loosemore







From thespike at satx.rr.com  Thu Aug  4 18:52:59 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:52:59 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Jesus sighted
In-Reply-To: <CCE7046343634160816E5AE590FB8765@D8D2CX1J>
References: <CCE7046343634160816E5AE590FB8765@D8D2CX1J>
Message-ID: <4E3AEA8B.1060502@satx.rr.com>

<http://drphilhammond.com/blog/2010/07/25/news/what-dr-phils-up-to/>



From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 18:04:33 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 19:04:33 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiSC4r9BF280zJxokZB1=N4sAoLcCtTpJaN-zdUO=b15w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote:
<snip>
> Of all the many astroturf situations I have heard about over the last
> decade, the overwhelming majority were right-wing or libertarian funded.
>
> The only time I have heard a journalist do a He-Said-She-Said and try to
> mention a supposedly left-wing astroturf, to balance mention of a right-wing
> one, that organisation was one that I (and many other people I know)
> actually joined, and actively support with email protests .... hence
> manifestly not a cashroots organization at all, but a genuine one.
>
>

I think it is a bit unfair to say some astroturf campaigns were
libertarian funded. Libertarians are a tiny group with little funds to
play with. Overwhelmingly it is big corporations with huge PR budgets
that are producing astroturf propaganda.

(Unless you define libertarians as Republicans who take drugs).  ;)

BillK


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 19:11:14 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 13:11:14 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Richard Loosemore
<rloosemore at susaro.com> wrote:
> On 8/3/11 12:27 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 3:02 AM, BillK<pharos at gmail.com> ?wrote:
>>>
>>> With all these cashroots campaigns, "Follow the money!" ?Where does
>>> their funding come from? Though that can sometimes be very difficult
>>> to find out.
>>
>> A rather large number of them can be traced back to George Sorros...
>> at least the left leaning ones...
>
> Laughable.
>
> Can you cite your evidence that "a rather large number of" the astroturfing
> organizations are traceable back to George Soros?

Sure, in fact it is very easy.

George Soros And His Open Society Institute gave at least $21,223,500
To 23 Groups working against President Bush?s Legislative Agenda and
$5,235,000 to groups that blocked Bush appointees.

For example, the Alliance For Justice Building Grassroots Network To
Oppose The President?s Nominees. ?[AFJ President Nan] Aron said her
office had been flooded with calls from students, lawyers and
activists ?who were involved in get-out-the-vote work and now want to
turn their attention to the Supreme Court.? ? Like the Presidential
election, a Supreme Court nomination fight will feature polling, paid
television advertising and grass-roots organizing. Ms. Aron said she
had been ?on the road for weeks,? recruiting volunteers and trying to
build networks in various states.? (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, ?Prepping For
The Next Big Battle: The Supreme Court,? The New York Times, 12/8/04)

?[Common Cause Spokeswoman Mary] Boyle Said That During The Past Four
Years, Soros? Open Society Institute Had Given $600,000 To Common
Cause?s Education Fund ? The Group?s 501(c)(3) Arm.? (Ben Pershing,
?Gillespie Issues Challenge To BCRA Backers,? Roll Call, 11/18/03

Common Cause President Chellie Pingree Kicked Off A Major Capital Hill
Rally In Support Of Democrats Filibustering Judicial Nominees. ??A
longtime Senate procedure should not be scrapped simply because it is
inconvenient to the goals of one political interest,? Chellie said.
?It?s an abuse of power to strip the Senate minority of a tool
designed to protect its rights - rights both parties have defended
throughout the Senate?s history.?? (Common Cause Website,
www.commoncause.org, Accessed 4/11/05)

MoveOn.Org:

George Soros Gave $2,500,000 To MoveOn.Org Voter Fund. (Political
Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 3/18/05)

MoveOn PAC Launched A National Cable TV Spot Asking, ?Just Who Made
Dick Cheney ?King?? Of The Nominations Process. (National Journal
Website, ?Ad Spotlight,? www.nationaljournal.com, 3/16/05, Accessed
4/1/05)

Democrats Supported MoveOn PAC By Participating In Pro-Filibuster
Rally Despite Moderate Democrats Urging To Distance The Party From
MoveOn. (Byron York, ?Right On, MoveOn!? National Review Online,
3/17/05)

NARAL Pro-Choice America:

George Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed $200,000 To NARAL
Pro-Choice America In 2004. (Open Society Institute Website,
www.soros.org, Accessed 4/25/05)

NARAL Pro-Choice America Website: ?Don?t Let Frist Eliminate The
Filibuster! Our Ability To Save The Supreme Court From President Bush
Could Hang In The Balance ... Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)
Is Hatching A Plan To Allow President Bush To Pack The Courts With
Extremist Judges.? (NARAL Pro-Choice America Website,
www.prochoiceaction.org, Accessed 4/22/05)

People For The American Way: (This is a big one)

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed
At Least $450,000 To People For The American Way Since 1999. (Open
Society Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/5/05; Capital
Research Center Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 4/5/05)

According to Wikipedia... Soros gave $3 million to the Center for
American Progress, $2.5 million to MoveOn.org, and $20 million[51] to
America Coming Together.

Soro's own web site gives a list of some of the initiatives he is
involved with...
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/mena
This includes a plan to change the US foreign policy towards the Middle East.

Planned Parenthood:

Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed $950,000 To Planned
Parenthood Federation Of America Since 2002. (Open Society Institute
Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/25/05)

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $11,050,000
To Groups Opposing President Bush?s Plans To Strengthen Social
Security.

America Coming Together:
Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Largest Individual Contributor
To America Coming Together, Donating $7,500,000. (Political Money Line
Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 4/26/05)

ACT Email: ?This Coming Tuesday Your Time Is Urgently Needed To Stop
President Bush And His Republican Allies From Dismantling Social
Security. Please Join ACTivists In Your Area ? For One Of The Many
Rallies Around The Country Scheduled To Coincide With The Senate
Finance Committee?s First Official Hearings On Social Security
Privatization.? (America Coming Together Email, ?ACT On Tuesday To
Save Social Security,? 4/23/05)

Campaign For America?s Future:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Top Contributor To Campaign For
America?s Future, Donating $300,000. (Political Money Line Website,
www.tray.com, Accessed 1/8/05)

?Americans United To Protect Social Security, As The Group Will Be
Known, Is Being Spearheaded By The American Federation Of State,
County And Municipal Employees, The AFL-CIO, And Two Liberal Advocacy
Groups, The Campaign For America?s Future And USAction. Another
200-Odd Interest Groups Are Also Supporting The Effort.? (Chris
Cillizza, ?Coalition To Battle Social Security Plan,? Roll Call,
2/17/05)

Center For American Progress:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Reportedly Pledged $3 Million To
CAP. (Amy Westfeldt, ?Billionaire Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is ?
Toward Ousting Bush,? The Associated Press, 6/10/04)

Several Liberal Groups Met To Organize Efforts Against The President?s
Plan To Strengthen Social Security. ?The myriad outside groups that
oppose President Bush?s plan to overhaul Social Security met in
Washington, D.C., ? . Representatives from ? The Center for American
Progress ? Attended [the meeting].? (Chris Cillizza, ?Private Account
Critics Huddle,? Roll Call, 4/14/05)

Democracy For America:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Top Donor To Democracy For
America?s 527 In 2004 Cycle, Giving $250,000. (Political Money Line
Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 3/11/05)

Democracy For America Chairman Jim Dean: ?And We Will Be Getting Into
The Fight To Stop George Bush From Dismantling Social Security.?
(Democracy For America Email, ?Hello There,? 2/16/05)

Jim Dean: ?We Hoped That Putting A Human Face On Social Security Would
Help Shape The Debate Over The Republican Plans To Privatize And Phase
It Out. ? With Your Help, We?ll Make Sure That Every Politician
Understands The Real Impact Of The President?s Plan.? (Democracy For
America Email, ?The Social Security Story In Your Community,? 3/10/05)

Democracy For America Executive Director Tom Hughes: ?The Best Thing
That We Can Do To Stop The Bush Plan To Phase Out Social Security Is
To Focus On The Individual Americans Whom The Program Protects. In The
Coming Months We Can Be The Clearinghouse For Personal Testimony About
Its Success. Will You Help?? (Democracy For America Email, ?What?s
Your Story?? 3/1/05)

ProtectYourCheck.Org:

?The [Former Clinton Aide Harold] Ickes Organization Will Twin Its
Efforts With The Ongoing Operations Of Americans United To Protect
Social Security, A Grass-Roots Organization Being Run By A Handful Of
Former Democratic Senate Campaign Operatives.? (Chris Cillizza, ?New
Group To Join Social Security Battle,? Roll Call, 3/16/05)

?        In 2004, Ickes Helped Found America Coming Together. (Richard
Lacayo and Joel Stein, ?The Outside Players,? Time, 11/15/04)

o       Billionaire Financier George Soros Gave $14.5 Million To ACT.
(Katharine Q. Seelye, ?Anti-Bush Billionaire Plans To Give More,? The
New York Times, 9/29/04)

?Under The Immutable Laws Of Political Spending, However, The Money Is
Already Going Elsewhere. And This Time, It Is Likely To Go To
501(c)(4) Organizations, Known In Short As C4s, Named For The
Subsection Of The Internal Revenue Service Code Which Allows Their
Formation.? (Byron York, ?New Campaign-Finance-Reform Follies,?
National Review Online, 4/19/05)

?        ?A New Group Known As ProtectYourCheck.Org, Put Together By
Harold Ickes, The Former Clinton Deputy White House Chief Of Staff Who
Was One Of The Leaders Of The Anti-Bush 527 Effort Last Year, Is A C4.
It Plans To Raise $15 Million To Fight Social Security Reform. Where
Is That Money Coming From? Ickes Is Not Required To Say.? (Byron York,
?New Campaign-Finance-Reform Follies,? National Review Online,
4/19/05)

ENERGY BILL

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $2,815,000 To
Groups Opposing National Energy Legislation.

?BushGreenwatch Is A Project Of Environmental Media Services, A
Nonprofit Communications Clearinghouse, With Support From Moveon.Org,
The Online Advocacy Group.? (Bush Greenwatch Website,
www.bushgreenwatch.org, Accessed 4/21/05)

Campaign For America?s Future:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Top Contributor To Campaign For
America?s Future, Donating $300,000. (Political Money Line Website,
www.tray.com, Accessed 1/8/05)

CAF Email Against Energy Plan Promotes Apollo Plan, ?That Will ...
Free America From Over-Reliance On Unstable And Undemocratic Oil
Regimes ? Create Millions Of New Jobs Here In America ? Protect Our
Natural Environment Through Real Investments In Pollution-Reducing
Technologies ? Reduce Gas Prices By Helping Americans Reduce Oil
Demand ?? (Campaign For America?s Future Email, ?The REAL Price Of
Gas,? 4/21/05)

CAF Has Fill-In-The-Blank Email On Website: ?Just Say No To Big Oil,
And Yes To American Energy Independence!? (Campaign For America?s
Future Website, www.ourfuture.org, Accessed 4/21/05)

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $2,121,500 To
Groups Opposing Tort Reform.

Alliance For Justice:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed
$535,000 To Alliance For Justice Since 1999. (Open Society Institute
Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/5/05; Capital Research Center
Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 4/5/05)

Alliance For Justice Ran Ad In Roll Call Opposing Tort Reform.
(Alliance For Justice Advertisement, Accessed Via Alliance For Justice
Website, www.allianceforjustice.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

Consumers Union:

Since 2001, Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute
Gave At Least $325,000 To Consumers Union. (Capital Research Center
Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 4/26/05; Open Society
Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

Consumers Union Senior Product Safety Counsel Sally Greenberg:
?Consumers Union Is Greatly Disappointed That Members Of The Senate
Have Chosen To Side With The Largest Corporations In America ? Many Of
Whom Lobbied Heavily For This Bill ? And Against The Interests Of
Regular People Seeking Access To Justice.? (Consumers Union, Consumers
Union Calls Vote Today In Senate On Class Action Bill A ?Sad Day For
Consumers,?? Press Release, 2/9/05)

Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Gave At
Least $263,000 To Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law. (Open
Society Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

?The Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law Calls Upon Senators
To Amend The Class Action Bill To Insure That America?s Workers Are
Protected. Senate Bill S. 5, The So-Called ?Class Action Fairness
Act,? Is Anything But Fair To Workers And Victims Of Discrimination.?
(Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, ?Lawyers? Committee
For Civil Rights Under Law Urges Senate To Exempt Civil Rights And
Wage And Hour Cases From Class Action Bill,? Press Release, 2/3/05)

Leadership Conference On Civil Rights:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Gave At
Least $808,500 To Leadership Conference On Civil Rights And Its
Education Fund. (Open Society Institute Website, www.soros.org,
Accessed 4/26/05)

?Prior To Voting On [Tort Reform], The Senate Also Voted Against An
Amendment (40 To 59) That Would Have Exempted Civil Rights Suits And
State Law Wage-And-Hour Cases From The Bill, Thereby Preventing Those
Cases From Being Moved To Federal Courts. ? The Leadership Conference
On Civil Rights (LCCR) Had Expressed Its ?Extreme Disappointment? Of
The Vote Against The Amendment, Saying It Was ?A Dark Day For The
Rights Of Workers And Ordinary Americans.?? (Leadership Conference On
Civil Rights Website, www.civilrights.org, 2/15/05, Accessed 4/26/05)

Natural Resources Defense Council:

Soros? Open Society Institute Gave $5,000 To Natural Resources Defense
Council. (Open Society Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed
4/21/05)

NRDC Letter To U.S. Senators: ?Our Organizations Are Opposed To The
Sweepingly Drawn And Misleadingly Named ?Class Action Fairness Act Of
2005.?? (NRDC et al., Letter To United States Senators, 2/7/05)

Public Citizen:

Since 2001, Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute
Gave More Than $180,000 To Public Citizen. (Capital Research Center
Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 3/16/05)

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook: ?The U.S. Senate Today Has
Given Banks, Credit Card Companies, Insurers, Hmos, Drug Manufacturers
And Other Big Corporations A Green Light To Defraud And Deceive
Consumers Without Fear Of Being Held Accountable. Passage Of The Class
Action Legislation Will Mean That Many Class Action Lawsuits Will Not
Be Heard In Either State Courts Or Federal Courts.? (Public Citizen,
?U.S. Senate Gives Green Light To Market Fraud And Deception,? Press
Release, 2/10/05)

BANKRUPTCY

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $2,825,000 To
Groups Opposing Revising Bankruptcy Laws.


Consumers Union:



Since 2001, Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute
Gave At Least $325,000 To Consumers Union. (Capital Research Center
Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 4/26/05)



CU Letter To House Members: ?Consumers Union, The Non-Profit,
Independent Publisher Of Consumer Reports?, Strongly Urges You To
Reject The Bankruptcy Legislation Expected To Be Considered This Week
On The House Floor. Contrary To The Claims Of Its Sponsors, The
Legislation Is Not Narrowly Focused On Bankruptcy Abuses.? (Consumers
Union, Letter To U.S. Representatives, 4/10/05)



MoveOn.Org:



Billionaire Financier George Soros Gave $2,500,000 To MoveOn.Org Voter
Fund. (Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 3/18/05)



MoveOn.Org PAC: ?Last Week, The House Of Representatives Passed
Bankruptcy Legislation (302-126) That Will Make Life A Lot Harder For
A Lot Of Good People. Usually Congress Wouldn?t Feel Any Consequences
For A Vote Like This, But Moveon PAC Has Developed Radio Ads That Will
Shine A Bright Light On The Legislation And The Representatives Who
Supported It ? Dissuading Wrong Votes Next Time.? (MoveOn.Org PAC
Website, www.moveonpac.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

BUDGET

 Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $3,337,000
To Groups Opposing The President?s Budget.

Campaign For America?s Future:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Top Contributor To Campaign For
America?s Future, Donating $300,000. (Political Money Line Website,
www.tray.com, Accessed 1/8/05)

CAF Website Features Fill-In-The-Blank Email To Congress: ?President
Bush?s Indecent Budget Proposal Slashes Education, Health Care And
Essential Services For The Most Vulnerable Americans While Lavishing
More Tax Breaks On The Wealthiest. None Of Bush?s Cuts Will Happen
Though If Congress Rejects His Budget.? (Campaign For America?s Future
Website, www.ourfuture.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

Center For Community Change:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Gave At
Least $3,037,000 To Center For Community Change. (Open Society
Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/26/05; Capital Research
Center Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

?[T]he Center For Community Change Launched ?Jericho,? A 30-Second TV
Spot ? The Ad Features Snippets From Bush?s First Inaugural Address In
2001 ? Statistics On Poverty, Homelessness And Hunger Appear On Screen
As An Announcer Says The New Budget Will Show If Bush?s ?Actions Live
Up To His Words.?? (Meg Kinnard, ?Group: Will Bush Budget Actions
?Live Up To His Words??? NationalJournal.com, nationaljournal.com,
2/3/05)

PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION/LACI?S LAW

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $1,150,000 To
Groups Opposing Outlawing Partial-Birth Abortions.

Planned Parenthood:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed
$950,000 To Planned Parenthood Federation Of America Since 2002. (Open
Society Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/25/05)

?Planned Parenthood Federation Of America (PPFA) ? Announced Today At
A Press Conference That They Have Filed A Lawsuit In A San Francisco
Federal Court To Challenge The So-Called Partial Birth Abortion Ban
Act Of 2003, A Federal Abortion Ban That Was Passed By Congress On
Oct. 20 And Has Been Sent To President Bush For His Signature.?
(Planned Parenthood Federation Of America, ?Planned Parenthood Files
Lawsuit To Block Unconstitutional, Reckless Abortion Ban,? Press
Release, 10/31/03)

?Today The House Is Set To Take Action On The So-Called ?Unborn
Victims Of Violence Act.? The Bill Creates A Separate Crime For Harm
Done To A Fetus ? At Any Stage Of Development ? In The Commission Of
Certain Federal Crimes, Or Crimes Committed On Federal Property. ? The
Bill The House Will Consider Today Has Been Dubbed ?Laci And Connor?s
Law? ?? (Planned Parenthood Federation Of America Website, ?The Born
Victims Of Politics,? www.saveroe.com, 2/26/04, Accessed 4/26/05)


NARAL Pro-Choice America:



Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed
$200,000 To NARAL Pro-Choice America In 2004. (Open Society Institute
Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/25/05)



?The NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, The Leading National
Advocate For Personal Privacy And The Right To Choose, Today Announced
The Launch Of A New Television Ad Campaign In Response To President
Bush?s Planned Signing Tomorrow Of The So-Called ?Partial Birth
Abortion? Ban Legislation.? (NARAL Pro-Choice America, ?NARAL
Pro-Choice America Launches Ad Campaign As President Signs First
Criminal Abortion Ban,? Press Release, 11/4/03)



?The ?Unborn Victims Of Violence Act? Is A Deceptive Bill That
Threatens Women?s Rights. Although Supporters Of The Bill Claim That
Their Goal Is To Protect Women From Acts Of Violence, Their True
Intent Is To Undermine Roe V. Wade.? (NARAL Pro-Choice America
Website, ?The ?Unborn Victims Of Violence Act?: A Misguided Bill That
Threatens Women?s Rights,? www.naral.org, Accessed 4/26/05)



JOHN BOLTON NOMINATION



Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $3,000,000 To
Groups Opposing John Bolton Nomination To Be U.N. Ambassador.

Center For American Progress:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Reportedly Pledged $3 Million To
CAP. (Amy Westfeldt, ?Billionaire Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is ?
Toward Ousting Bush,? The Associated Press, 6/10/04)

?Two Groups Explicitly Associated With George Soros ? The Open Society
Policy Center And The American Progress Action Fund ? Are Working With
Citizens For Global Solutions To Defeat Bolton.? (Accuracy In Media,
?Aim Says ?Follow The Money? To George Soros And One-Worlders Against
John Bolton,? Press Release, 4/12/05)

Citizens For Global Solutions:

?Citizens For Global Solutions Used To Be Known As The World
Federalist Association (WFA), A Group That Favors World Government And
Global Taxes On American Citizens To Pay For It. The Organization ? Is
Leading The Opposition To Bolton Through Television Ads And A ?Stop
Bolton? Web Site ?? (Accuracy In Media, ?Aim Says ?Follow The Money?
To George Soros And One-Worlders Against John Bolton,? Press Release,
4/12/05)

?Two Groups Explicitly Associated With George Soros ? The Open Society
Policy Center And The American Progress Action Fund ? Are Working With
Citizens For Global Solutions To Defeat Bolton.? (Accuracy In Media,
?Aim Says ?Follow The Money? To George Soros And One-Worlders Against
John Bolton,? Press Release, 4/12/05)

Open Society Policy Center:

?[Soros] Opened A $2-Million Office In Washington ? And Created The
Open Society Policy Center, Which Will Focus On Foreign Policy And
Civil Liberties.? (Ian Wilhelm, ?Soros, In Major Shift, Will Focus
Giving On Advocacy And Globalization,? The Chronicle Of Philanthropy,
6/27/02)

?The Open Society Policy Center, Former U.S. Ambassadors And Other
Groups Will Hold A Press Conference On Monday, April 4 To Announce
Their Opposition To John Bolton?s Nomination As Ambassador To The UN.?
(Open Society Policy Center Website, www.opensocietypolicycenter.org,
Accessed 4/20/05)

ALBERTO GONZALES

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $2,763,000 To
Groups Opposing Alberto Gonzales? Nomination To Be Attorney General.

Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Gave At
Least $263,000 To Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law. (Open
Society Institute Website, www.soros.org, Accessed 4/26/05)

?The Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law ? Urged Senators On
The Judiciary Committee Not To Confirm The Nomination Of Alberto
Gonzales For United States Attorney General Until There Has Been A
More Probing Examination Of His Views On Civil Rights Law
Enforcement.? (Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Under Law,
?Lawyers? Committee For Civil Rights Urges Senate Committee Not To
Confirm The Nomination Of Alberto Gonzales Until More Is Known About
His Commitment To Civil Rights,? Press Release, 2/3/05)

MoveOn.Org:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Gave $2,500,000 To MoveOn.Org Voter
Fund. (Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 3/18/05)

MoveOn.Org Ran Ad Against Alberto Gonzales. ?Call your Senator today
and say no to torture. Say no to Alberto Gonzales.? (MoveOn.Org,
?Horrified,? Press Release, 1/6/05)

ATTACKS AGAINST MAJORITY LEADER TOM DELAY

Soros And His Open Society Institute Have Given At Least $7,890,000 To
Groups Attacking Majority Leader DeLay.


Campaign For America?s Future:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Top Contributor To Campaign For
America?s Future, Donating $300,000. (Political Money Line Website,
www.tray.com, Accessed 1/8/05)

?The Campaign For America?s Future Unveiled A New Television Ad Today
That Urges Congress To ?Wash Its Hands? Of Rep. Tom DeLay,
Highlighting The Controversy Surrounding The House Majority Leader,
Who Is Increasingly Seen As A Liability To His Party.? (Campaign For
America?s Future, ?New TV Ads Highlight Tom DeLay?s Corruption,? Press
Release, 3/30/05)

Center For American Progress:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Reportedly Pledged $3 Million To
Center For American Progress. (Amy Westfeldt, ?Billionaire Puts His
Money Where His Mouth Is ? Toward Ousting Bush,? The Associated Press,
6/10/04)

?DropTheHammer.org Is A Campaign Of The American Progress Action
Fund.? (DropTheHammer.org Website, www.dropthehammer.org, Accessed
4/20/05)

Common Cause:

?[Common Cause Spokeswoman Mary] Boyle Said That During The Past Four
Years, Soros? Open Society Institute Had Given $600,000 To Common
Cause?s Education Fund ? The Group?s 501(c)(3) Arm.? (Ben Pershing,
?Gillespie Issues Challenge To BCRA Backers,? Roll Call, 11/18/03)

?Eight Watchdog Groups, Which Banded Together In 2003 As The
Congressional Ethics Coalition, Held A News Conference [January 3,
2005] To Protest The Proposed Changes [In House Ethics Rules] ?? (Mike
Allen, ?GOP Abandons Ethics Changes,? The Washington Post, 1/4/05)

Common Cause President Chellie Pingree Accused Tom DeLay Of Trying To
?Fix The Ethics Process.? ??If he can?t somehow transcend the politics
and fix the ethics process, then he will be seen as just a partisan
player,? said Chellie Pingree, President of Common Cause, a group that
advocates replacing DeLay as the House?s no. 2 Republican.? (Matthew
Daly, ?Lawmaker Takes Job As Ethics Investigator,? The Associated
Press, 4/7/05)

Common Cause Circulating Petition Calling For Tom DeLay To Step Down.
?Tom DeLay is ethically unfit to serve as a leader of the people?s
House. America has higher standards than to let someone with his track
record lead an institution as important to our democracy as the United
States House of Representatives. We believe the time has come for Rep.
DeLay to step down.? (Common Cause Website, www.commoncause.org,
Accessed 4/11/05)

Democracy 21:

Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute Contributed
$310,000 To Democracy 21 Since 1999. (Open Society Institute Website,
www.soros.org, Accessed 4/6/04)

?Eight Watchdog Groups, Which Banded Together In 2003 As The
Congressional Ethics Coalition, Held A News Conference [January 3,
2005] To Protest The Proposed Changes [In House Ethics Rules] ?? (Mike
Allen, ?GOP Abandons Ethics Changes,? The Washington Post, 1/4/05)

 Democracy For America:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Was Top Donor To Democracy For
America?s 527 In 2004 Cycle, Giving $250,000. (Political Money Line
Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 3/11/05)

Democracy For America Email: ?We?re Buying Billboards In The 22nd
Congressional District, And If Your Slogan Is Selected, It Will Be
Part Of Democracy For America?s Big Splash In Tom DeLay?s Backyard.?
(Democracy For America Email, ?Beware Of Falling Congressmen??
4/12/05)

MoveOn.Org:

Billionaire Financier George Soros Gave $2,500,000 To MoveOn.Org Voter
Fund. (Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 3/18/05)

MoveOn.Org PAC: ?It Is Time To Fire Tom DeLay As House Majority
Leader. Please Sign Our Petition Urging Congress To Remove DeLay From
His Leader Post.? (MoveOn.Org PAC Email, ?Help Fire Tom DeLay,?
4/6/05)

Public Campaign:

Since 2001, Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute
Has Given $750,000 To Public Campaign. (Open Society Institute
Webpage, www.soros.org, Accessed 3/30/05)



?Eight Watchdog Groups, Which Banded Together In 2003 As The
Congressional Ethics Coalition, Held A News Conference [January 3,
2005] To Protest The Proposed Changes [In House Ethics Rules] ?? (Mike
Allen, ?GOP Abandons Ethics Changes,? The Washington Post, 1/4/05)



?A Copy Of The Letter, Which Called On House Leaders ?To Reinstate The
Old Rules,? Was Provided To The New York Times By The Public Campaign
Action Fund, A Private Group That Monitors Campaign Fund-Raising And
Has Long Been Critical Of Mr. Delay.? (Philip Shenon and Sheryl Gay
Stolberg, ?10 Ex-G.O.P. Lawmakers Attack Changes In Ethics Rules,?

The New York Times, 4/15/05)



?The Public Campaign Action Fund, A Nonprofit Funded In Part By
Billionaire George Soros, Is Spending $25,000 To Sponsor An Online
Petition Drive That Calls For Delay To Resign.? (Mary Curtius, ?Delay
Fires Up GOP Troops For Counterattack,? Los Angeles Times, 4/3/05)



?The Daily DeLay Weblog, Maintained By The Public Campaign Action
Fund, A Liberal Group ?? (Richard E. Cohen, ?Doubts Over DeLay,?
National Journal, 12/18/04)



Public Citizen:



Since 2001, Billionaire Financier George Soros? Open Society Institute
Gave More Than $180,000 To Public Citizen. (Capital Research Center
Website, www.capitalresearch.org, Accessed 3/16/05)



?Eight Watchdog Groups, Which Banded Together In 2003 As The
Congressional Ethics Coalition, Held A News Conference [January 3,
2005] To Protest The Proposed Changes [In House Ethics Rules] ?? (Mike
Allen, ?GOP Abandons Ethics Changes,? The Washington Post, 1/4/05)

> The fact that you might *prefer* the people you do not like to be
> responsible for them does not change reality.

I personally suspect that there are just as many right wing
astroturfing social networks funded by rich Republicans. George Soros
is just a really great example of this because he as SO MANY different
little organizations in his networks. I have counted over 100
different organizations that have accepted Soros money to lobby for
left wing issues.

As a libertarian, I applaud the fact that Soros can do this! While I
may disagree vehemently with his politics, I will defend his right to
them.

> Of all the many astroturf situations I have heard about over the last
> decade, the overwhelming majority were right-wing or libertarian funded.

So where is your list?

> The only time I have heard a journalist do a He-Said-She-Said and try to
> mention a supposedly left-wing astroturf, to balance mention of a right-wing
> one, that organisation was one that I (and many other people I know)
> actually joined, and actively support with email protests .... hence
> manifestly not a cashroots organization at all, but a genuine one.

So the only "genuine" organization is one that you belong to? Now
THAT's funny. I suppose then that the Tea Party movement is not a
"genuine" organization for you. I'm sure Sarah Palin is throwing her
billions into cashroots causes... LOL.

Soros is up to his neck in this stuff, and anyone who says otherwise
is really ignorant of the situation. Not that there is anything wrong
with that, but to deny it is silly.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=498740
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Coming_Together  (even sounds astroturfy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Society_Institute
http://www.soros.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress
November 2008 article in Time stated that "not since the Heritage
Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan's transition in 1981 has a
single outside group held so much sway."[4] (They helped write the
Obama Care Bill)

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=498740
So what looked like a wildfire grassroots movement really was a
manipulation from OSI's glassy Manhattan offices. The public had no
way of knowing until the release of OSI's 2006 annual report.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soros_Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Society_Foundations

Shall I go on? I think not.

Soros isn't behind all the stuff that the right wing accuses him of,
but he is definitely a big time player.

-Kelly



From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 19:38:07 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 20:38:07 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
	<CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> Sure, in fact it is very easy.
>
> George Soros And His Open Society Institute gave at least $21,223,500
> To 23 Groups working against President Bush?s Legislative Agenda and
> $5,235,000 to groups that blocked Bush appointees.
>
<big snip>


Soros might well have done this, but it isn't astroturf.

Astroturf creates a pseudo popular campaign by use of hundreds of
aliases, generating thousands of emails, phone calls, newspaper
articles, etc, pretending to have a groundswell of popular support
where none exists in reality.

Supporting real-life campaign groups is not astroturfing.


BillK



From thespike at satx.rr.com  Thu Aug  4 19:58:55 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:58:55 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>	<CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E3AF9FF.7020506@satx.rr.com>

On 8/4/2011 2:38 PM, BillK wrote:

> Supporting real-life campaign groups is not astroturfing.

Astonishing that this has to be pointed out.

Damien Broderick


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Fri Aug  5 01:46:33 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 19:46:33 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
	<CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwar1jQwN9LS=s0P7c=0y3f5NsSW7a8Zt8zBnkyT5FAyog@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 1:38 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> Sure, in fact it is very easy.
>>
>> George Soros And His Open Society Institute gave at least $21,223,500
>> To 23 Groups working against President Bush?s Legislative Agenda and
>> $5,235,000 to groups that blocked Bush appointees.
>>
> <big snip>
>
>
> Soros might well have done this, but it isn't astroturf.
>
> Astroturf creates a pseudo popular campaign by use of hundreds of
> aliases, generating thousands of emails, phone calls, newspaper
> articles, etc, pretending to have a groundswell of popular support
> where none exists in reality.
>
> Supporting real-life campaign groups is not astroturfing.

Fair enough. Admittedly, I provided a very long list, without a lot of
detail... and I can't blame you for missing this one, which I believe
does meet the definition of astroturfing.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=498740

'So what looked like a wildfire grassroots movement really was a
manipulation from OSI's glassy Manhattan offices. The public had no
way of knowing until the release of OSI's 2006 annual report.'

I would be willing to bet a significant sum that this is not the only
case. If this doesn't meet the definition, then I do not understand
what astroturfing is. The point for me is that Soros is creating
opinion, not supporting it.

-Kelly



From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug  5 08:40:43 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 09:40:43 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwar1jQwN9LS=s0P7c=0y3f5NsSW7a8Zt8zBnkyT5FAyog@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
	<CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8Rwar1jQwN9LS=s0P7c=0y3f5NsSW7a8Zt8zBnkyT5FAyog@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgcZePZNcH3_OtL9MPvM618DEwFeH=fNiHbgHz3_meSWQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 2:46 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> Fair enough. Admittedly, I provided a very long list, without a lot of
> detail... and I can't blame you for missing this one, which I believe
> does meet the definition of astroturfing.
>
> http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=498740
>
> 'So what looked like a wildfire grassroots movement really was a
> manipulation from OSI's glassy Manhattan offices. The public had no
> way of knowing until the release of OSI's 2006 annual report.'
>
> I would be willing to bet a significant sum that this is not the only
> case. If this doesn't meet the definition, then I do not understand
> what astroturfing is. The point for me is that Soros is creating
> opinion, not supporting it.
>
>

Yes, Soros is lobbying and producing propaganda. Nobody is denying
that claim. All sides of the political / financial spectrum try to
sway public opinion in similar fashion. That's what the advertising
and PR industries do.

Astroturf also tries to change laws and sway public opinion. But the
point is that astroturf is pretending to have massive public support
that doesn't exist.  In the example you quoted, having millions of
protesters in the streets is obviously not astroturf. Neither is
giving financial support to a whistleblower.

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Astroturfing>
explains and offers examples.
Sometimes, as in all messy human affairs, a valid grassroots campaign
will throw in a bit of astroturfing to help their campaign. Like
flooding newspapers or congressmen with similar readers letters using
many different fake names, so as to appear to have more public support
than they actually have.


BillK


From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Fri Aug  5 10:19:37 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 12:19:37 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a649w6g9Srqu58ACNRyR9kdSDOrK4kLmYx0=tqRr-PXoA@mail.gmail.com>

On 4 August 2011 19:07, Richard Loosemore <rloosemore at susaro.com> wrote:

>
> The only time I have heard a journalist do a He-Said-She-Said and try to
> mention a supposedly left-wing astroturf, to balance mention of a right-wing
> one, that organisation was one that I (and many other people I know)
> actually joined, and actively support with email protests .... hence
> manifestly not a cashroots organization at all, but a genuine one.
>

I expect that any astroturf campaign only need to be seeded, and once it has
reached critical mass can well walk on its feet.

I do not know whether the "protests" and now "revolutions" in the Middle
East should be considered as left-wing or right-wing (not that I care), but
they seem a rather obvious example in point.

As to the merits, I think astroturfing is an obvious and rather banal
reflection of contemporary political rhetorics. A few years ago, the
equivalent was probably to claim on good authority that the King liked a
given product or disapproved of a given
policy.

Too bad we lack the necessary cash... :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug  5 13:39:35 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 14:39:35 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Survival of the nicest
Message-ID: <CAL_armiBw1u_a9hnawA-dY2Z4yCX_nTVw-PixNkrcwgrqEq8=g@mail.gmail.com>

'Survival of the fittest' in human society doesn't mean survival of
the toughest or most ruthless.

<http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/generosity-survival-of-the-nicest/>
Quote:
Economic models of rationality and evolutionary models of fitness
maximization both predict that humans should be designed to be selfish
in one-time only situations. Yet, experimental work?and everyday
experience?shows that humans are often surprisingly generous.

?So one of the outstanding problems in the behavioral sciences was why
natural selection had not weeded out this pleasing but apparently
self-handicapping behavioral tendency,? Tooby says.

?The paper shows how this feature of human behavior emerges logically
out of the dynamics of cooperation, once an overlooked aspect of the
probleM?The inherent uncertainty of social lifEn?Is taken into
account.

?People who help only when they can see a gain do worse than those who
are motivated to be generous without always looking ahead to see what
they might get in return.?
--------------------


BillK



From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Fri Aug  5 14:17:26 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 07:17:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Survival of the nicest
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiBw1u_a9hnawA-dY2Z4yCX_nTVw-PixNkrcwgrqEq8=g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armiBw1u_a9hnawA-dY2Z4yCX_nTVw-PixNkrcwgrqEq8=g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1312553846.83061.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Without reading the article, I would say some economic models and some evolutionary models predict that -- not all. (In fact, it terms of economics, it's really those theorists who bake in a certain view of human psychology, action, and values that end up with models like that.)
?
Regards,
?
Dan
From: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
To: Extropy Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2011 9:39 AM
Subject: [ExI] Survival of the nicest

'Survival of the fittest' in human society doesn't mean survival of
the toughest or most ruthless.

<http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/generosity-survival-of-the-nicest/>
Quote:
Economic models of rationality and evolutionary models of fitness
maximization both predict that humans should be designed to be selfish
in one-time only situations. Yet, experimental work?and everyday
experience?shows that humans are often surprisingly generous.

?So one of the outstanding problems in the behavioral sciences was why
natural selection had not weeded out this pleasing but apparently
self-handicapping behavioral tendency,? Tooby says.

?The paper shows how this feature of human behavior emerges logically
out of the dynamics of cooperation, once an overlooked aspect of the
probleM?The inherent uncertainty of social lifEn?Is taken into
account.

?People who help only when they can see a gain do worse than those who
are motivated to be generous without always looking ahead to see what
they might get in return.?
--------------------

BillK
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From rtomek at ceti.pl  Fri Aug  5 16:06:13 2011
From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 18:06:13 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [ExI] self-accelerating AI sf?
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108051706070.27576@tau.ceti.pl>

Hello,

Just in case anybody here would like to know more about Stanislaw Lem and 
his take on subject of self-accelerating AI...

(And I hope that after some DNS glitches this is the only copy that made 
it to the list :-) )

The usual suspect is:

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV ]

There are few stories by Lem which, depending on mood and other factors 
could be read as dealing with AI.

>From "Tales of Pirx the Pilot" 
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Pirx_the_Pilot ]

- The Hunt - mining drone goes rampant on the Moon and Pirx joins 
hunting expedition - there is a bit more than action movie, however.

- The Accident - during research exploration of distant planet, it seems 
that Aniel (this name is made up and in Polish has some closeness to 
angel and feminine name Aniela-Angela), kind of multipurpose servant bot, 
decided to hike in the mountains without assecuration (just like it took a 
challenge to prove itself) but after slipping down, trashed on the rocks 
below. Pirx doesn't share his thoughts with others about this and he 
agrees that robot must have suffered some kind of failure.

- The Inquest - during test flight of robotic pilots (mixed crew, Pirx is 
unable to tell who is human and who is not), one of them tries to kill all 
humans and establish his own kind-of-empire somewhere in a distant part of 
space, but fails because another non-human cooperates with Pirx.

- Ananke - Pirx takes part in an investigation, trying to discover reason 
behind failures of advanced space ship navigation units and learns how, 
during their training by human supervisor, they not only take his good but 
his wrong traits from him, too.

And in "The Star Diaries"
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Diaries ]
the protagonist, Ijon Tichy, has few encounters with advanced proto-AIs. 
But I am not sure if those stories had been translated into English (I 
guess that no, unfortunately). Seems that stories about his voyages have 
been translated, while second part of Polish version ("Ze wspomnien Ijona 
Tichego", "Memoirs of Ijon Tichy") seems to have been left. Anyway, here 
goes:

After traveling through space and time, Tichy spends some period on Earth 
and he meets a few original types, each one described in his own story. 

"Professor Corcoran" is arrogant scientist (they happen to find Tichy with 
their sixth sense, obviously) specialising in cybernetics, who stores 
artificial brains in big boxes and makes them believe they are humans, 
with their own lifes, emotions etc. He also believes that he himself is 
such brain stored in someone's else basement. 

Later on, in "Professor Decantor", he meets another scientist, who makes 
brain copies of living people, so that they can live "forever" (as long as 
material lasts, maybe even through the end of Universe) and calls those 
copies their souls. However, souls are unable to make contact with outside 
world, so this is more like preparated brain in a glass container... And 
to make things even more problematic, copying involves death of original. 
The story is also a play on religious beliefs and promises of eternal 
life. Decantor shows to Tichy a soul of his wife and Tichy is shaken. He 
later goes on to bargain the soul, and after disgusting negotiations Tichy 
is allowed to destroy it.

Next, in "Laundry opera" ("Tragedia pralnicza", verbatim translation = 
"laudry tragedy"), Tichy describes a number of consequences of introducing 
intelligent washing machines, kitchen stoves and other such home 
appliances. Some of them became pregnant with their owners, some made 
billions on speculation and other black market stunts. When producers, 
horrified as events unfolded, decided to limit parts production, in effect 
controlling robot population, robots formed bands robbing other robots on 
the streets. Some space ships decided to try their luck pirating other 
ships and fighting with cybernetic police ships, etc etc... Finally, there 
are news of strange object in Crab Nebula, looking like monstrous human, 
making moves like a swimmer. The object makes contact with a ship sent to 
check it, explains his name is Mattrass and it is formed from robots (a'la 
cells in a body), and asks humans to not disturb him as he swims in gasous 
cloud and does as he pleases. The problem of Mattrass ownership or 
citizenship arises and the court trial is under way, but during this it is 
discovered that some people in the room are in fact robots in disguise. So 
they start removing robots from the room until Tichy remains alone. Being 
alone and having nothing to do, he walks home. BTW this story, in my 
opinion, plays on capitalism and it's reliance on lawyers. And what 
happens when we pair this with emergent automata (mostly: a lot of 
nonsense, which looks very funny in a story, but might be not so funny in 
real life).

In "Doctor Diagoras" Tichy meets with another eccentric. This one hates 
professor Corcoran so much, that he put his copy into cuckoo clock, so 
that every hour Corcoran-bis is shouting, asking for help, crying and 
trying to negotiate his delivery out of prison, all for entertainment of 
Diagoras, who pleases himself while he insults and mocks Corcoran-bis... 
Who even went so far as to enabling Corcoran-bis a phone call to his 
original, so that his imprisonment is even more humiliating (i.e. a copy 
knows that he is a copy and thus cannot have much hope about freedom). 
Diagoras tours Tichy through his spacious labolatory and shows him cages, 
in which he holds cybernetic organisms created by himself. However, he - 
contrary to other cyberneticians - does not want them to be obedient so 
that he can make another evolution rather than imitate and "plagiarize" 
the one that had already happened. Creatures are not really intelligent, 
rather similar to lower animals, driving on primitive control mechanisms 
like various forms of tropism. However they can be spontanically 
aggressive and they all rather sooner than later try to escape, hence 
cages. Also, Diagoras criticises idea of building perceptron and 
developing Eniac, as a way to build "electric slaves and computing 
idiots".

Next, they come to a panzer well, in which there lay remains of another
cyberorganism. Diagoras gave it a way to replicate and self organise, and 
as soon as it went on, it tried to liberate itself. So, somehow it was 
able to rebuild its body made of weak steel into hardened one, and started 
to dig and ram into the wall made of steel plates and reinforced concrete. 
To stop it, Diagoras sunk it in liquid oxygen (throwing Dewar flasks 
straight into the well), so its moves became discoordinated and before 
oxygen evaporated (and before creature had chance of adopting itself to 
superconductivity) he managed to saw a creature into pieces with a small 
remotely controlled saw.

Further on, Diagoras presents to Tichy two isolated rooms, in every room 
there is glass tank with "thinking polymer". He proudly claims to train 
this chemical substance into solving problems of growing complexity by 
using electric and magnetic shocks on them. However, as he noticed, they 
started to exchange radio messages, so he isolated them from each other 
with metal sheets. Again, they changed medium to infrasounds, prompting 
him to isolate them acoustically. After that they somehow overcame an
obstacle and resumed their talk, this time by unknown means. Also, they 
ignored his attempts to enter this exchange. As they talk and go from one 
tank to another, carefully closing heavy doors behind, Tichy notices that 
Diagoras' hand taps onto the glass. They realise that Diagoras was 
creatures' medium and that he became their experimental subject. Shortly 
after Diagoras bursts in anger and wants Tichy to leave immediately, which 
he does calmly and without opposition. Later, recalling this, Tichy is not 
certain about causes of both this anger and his own silence. A month 
passes, and Tichy reads in a newspaper that technicians trying to repair 
electric cable have found Diagoras house silent and empty, with two empty 
undamaged glass tanks, and Diagoras himself is assumed missing and never 
to be seen again.

That's all, for some time at least.

BTW, the funny fact is that Tichy memoirs are from 1961 and Pirx tales I 
mentioned above are from years 1965-1971, AFAIR.

The subject of mechanistic intelligence is a common subject of "Robot's 
Tales" ("Bajki robotow"), "The Cyberiad", "The Mask" ("Maska" - stream of 
consciousness of a killer bot that gradually fails in love with its 
running away target), "The Invincible" (space cruiser lands on a planet 
and has to deal with - as one could say today - microbots that are 
possibly a product of mechanistic evolution, kind of "grey goo" but made 
of macroscopic elements, however question of sentience level of those 
clouds is left unanswered).

Oh, to be frank I could go on and on - I would risk to say that AI and 
it's relations with humanity was the main and real subject of Lem's works, 
both "action books" and philosophy pieces (like "Summa Technologiae"), 
even thou thanks to him being among the firsts to explore such themes, he 
had to invent his own terms and words, so in Summa there is a part devoted 
to Intellectronics rather than to AI, Phantomology rather than "virtual 
reality" and so forth (Summa had it's first Polish edition in 1964, so 
even if some terms had been used before, it would be too strange to 
import them into Polish language and Lem, being great erudite, choosed 
to go his own way). And in his "action books" action wasn't the main 
raison d'etre of the books, or at least this is how I am reading them 
today.

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 rloosemore at susaro.com  Fri Aug  5 14:19:10 2011
From: rloosemore at susaro.com (Richard Loosemore)
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:19:10 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiSC4r9BF280zJxokZB1=N4sAoLcCtTpJaN-zdUO=b15w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
	<CAL_armiSC4r9BF280zJxokZB1=N4sAoLcCtTpJaN-zdUO=b15w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E3BFBDE.3010003@susaro.com>

On 8/4/11 2:04 PM, BillK wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote:
> <snip>
>> Of all the many astroturf situations I have heard about over the last
>> decade, the overwhelming majority were right-wing or libertarian funded.
>>
>> The only time I have heard a journalist do a He-Said-She-Said and try to
>> mention a supposedly left-wing astroturf, to balance mention of a right-wing
>> one, that organisation was one that I (and many other people I know)
>> actually joined, and actively support with email protests .... hence
>> manifestly not a cashroots organization at all, but a genuine one.
>>
>>
> I think it is a bit unfair to say some astroturf campaigns were
> libertarian funded. Libertarians are a tiny group with little funds to
> play with. Overwhelmingly it is big corporations with huge PR budgets
> that are producing astroturf propaganda.
>
> (Unless you define libertarians as Republicans who take drugs).  ;)
>
:-)

I was mindful of the set of very wealthy people who fund right-wing 
initiatives, but whose political allegiances are hard to define, being 
somewhere in the republican/libertarian badlands.



Richard Loosemore



From rloosemore at susaro.com  Fri Aug  5 14:30:53 2011
From: rloosemore at susaro.com (Richard Loosemore)
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:30:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
	<CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E3BFE9D.4080004@susaro.com>

On 8/4/11 3:11 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Richard Loosemore
> <rloosemore at susaro.com>  wrote:
>> On 8/3/11 12:27 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>> On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 3:02 AM, BillK<pharos at gmail.com>   wrote:
>>>> With all these cashroots campaigns, "Follow the money!"  Where does
>>>> their funding come from? Though that can sometimes be very difficult
>>>> to find out.
>>> A rather large number of them can be traced back to George Sorros...
>>> at least the left leaning ones...
>> Laughable.
>>
>> Can you cite your evidence that "a rather large number of" the astroturfing
>> organizations are traceable back to George Soros?
> Sure, in fact it is very easy.
>
> George Soros And His Open Society Institute gave at least $21,223,500
> To 23 Groups working against President Bush?s Legislative Agenda and
> $5,235,000 to groups that blocked Bush appointees.
>
[snipped]

Kelly, none of this is evidence for ASTROTURFING.

You gave evidence that Soros funds organizations that attract large 
numbers of REAL supporters, like me -- those are not astroturf, they are 
genuine grassroots organizations in which very large numbers of real 
people believe in a thing and try to do something about it.

Astroturfing is about setting up an organizations to give the *illusion* 
of a large movement of people who support something, but where in fact 
the organization is just a couple of guys, a big name like "American 
People for Jobs and Prosperity" (I made that up: I have no idea if there 
is a real group called that), and expensive radio advertisments.

So, once again you support your claims with smoke and mirrors.


Richard Loosemore






From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Sat Aug  6 00:34:59 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 20:34:59 -0400
Subject: [ExI] self-accelerating AI sf?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108051706070.27576@tau.ceti.pl>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108051706070.27576@tau.ceti.pl>
Message-ID: <15461BFC-9114-4372-BA20-E97AF404DC28@yahoo.com>

I've been known to opine a thing or two about Lem:

http://mars.superlink.net/~neptune/Lem.html

Sorry for the shameless self-promotion. :)

Regards,

Dan

On Aug 5, 2011, at 12:06, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Just in case anybody here would like to know more about Stanislaw Lem and 
> his take on subject of self-accelerating AI...
> 
> (And I hope that after some DNS glitches this is the only copy that made 
> it to the list :-) )
> 
> The usual suspect is:
> 
> [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV ]
> 
> There are few stories by Lem which, depending on mood and other factors 
> could be read as dealing with AI.
> 
>> From "Tales of Pirx the Pilot" 
> [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Pirx_the_Pilot ]
> 
> - The Hunt - mining drone goes rampant on the Moon and Pirx joins 
> hunting expedition - there is a bit more than action movie, however.
> 
> - The Accident - during research exploration of distant planet, it seems 
> that Aniel (this name is made up and in Polish has some closeness to 
> angel and feminine name Aniela-Angela), kind of multipurpose servant bot, 
> decided to hike in the mountains without assecuration (just like it took a 
> challenge to prove itself) but after slipping down, trashed on the rocks 
> below. Pirx doesn't share his thoughts with others about this and he 
> agrees that robot must have suffered some kind of failure.
> 
> - The Inquest - during test flight of robotic pilots (mixed crew, Pirx is 
> unable to tell who is human and who is not), one of them tries to kill all 
> humans and establish his own kind-of-empire somewhere in a distant part of 
> space, but fails because another non-human cooperates with Pirx.
> 
> - Ananke - Pirx takes part in an investigation, trying to discover reason 
> behind failures of advanced space ship navigation units and learns how, 
> during their training by human supervisor, they not only take his good but 
> his wrong traits from him, too.
> 
> And in "The Star Diaries"
> [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Diaries ]
> the protagonist, Ijon Tichy, has few encounters with advanced proto-AIs. 
> But I am not sure if those stories had been translated into English (I 
> guess that no, unfortunately). Seems that stories about his voyages have 
> been translated, while second part of Polish version ("Ze wspomnien Ijona 
> Tichego", "Memoirs of Ijon Tichy") seems to have been left. Anyway, here 
> goes:
> 
> After traveling through space and time, Tichy spends some period on Earth 
> and he meets a few original types, each one described in his own story. 
> 
> "Professor Corcoran" is arrogant scientist (they happen to find Tichy with 
> their sixth sense, obviously) specialising in cybernetics, who stores 
> artificial brains in big boxes and makes them believe they are humans, 
> with their own lifes, emotions etc. He also believes that he himself is 
> such brain stored in someone's else basement. 
> 
> Later on, in "Professor Decantor", he meets another scientist, who makes 
> brain copies of living people, so that they can live "forever" (as long as 
> material lasts, maybe even through the end of Universe) and calls those 
> copies their souls. However, souls are unable to make contact with outside 
> world, so this is more like preparated brain in a glass container... And 
> to make things even more problematic, copying involves death of original. 
> The story is also a play on religious beliefs and promises of eternal 
> life. Decantor shows to Tichy a soul of his wife and Tichy is shaken. He 
> later goes on to bargain the soul, and after disgusting negotiations Tichy 
> is allowed to destroy it.
> 
> Next, in "Laundry opera" ("Tragedia pralnicza", verbatim translation = 
> "laudry tragedy"), Tichy describes a number of consequences of introducing 
> intelligent washing machines, kitchen stoves and other such home 
> appliances. Some of them became pregnant with their owners, some made 
> billions on speculation and other black market stunts. When producers, 
> horrified as events unfolded, decided to limit parts production, in effect 
> controlling robot population, robots formed bands robbing other robots on 
> the streets. Some space ships decided to try their luck pirating other 
> ships and fighting with cybernetic police ships, etc etc... Finally, there 
> are news of strange object in Crab Nebula, looking like monstrous human, 
> making moves like a swimmer. The object makes contact with a ship sent to 
> check it, explains his name is Mattrass and it is formed from robots (a'la 
> cells in a body), and asks humans to not disturb him as he swims in gasous 
> cloud and does as he pleases. The problem of Mattrass ownership or 
> citizenship arises and the court trial is under way, but during this it is 
> discovered that some people in the room are in fact robots in disguise. So 
> they start removing robots from the room until Tichy remains alone. Being 
> alone and having nothing to do, he walks home. BTW this story, in my 
> opinion, plays on capitalism and it's reliance on lawyers. And what 
> happens when we pair this with emergent automata (mostly: a lot of 
> nonsense, which looks very funny in a story, but might be not so funny in 
> real life).
> 
> In "Doctor Diagoras" Tichy meets with another eccentric. This one hates 
> professor Corcoran so much, that he put his copy into cuckoo clock, so 
> that every hour Corcoran-bis is shouting, asking for help, crying and 
> trying to negotiate his delivery out of prison, all for entertainment of 
> Diagoras, who pleases himself while he insults and mocks Corcoran-bis... 
> Who even went so far as to enabling Corcoran-bis a phone call to his 
> original, so that his imprisonment is even more humiliating (i.e. a copy 
> knows that he is a copy and thus cannot have much hope about freedom). 
> Diagoras tours Tichy through his spacious labolatory and shows him cages, 
> in which he holds cybernetic organisms created by himself. However, he - 
> contrary to other cyberneticians - does not want them to be obedient so 
> that he can make another evolution rather than imitate and "plagiarize" 
> the one that had already happened. Creatures are not really intelligent, 
> rather similar to lower animals, driving on primitive control mechanisms 
> like various forms of tropism. However they can be spontanically 
> aggressive and they all rather sooner than later try to escape, hence 
> cages. Also, Diagoras criticises idea of building perceptron and 
> developing Eniac, as a way to build "electric slaves and computing 
> idiots".
> 
> Next, they come to a panzer well, in which there lay remains of another
> cyberorganism. Diagoras gave it a way to replicate and self organise, and 
> as soon as it went on, it tried to liberate itself. So, somehow it was 
> able to rebuild its body made of weak steel into hardened one, and started 
> to dig and ram into the wall made of steel plates and reinforced concrete. 
> To stop it, Diagoras sunk it in liquid oxygen (throwing Dewar flasks 
> straight into the well), so its moves became discoordinated and before 
> oxygen evaporated (and before creature had chance of adopting itself to 
> superconductivity) he managed to saw a creature into pieces with a small 
> remotely controlled saw.
> 
> Further on, Diagoras presents to Tichy two isolated rooms, in every room 
> there is glass tank with "thinking polymer". He proudly claims to train 
> this chemical substance into solving problems of growing complexity by 
> using electric and magnetic shocks on them. However, as he noticed, they 
> started to exchange radio messages, so he isolated them from each other 
> with metal sheets. Again, they changed medium to infrasounds, prompting 
> him to isolate them acoustically. After that they somehow overcame an
> obstacle and resumed their talk, this time by unknown means. Also, they 
> ignored his attempts to enter this exchange. As they talk and go from one 
> tank to another, carefully closing heavy doors behind, Tichy notices that 
> Diagoras' hand taps onto the glass. They realise that Diagoras was 
> creatures' medium and that he became their experimental subject. Shortly 
> after Diagoras bursts in anger and wants Tichy to leave immediately, which 
> he does calmly and without opposition. Later, recalling this, Tichy is not 
> certain about causes of both this anger and his own silence. A month 
> passes, and Tichy reads in a newspaper that technicians trying to repair 
> electric cable have found Diagoras house silent and empty, with two empty 
> undamaged glass tanks, and Diagoras himself is assumed missing and never 
> to be seen again.
> 
> That's all, for some time at least.
> 
> BTW, the funny fact is that Tichy memoirs are from 1961 and Pirx tales I 
> mentioned above are from years 1965-1971, AFAIR.
> 
> The subject of mechanistic intelligence is a common subject of "Robot's 
> Tales" ("Bajki robotow"), "The Cyberiad", "The Mask" ("Maska" - stream of 
> consciousness of a killer bot that gradually fails in love with its 
> running away target), "The Invincible" (space cruiser lands on a planet 
> and has to deal with - as one could say today - microbots that are 
> possibly a product of mechanistic evolution, kind of "grey goo" but made 
> of macroscopic elements, however question of sentience level of those 
> clouds is left unanswered).
> 
> Oh, to be frank I could go on and on - I would risk to say that AI and 
> it's relations with humanity was the main and real subject of Lem's works, 
> both "action books" and philosophy pieces (like "Summa Technologiae"), 
> even thou thanks to him being among the firsts to explore such themes, he 
> had to invent his own terms and words, so in Summa there is a part devoted 
> to Intellectronics rather than to AI, Phantomology rather than "virtual 
> reality" and so forth (Summa had it's first Polish edition in 1964, so 
> even if some terms had been used before, it would be too strange to 
> import them into Polish language and Lem, being great erudite, choosed 
> to go his own way). And in his "action books" action wasn't the main 
> raison d'etre of the books, or at least this is how I am reading them 
> today.
> 
> 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             **
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk  Sat Aug  6 18:10:28 2011
From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell)
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 19:10:28 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there? (Richard
	Loosemore)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1312632003.2141.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

Kelly asked if we could list any libertarian astroturfing. Well, to match Mr Soros' left-wing activity I would like to propose the Koch brothers.

I google "koch brothers" - first article I get is the wiki article, with a prominent link to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_family

This states one brother funded and co-founded the Cato Institute, while the other was Libertarian VP candidate in 1980. OK, so the Libertarian party is variable on how "libertarian" its platform is, but they clearly self-identified as libertarians in the past.

Next google result - a New Yorker article entitled "COVERT OPERATIONS: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama"

next result - a Guardian article "The Koch brothers: all the influence money can buy". This linked to
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/04/06/3936/kochs-web-influence?utm_source=publicintegrity&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter
Which shows how much corporate lobbying the Kochs do as opposed to how much is actually supporting libertarian causes.

OK, so they may be rich hypocritical libertarians, but they're as fair targets as Mr Soros and his billionaire liberalism.

Tom



From natasha at natasha.cc  Sun Aug  7 01:14:56 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc)
Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2011 21:14:56 -0400
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
Message-ID: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>



   Considering the tools we use to alter our environment and our own  
existence, it is fun and somewhat appropriate to look back to Alchemy,  
especially the early Taoists in China, who seem to be the originators  
(rather than the Egyptians before the Greeks).?? The four elements ?  
earth, water, air and? fire ? appear in many cultures of alchemy,  
although referred to somewhat differently. Of greater interest to me  
is that fifth element ? the quintessence of life.? I am probably  
inaccurate when I borrow this term and equate ?it to personal  
identity, althought it works for me in some way I cannot expain.?  
Reading a marvelous book I ordered from Ireland _Prelude to  
Chemistry_? (Read 1936), I am delighted to find so many terms that are  
presently applied to methods of life extension (i.e., revivification,  
transmutation), and the lyrical quality of this book is surprising.  
The relationship of the term ?body? is of special interest ?in  
relation to the encasement of the elements and also the milestone  
discovery of wine into vinegar. ?Hey - it's the body of wine that  
gives it viscosity and umph. ?(New bodies for new minds.)? And so on ?  
so, thinking about this and about human enhancement and also NBIC ,  
GRIN, etc., ?seem to be the current philosopher?s stone or egg.? Once  
Kevin Kelly said that technology is out of control, ?yet now he sees  
technology as wanting.? While he refers to ?extropy? in _What  
Technology Wants_ (2010), under a new term exotropy. It seems that we  
are once again back to this idea as providing a philosopher?s strategy  
for addressing the technologies of human enhancement and life  
extension/expansion as new types of elements.? Wise too is it that  
extropy does not look for perfection ?(As Alchemy did) but for  
continual exploration, improvement, questioning, learning and change.?  
Putting a heck of a lot of God-stuff aside, the only thing that is way  
off the mark is the goal of perfection.

   But I wonder, if NBIC, GRIN, etc. are the tools (chemistry?) for  
the life extension/expansion are they somehow equitable to the  
Alchemist?s 4 or 5 elements?? And if so, how the heck can we create an  
appropriate egg polis?

   Natasha

   ?

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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sun Aug  7 02:20:57 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2011 21:20:57 -0500
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
Message-ID: <4E3DF689.9060600@satx.rr.com>

On 8/6/2011 8:14 PM, natasha at natasha.cc wrote:

> how the heck can we create an appropriate egg polis?

For a mad moment I thought you'd written "how the hen can we create an 
appropriate egg polis?"

Arthur C. Cluck

[We've been brooding about hens, as Barbara's blog explains:

<http://huerto-de-altamira.blogspot.com/2011/07/celebration-of-nature.html> 
]




From natasha at natasha.cc  Sun Aug  7 03:06:50 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 22:06:50 -0500
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
Message-ID: <3B2A9E30D12840358EC89D687BE28DD5@DFC68LF1>

Darn. Sorry for emali hub using "?" for grammatical keys. I fixed it from
Outlook.

  _____  

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of
natasha at natasha.cc
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 8:15 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus



Considering the tools we use to alter our environment and our own existence,
it is fun and somewhat appropriate to look back to Alchemy, especially the
early Taoists in China, who seem to be the originators (rather than the
Egyptians before the Greeks).   The four elements  --  earth, water, air and
fire  --  appear in many cultures of alchemy, although referred to somewhat
differently. Of greater interest to me is that fifth element ? the
quintessence of life.  I am probably inaccurate when I borrow this term and
equate  it to personal identity, althought it works for me in some way I
cannot expain.  Reading a marvelous book I ordered from Ireland Prelude to
Chemistry (Read 1936), I am delighted to find so many terms that are
presently applied to methods of life extension (i.e., revivification,
transmutation), and the lyrical quality of this book is surprising. The
relationship of the term  " body "  is of special interest  in relation to
the encasement of the elements and also the milestone discovery of wine into
vinegar.  Hey - it's the body of wine that gives it viscosity and umph.
(New bodies for new minds.)  And so on  -- so, thinking about this and about
human enhancement and also NBIC, GRIN, etc.,  seem to be the current
philosopher ' s stone or egg.  Once Kevin Kelly said that technology is out
of control,  yet now he sees technology as wanting.  While he refers to
"extropy "  in What Technology Wants (2010), under a new term exotropy. It
seems that we are once again back to this idea as providing a philosopher '
s strategy for addressing the technologies of human enhancement and life
extension/expansion as new types of elements.  Wise too is it that extropy
does not look for perfection  (As Alchemy did) but for continual
exploration, improvement, questioning, learning and change.  Putting a heck
of a lot of God-stuff aside, the only thing that is way off the mark is the
goal of perfection.

But I wonder, if NBIC, GRIN, etc. are the tools (chemistry) for the life
extension/expansion are they somehow equitable to the Alchemist ' s 4 or 5
elements?  And if so, how the heck can we create an appropriate egg polis?

Natasha

 


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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sun Aug  7 05:03:14 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 23:03:14 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there? (Richard
	Loosemore)
In-Reply-To: <1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.1.1312632003.2141.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwY7dzYdeCAfP7RvjQ7f7Ow3rnJJFX-dgUaWyPPorFpq1w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Kelly asked if we could list any libertarian astroturfing.

Actually, I don't remember asking, but that's a minor issue. :-)

> Well, to match Mr Soros' left-wing activity I would like to propose the Koch brothers.

Super! We need all the competition we can get in the realm of ideas.
I'm glad to hear there are counter balances to Mr. Soros. I suspected
there would be.

> I google "koch brothers" - first article I get is the wiki article, with a prominent link to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_family
>
> This states one brother funded and co-founded the Cato Institute, while the other was Libertarian VP candidate in 1980. OK, so the Libertarian party is variable on how "libertarian" its platform is, but they clearly self-identified as libertarians in the past.
>
> Next google result - a New Yorker article entitled "COVERT OPERATIONS: The billionaire
> brothers who are waging a war against Obama"

Sweet. Now you do understand that there is LEGITIMATE grass roots
opposition to Obama too, right? So where the astroturf ends and the
real grass begins is a hard thing to define.

> next result - a Guardian article "The Koch brothers: all the influence money can buy". This linked to
> http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/04/06/3936/kochs-web-influence?utm_source=publicintegrity&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter
> Which shows how much corporate lobbying the Kochs do as opposed to how much is actually supporting libertarian causes.
>
> OK, so they may be rich hypocritical libertarians, but they're as fair targets as Mr Soros and his
> billionaire liberalism.

To be fair, I wasn't attacking Soros, per se. But rather Richard's
seemingly serious lack of awareness of Soro's activities. I am glad to
be more aware of what the Koch brothers are doing. Sounds pretty
interesting and just a little scary in the anti-environmental areas. I
have always been interested in how the strings of power are actually
pulled. Always heard it was back room cigar stuff, Bildebergs, Owls in
the woods, burning man, TED, the Federal Reserve, all that conspiracy
stuff. But who knows what is real and what is the deranged idea of
some berserk John Bircher coming out of cryonic stasis from the 70s? I
think it is always good to shine the light of day on how things
actually work.

In the future, and even now, it is getting harder and harder for these
power brokers to do their work in the dark. And I see that as a very
good thing. Yes, there will always be conspiracy theorists doing their
best (unintentionally) to discredit those who are tracking what's
actually real, but that shouldn't stop truth seekers who are trying to
uncover how things really work, no matter who killed JFK. :-)

-Kelly



From moulton at moulton.com  Sun Aug  7 09:15:16 2011
From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton)
Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2011 02:15:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
	(Richard	Loosemore)
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwY7dzYdeCAfP7RvjQ7f7Ow3rnJJFX-dgUaWyPPorFpq1w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1312632003.2141.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>	<1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
	<CAPy8RwY7dzYdeCAfP7RvjQ7f7Ow3rnJJFX-dgUaWyPPorFpq1w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E3E57A4.6020708@moulton.com>


It is useful to remember that George Soros has given support to ending
the laws against marijuana.  Soros has long been a critic of the Drug
War.  Soros was also a critic of the totalitarian regimes of the former
Soviet blog.

On the other hand it is important to remember that Koch brothers are
also against the Drug War.  And they support legalizing same-sex marriage.

So we see several areas where Soros and the Koch brothers agree.  But
there are also areas where they disagree.  Rather than just blithely go
about painting one or the other as being the embodiment of horribleness
how about a bit of nuance.  How about considering the basic premises
that cause them to agree in some areas and disagree in others?  How
about some serious discussion and reflection?

Consider the relationship between Soros and the ideas of Karl Popper;
consider the influence of F. A. Hayek on the Koch brothers; then
consider that Popper and Hayek were friends and shared common
interests.  And it is interesting to recall that the Cato Institute
which has been funded in part by the Koch brothers had Soros there just
a few months ago.  Soros was part of a panel to discuss the new edition
of Hayek's book The Constitution of Liberty.

So it is considerably more complex than much of the simple minded
bickering that we have seen recently on this list.  And while I on the
topic on the quality of recent posts I would suggest that people want to
discuss the libertarian philosophy that they do some back research and
get a clue about the subject.  And I say this equally to those who claim
to be supporting libertarianism and those who claim to be opposing it;
that much of what you are posting is either incomplete, misleading or
inaccurate.

We can all do better in the quality of our posts so please let us try.

Fred



From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Sun Aug  7 14:27:51 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 10:27:51 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
References: <1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1596EE75-C21F-4631-8302-F07284153202@yahoo.com>

Since you mentioned the New Yorker article, have you read Jeff Riggenbach's response to it? It's at:

http://mises.org/daily/4717

Regards,

Dan

On Aug 6, 2011, at 14:10, Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Kelly asked if we could list any libertarian astroturfing. Well, to match Mr Soros' left-wing activity I would like to propose the Koch brothers.
> 
> I google "koch brothers" - first article I get is the wiki article, with a prominent link to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_family
> 
> This states one brother funded and co-founded the Cato Institute, while the other was Libertarian VP candidate in 1980. OK, so the Libertarian party is variable on how "libertarian" its platform is, but they clearly self-identified as libertarians in the past.
> 
> Next google result - a New Yorker article entitled "COVERT OPERATIONS: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama"
> 
> next result - a Guardian article "The Koch brothers: all the influence money can buy". This linked to
> http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/04/06/3936/kochs-web-influence?utm_source=publicintegrity&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter
> Which shows how much corporate lobbying the Kochs do as opposed to how much is actually supporting libertarian causes.
> 
> OK, so they may be rich hypocritical libertarians, but they're as fair targets as Mr Soros and his billionaire liberalism.
> 
> Tom




From natasha at natasha.cc  Sun Aug  7 15:41:55 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 10:41:55 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out
	there?(Richard	Loosemore)
In-Reply-To: <4E3E57A4.6020708@moulton.com>
References: <mailman.1.1312632003.2141.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>	<1312654228.14803.YahooMailClassic@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><CAPy8RwY7dzYdeCAfP7RvjQ7f7Ow3rnJJFX-dgUaWyPPorFpq1w@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3E57A4.6020708@moulton.com>
Message-ID: <D4A64B7F5EE34B6C90C16402433C67C6@DFC68LF1>

Fred wrote:

"So it is considerably more complex than much of the simple minded bickering
that we have seen recently on this list.  And while I on the topic on the
quality of recent posts I would suggest that people want to discuss the
libertarian philosophy that they do some back research and get a clue about
the subject.  And I say this equally to those who claim to be supporting
libertarianism and those who claim to be opposing it; that much of what you
are posting is either incomplete, misleading or inaccurate.

We can all do better in the quality of our posts so please let us try."

Agreed.  Enough.  

Stop the political dogma!

Natasha



From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Aug  8 13:18:10 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 08:18:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <4E3DF689.9060600@satx.rr.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<4E3DF689.9060600@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <1CE390AD89E74142B682213517E54D24@DFC68LF1>

 
Damien wrote:

>>how the heck can we create an appropriate egg polis?

>For a mad moment I thought you'd written "how the hen can we create an
appropriate egg
>polis?"

>Arthur C. Cluck

It seems that the quintessence of life was in the relationship between
Barbara and the "gap" where she recognized a potential problem because she
had been there done that before. And, the contractor didn't see a gap
because he was overconfident about his technology and his skills.  Here is
the problem. Those who have experienced nature's pain in the rear and those
who think their technology and skill is unbreakable.  The deadly sight of
the animals was horrific to be sure, and that is in par with the emotional
pain people feel when their hopes are diminished, as death comes in many
variations.  What is interesting to me is that fixing the gap would have
taken a little extra time to prevent a foreseeable problem.

Natasha





From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug  8 17:56:13 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 10:56:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgcZePZNcH3_OtL9MPvM618DEwFeH=fNiHbgHz3_meSWQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjua0Av=YXxsSgwVrF_QYA6k2obAbrMWo2LEqwygGc5PA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZeZ5nu6D2KX_mMcbmV4hUpE8aj_X2TYS8BUMbabBiGfA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E3AD1D7.4030603@susaro.com>
	<CAPy8Rwbg7xevksurs8wN2vHBbMPEUJDP_c_9o-6cyoJ5x6raOQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgsqZpY3aDKugqTjAqDKKEHouFyDoYxOxD_oBwbhc3nVQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8Rwar1jQwN9LS=s0P7c=0y3f5NsSW7a8Zt8zBnkyT5FAyog@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgcZePZNcH3_OtL9MPvM618DEwFeH=fNiHbgHz3_meSWQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQV=-iKe8VRL9Tn_CQGkP5+wGjFAj9xERN8OYc_dU0fFA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 1:40 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sometimes, as in all messy human affairs, a valid grassroots campaign
> will throw in a bit of astroturfing to help their campaign. Like
> flooding newspapers or congressmen with similar readers letters using
> many different fake names, so as to appear to have more public support
> than they actually have.

I wonder if any such group has resorted to programmable auto-pens, so as
to create "hand-written" letters in a number of fonts from people who don't
actually exist (or - though this strays into clearly illegal forgery - who do,
but can't be bothered to have a political opinion)?  Real hand-written letters
supposedly trump all other forms of written communication to legislative
members in the US (Congress and state), because they are believed to
take more effort to create.


From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug  8 18:32:21 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 11:32:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/6  <natasha at natasha.cc>:
> The four elements ? earth, water, air and fire

In that light, consider solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.  Granted, that's more
of a stack than a circle - until one considers the very low pressure plasma
that makes up most of the universe, which often interacts directly with solid
objects too small, and too far from any star (most of this is in interstellar
space), to have much (if any) of the other two phases.  Also, with very few
exceptions, the heavier elements that form solid bodies are manufactured in
plasma (stars).

> But I wonder, if NBIC, GRIN, etc. are the tools (chemistry?) for the life
> extension/expansion are they somehow equitable to the Alchemist?s 4 or 5
> elements?

They're closer to techniques or fields of study, such as brewing potions or
methods of analyzing unknown chemicals.  Water itself was never a tool
per se, though it figured prominently in many tools.  The raw elements -
well, these days we have more than just the 4 or 5, and that's a good thing
(more combinations we can play with, thus more effects without going too
far beyond the basics).

Also consider that, by many accounts, alchemy was the first true science,
following an experimental paradigm and building up a base of tests to
discern correct theories from incorrect ones.  For instance, a geologist
alchemist might have distinguished which samples from a mountain
contained useful minerals and which were just rock, so as to direct the
placement of a mine.  So, while you can not always directly equate modern
methods with those of an alchemist (though modern surveyors, for example,
use methods an alchemist might recognize the principles of), you can extend
their methods into the modern toolkit, tracing lines through history as more
capabilities and more understanding became available.


From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug  9 10:16:32 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 11:16:32 +0100
Subject: [ExI] How to join Google+
Message-ID: <CAL_armhYv5Mqg2WK5B8gcoMF5crRWPcxWADxz9OhK5zOXJ3wvw@mail.gmail.com>

Mike Elgan has made available a lot of invites to the new Google+ system

<http://mike.elgan.com/post/8664902216/your-invitation-to-google>

The article contains info about people to follow and hints on using the system.

Quote:
Instead of saying, ?I?m going to write a blog post now,? or ?I?m going
to send an e-mail? or ?I think I?ll tweet something? you simply say
what you have to say, then decide who you?re going to say it to.

If you address it to ?Public,? it?s a blog post.

If you address it to ?Your Circles? it?s a tweet.

If you address it to your ?My Customers? Circle it?s a business newsletter.

If you address it to a single person, it can be a letter to your mother.

I?d say this is pretty revolutionary.

Google+ is nothing less than the future of the Internet. It?s not a
?social network? like Facebook, but a ?social layer? for the whole
Internet. I?ve already predicted that it renders Twitter obsolete. And
it?s the solution for the millions of people who are tired of
Facebook?s Wall spam, censorship, privacy violations and all the rest.
---------------------

BillK



From natasha at natasha.cc  Tue Aug  9 13:42:21 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 08:42:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>

Adrian Tymes wrote

2011/8/6  <natasha at natasha.cc>:
> The four elements: earth, water, air and fire

"In that light, consider solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.  Granted, that's
more of a stack than a circle - until one considers the very low pressure
plasma that makes up most of the universe, which often interacts directly
with solid objects too small, and too far from any star (most of this is in
interstellar space), to have much (if any) of the other two phases.  Also,
with very few exceptions, the heavier elements that form solid bodies are
manufactured in plasma (stars)."

Right. 

> But I wonder, if NBIC, GRIN, etc. are the tools (chemistry) for the 
> life extension/expansion are they somehow equitable to the Alchemist's 
> 4 or 5 elements?

"They're closer to techniques or fields of study, such as brewing potions or
methods of analyzing unknown chemicals.  Water itself was never a tool per
se, though it figured prominently in many tools.  The raw elements - well,
these days we have more than just the 4 or 5, and that's a good thing (more
combinations we can play with, thus more effects without going too far
beyond the basics)."

They are tools because they are technologies and science and, together, they
form fields of study. I do like your brewing metaphor though.  

"... So, while you can not always directly equate modern methods with those
of an alchemist (though modern surveyors, for example, use methods an
alchemist might recognize the principles of), you can extend their methods
into the modern toolkit, tracing lines through history as more capabilities
and more understanding became available."

Yes, alchemy was the first science and pseudoscience. It is the tracing of
the lines that I was interested in, and forming metaphors.  

Thank you Adrian,

Natasha



From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug  9 15:44:54 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 08:44:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 6:42 AM, Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:
> Thank you Adrian,

Not a problem.  This has been an occasional side interest of mine
for years.

I've found the four states of matter really do seem to be the closest
modern equivalent to the four alchemical elements.  While there are
all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any lubricant that
is not a liquid, and refrigerants/coolants tend to alter between liquids
and gases.  In many cases, the periodic table elements matter less
than the phase (so long as that combination of elements can be in
that phase, and can undergo the desired reaction or lack of reaction,
under the given conditions).

You can substitute "patterns" for the fifth element: any living thing is
far more than a bunch of solids and liquids, some of them with a bit
of gas too, and it is the ongoing pattern of their constituent parts
that captures the essence of the difference.  "Life" works too (and
captures the time dynamic that "patterns" does not), although there
are lesser examples in non-living patterns such as the hydrological
cycle.


From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Tue Aug  9 15:41:07 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 08:41:07 -0700
Subject: [ExI] DARPA, Memes, Astroturf
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB4gctnKne1ZmfEhmW-K4aCrbQVF6zkRtVpqisbutucgMg@mail.gmail.com>

Memes and memetics were commonly discussed in the early days of this list.

Couple of amusing things along that line happened recently

The magazine for my professional organization, the IEEE Spectrum ran
an article that included this:

"For our purposes here, the meme meme has spawned a rather impressive
lexicon of terms, many of which come from the field of memetics, the
study of memes."

And

"If the meme causes self-destructive behavior in the host?as, for
example, a meme about martyrdom might?the host is called a memoid, by
analogy with android."

"A grassroots meme begins with, and is for the most part propagated
by, ordinary users rather than, say, a corporation. If some big-time
marketer fakes a grassroots meme, then you have an astroturf meme. A
similar idea is the forced meme, which is someone's deliberate (and
usually unsuccessful) attempt to create a meme."

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/the-selfish-meme

What's amusing about this is that the article author missed the
connection to the IEEE. ?I was a senior member of the IEEE running a
microprocessor based industrial controls company when I coined
memeoids after a lot of consultation with my wife, Arel Lucas. (Arel
has what seems to be first published credit for suggesting the term
"memetics" in correspondence to Douglas Hafstadter who published her
letter in Metamagical Themas.)

The above is just amusing, the second may be more serious

DARPA released this (I just heard about it)

Broad Agency Announcement
Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC)
DARPA?BAA?11?64
July 14, 2011

snip

Total Funding Available for Award: The SMISC research effort under
this solicitation is estimated at $42M of 6.1 funding over a period of
approximately three years.

http://www.odwyerpr.com/site_images/072011darpa-sm.pdf

Near as I can tell, the grant money is not restricted to the US.

"Foreign Participation: Non?U.S. organizations and/or individuals may
participate to the extent that such participants comply with any
necessary nondisclosure agreements, security regulations, export
control laws, and other governing statutes applicable under the
circumstances."

I heard recently that this announcement had been in the works for 6 years.

Given the events of the last few years, it's easy to see why DARPA is
trying to figure out if the origin and spread of memes is either
predictable or can be influenced.

I have reason to believe that studies making an attempt to account for
the spread of memes and related issues in an evolutionary psychology
context would be favorably considered.

Keith



From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug  9 19:19:42 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:19:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] DARPA, Memes, Astroturf
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4gctnKne1ZmfEhmW-K4aCrbQVF6zkRtVpqisbutucgMg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4gctnKne1ZmfEhmW-K4aCrbQVF6zkRtVpqisbutucgMg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRUJyuRV26RJyLDdZdfx-oJ8tnafm21H9y5TvW4JSZdfA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 8:41 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> DARPA released this (I just heard about it)
>
> Broad Agency Announcement
> Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC)
> DARPA?BAA?11?64

It's about time.  Maybe now we'll see if this is just
loose metaphor, or if models of vector control and
similar epidemic-stemming measures can be
usefully applied to memes.  (Whether or not any
given meme should be controlled is another
question, especially since there is a negative
selection bias by those who do not yet have them.)



From sparge at gmail.com  Tue Aug  9 21:17:31 2011
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 17:17:31 -0400
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> While there are
> all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any lubricant that
> is not a liquid...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubricant#Solid_lubricants

-Dave


From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug  9 22:41:42 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 15:41:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>> While there are
>> all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any lubricant that
>> is not a liquid...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubricant#Solid_lubricants

True, but those don't really seem to be lubricants, so much as fixed parts
of one of the surfaces that reduce or eliminate the need for lubricants.
Though the function is close enough, I suppose.


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 10 02:49:07 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 19:49:07 -0700
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <023b01cc5708$142fbed0$3c8f3c70$@att.net>


On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> While there are all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any
lubricant 
> that is not a liquid...

We old timers used to use powdered graphite for lubricant.  It's messy as
all get out, but there is nothing better when you need a dry lubricant.

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 10 03:25:47 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 20:25:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] new logo
Message-ID: <024501cc570d$3305c7f0$991157d0$@att.net>

 

 

The new logo for the government's "Department of Innovation" should provide
entertainment for the mechanically minded among us.

 

I am not kidding, and you know you just cannot make this stuff up:

Description:
http://radioviceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/department-innovation-
logo-300x160.jpg..

 

Three gears meshing in such a way than none of them can turn.  Now THAT'S
innovation.  

 

spike

 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 10 03:44:49 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 20:44:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] new logo
In-Reply-To: <024501cc570d$3305c7f0$991157d0$@att.net>
References: <024501cc570d$3305c7f0$991157d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRnozq_o0UPt7_3SS_--ZinrM4to-GrHKVJx15-uFc=NA@mail.gmail.com>

To be fair, this is the Smithsonian's DoI - which, while
government-sponsored, is not
the government itself.

2011/8/9 spike <spike66 at att.net>

> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> The new logo for the government?s ?Department of Innovation? should provide
> entertainment for the mechanically minded among us.****
>
> ** **
>
> I am not kidding, and you know you just cannot make this stuff up:****
>
> [image: Description:
> http://radioviceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/department-innovation-logo-300x160.jpg]
> ..****
>
> ** **
>
> Three gears meshing in such a way than none of them can turn.  Now THAT?S
> innovation.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> spike****
>
> ** **
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 10 04:56:31 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 22:56:31 -0600
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <023b01cc5708$142fbed0$3c8f3c70$@att.net>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
	<023b01cc5708$142fbed0$3c8f3c70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbP6RWYKzVdLWsprUX+MwBBb0vcq5-7io3VettQs+2Dfg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 8:49 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> While there are all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any
> lubricant
>> that is not a liquid...
>
> We old timers used to use powdered graphite for lubricant. ?It's messy as
> all get out, but there is nothing better when you need a dry lubricant.

Yeah, the Boy Scouts use only powdered graphite on the axles of their
pinewood derby cars.

-Kelly



From sparge at gmail.com  Wed Aug 10 10:40:54 2011
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 06:40:54 -0400
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dPfg7s-ujkkPUCt67nowjkY=PiUOZSX6973gZkytB0_w@mail.gmail.com>

No, solid lubricants are usually powders.

-Dave
On Aug 9, 2011 6:42 PM, "Adrian Tymes" <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> While there are
>>> all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any lubricant that
>>> is not a liquid...
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubricant#Solid_lubricants
>
> True, but those don't really seem to be lubricants, so much as fixed parts
> of one of the surfaces that reduce or eliminate the need for lubricants.
> Though the function is close enough, I suppose.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Wed Aug 10 12:48:08 2011
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado (CI))
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:48:08 -0300
Subject: [ExI] new logo
References: <024501cc570d$3305c7f0$991157d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <DBBCA316410B439ABBF5876EC1932C4D@cpdhemm>

<spike>
Three gears meshing in such a way than none of them can turn.  Now THAT'S 
innovation.
</spike>

Maybe the message is "We need some innovation to get out of this shit" 



From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Aug 10 13:52:33 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:52:33 +0100
Subject: [ExI] new logo
In-Reply-To: <024501cc570d$3305c7f0$991157d0$@att.net>
References: <024501cc570d$3305c7f0$991157d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiPjcZbg=9fA6N5vcY0FGpG8WsgVwwd7COmaHK81-DC0w@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/10 spike wrote:

> The new logo for the government?s ?Department of Innovation? should provide
> entertainment for the mechanically minded among us.
>
> ** **
>
> I am not kidding, and you know you just cannot make this stuff up:****
>
> [image: Description:
> http://radioviceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/department-innovation-logo-300x160.jpg]
> ..****
>
> ** **
>
> Three gears meshing in such a way than none of them can turn.  Now THAT?S
> innovation.  ****
>
>
>

After much mocking, the designer has changed it.


[image: InnovationBlogPost.jpg]


It probably still wouldn't work as an engineering design, though. Artistic
licence, I suppose.


BillK
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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Wed Aug 10 19:05:44 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:05:44 -0500
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>

On 8/10/2011 11:02 AM, Richard Harper wrote:

> When people first learn about fitness-indicator theory there is a
> tendency to think of it in terms of the peacock's tail, but it is much
> more than that in many ways, and is still a fairly hot area of research.
> As a basic principle of fitness indicators, there can be a tendency for
> them to be under selection pressure to express more and more information
> over time,

Here is a notion that probably has cropped up (or been crushed 
resoundingly) in the literature: despite the principle that evolution is 
blind to phenotypes once they're past reproductive capacity (due 
allowance made for keeping grannies alive to tend to babies, teach them 
to speak, etc), I wonder if some apparent instances of "deterioration" 
might actually be adaptations promoting the survival of one's lineage.

It occurs to me that in a highly intelligent and memetic species like 
ours, memory management in the old (you can't remember what you ate this 
morning, but vividly recall the nutritious summer of 1887 or the brutal 
cold snap of 1922) might not be [entirely] an entropic accident.

The current vital generations can be depended on to store recent events 
and trends, and maintain the liturgical coding of what's happened to the 
tribe and environment for many hundreds or even thousands of years--but 
perhaps sharp memories that retain hazard and opportunity information 
from 50-60-70 years ago, if treated respectfully by the young, were 
beneficial in our preliterate EEA. If the maintenance cost of retaining 
full memory in old age is too great, perhaps early memories are given 
special care by the brain?

Damien Broderick
[Just-So Panglossian stories since 1963!]


From msd001 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 11 00:52:45 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:52:45 -0400
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dPfg7s-ujkkPUCt67nowjkY=PiUOZSX6973gZkytB0_w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dPfg7s-ujkkPUCt67nowjkY=PiUOZSX6973gZkytB0_w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJ9m4e=JUvy8y8=c6EMZcu6LBTpC5_EaW5PoM8nh4BeCA@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/10 Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com>:
> No, solid lubricants are usually powders.
>
> -Dave
>
> On Aug 9, 2011 6:42 PM, "Adrian Tymes" <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> While there are
>>>> all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any lubricant that
>>>> is not a liquid...


So nobody's ever waxed the runners of a sled?

Ok, so nobody's ever owned a sled with runners?

Anyway, If you ever owned a sled with runners and you didn't wax them
before sledding, you were probably slower than everyone else who did.
And your sled didn't go very fast either.  :)


From spike66 at att.net  Thu Aug 11 00:55:03 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:55:03 -0700
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <008d01cc57c1$4e9f0210$ebdd0630$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien
Broderick
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 12:06 PM
To: Gerontology Research Group; 'ExI chat list'
Subject: Re: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1, 000
Genes

On 8/10/2011 11:02 AM, Richard Harper wrote:

>> When people first learn about fitness-indicator theory there is a 
> tendency to think of it in terms of the peacock's tail, but it is much 
> more than that in many ways, and is still a fairly hot area of research.
...

>Here is a notion that probably has cropped up (or been crushed
resoundingly) in the literature: despite the principle that evolution is
blind to phenotypes once they're past reproductive capacity (due allowance
made for keeping grannies alive to tend to babies, teach them to speak,
etc), I wonder if some apparent instances of "deterioration" 
might actually be adaptations promoting the survival of one's
lineage...Damien Broderick

The notion that evolution is blind past reproductive years gets all messed
up in the human species, because the real driver is mate selection.  Those
past reproductive years in the human species have an enormous influence over
the phenotype.  In a lot of important ways, it really simplifies everything
to leave humans out of the equation completely and treat human evolution as
a related but separate topic, since we mess up everything with memetic
influence on mate selection.

spike



From thespike at satx.rr.com  Thu Aug 11 01:39:17 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:39:17 -0500
Subject: [ExI] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <008d01cc57c1$4e9f0210$ebdd0630$@att.net>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<008d01cc57c1$4e9f0210$ebdd0630$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4332C5.2050808@satx.rr.com>

On 8/10/2011 7:55 PM, spike wrote:

>> I wonder if some apparent instances of "deterioration"
>> might actually be adaptations promoting the survival of one's
>> lineage...Damien Broderick

> The notion that evolution is blind past reproductive years gets all messed
> up in the human species, because the real driver is mate selection.  Those
> past reproductive years in the human species have an enormous influence over
> the phenotype.  In a lot of important ways, it really simplifies everything
> to leave humans out of the equation completely and treat human evolution as
> a related but separate topic, since we mess up everything with memetic
> influence on mate selection.

So far I've seen three responses to my post, yet nobody has addressed 
the possibility I mooted about selective memory deterioration.

Damien Broderick


From natasha at natasha.cc  Thu Aug 11 01:39:24 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:39:24 -0500
Subject: [ExI] H+ Magazine
Message-ID: <B6E902AB15EF42FDAD11434608CE5594@DFC68LF1>

Considering contributing to H+ Magazine!
 
Here is the most recent article:  http://hplusmagazine.com/
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 11 00:50:09 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:50:09 -0400
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKdqrZmkX0t8YeQM4uvRTxc_VDT9QXqDp9=GNYpiXPKWA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> years ago, if treated respectfully by the young, were beneficial in our
> preliterate EEA. If the maintenance cost of retaining full memory in old age
> is too great, perhaps early memories are given special care by the brain?

Are they special in any other way than their relative novelty at the
time of encoding?

Suppose your daily grind.  Not much new happens, so there's not a lot
of "fresh" learning.  I kidnap you and take you to a new country that
doesn't speak your language and leave you without money, without
passport and without internet access.  You're smart enough to find
your way home.  40 years later, I bet you are able to recover with
surprising detail the travails of your ordeal.

??


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Thu Aug 11 02:23:34 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:23:34 -0500
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
 000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKdqrZmkX0t8YeQM4uvRTxc_VDT9QXqDp9=GNYpiXPKWA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<CAOJFdbKdqrZmkX0t8YeQM4uvRTxc_VDT9QXqDp9=GNYpiXPKWA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E433D26.2000706@satx.rr.com>

On 8/10/2011 7:50 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote:

> Are they special in any other way than their relative novelty at the
> time of encoding?

Th obvious first guess is that they lay down the foundations of all your 
subsequent memories, and are therefore heavily redundant in the brain 
and the hardest to damage. But I was looking for an adaptation or 
exaptation account as a contender or at least player.

> Suppose your daily grind.  Not much new happens, so there's not a lot
> of "fresh" learning.  I kidnap you and take you to a new country that
> doesn't speak your language and leave you without money, without
> passport and without internet access.  You're smart enough to find
> your way home.  40 years later, I bet you are able to recover with
> surprising detail the travails of your ordeal.

Possibly so, and that's the kind of test I guess a neuroscientist would 
apply.

Anders, any thoughts on this?

Damien Broderick


From spike66 at att.net  Thu Aug 11 03:26:15 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:26:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJ9m4e=JUvy8y8=c6EMZcu6LBTpC5_EaW5PoM8nh4BeCA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>	<CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>	<CAM5aL2dPfg7s-ujkkPUCt67nowjkY=PiUOZSX6973gZkytB0_w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbJ9m4e=JUvy8y8=c6EMZcu6LBTpC5_EaW5PoM8nh4BeCA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00b501cc57d6$6d5b4e60$4811eb20$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
...
>>>> all sorts of liquids, for example, I am not aware of any lubricant that
is not a liquid...


>So nobody's ever waxed the runners of a sled?

>Ok, so nobody's ever owned a sled with runners?...

Having misspent my youth in Florida, I not only missed out on owning a sled,
I had never even seen one until I was 19 yrs old.  However I did wax my
surfboard, which would be an example of a solid which acts as a lubricant
against a liquid.  This stretches the usual definitions a bit, since it is a
lubricant only in the sense that it reduces drag in a solid/liquid
interface.  If we want to stretch the concept even further, a gas can act as
a lubricant: in an air bearing, a thin sheet of high speed laminar flow
providing a low friction surface between two solid surfaces.

spike





From natasha at natasha.cc  Thu Aug 11 04:38:05 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:38:05 -0500
Subject: [ExI] NPR looking for Someone to Interview re Memory Enhanecment
Message-ID: <BD2899BADB96457F94C353CB60891409@DFC68LF1>

A producer from NPR called to ask me if I know of anyone who has
experimented with enhancements for memory.  (A type of DYI-Bio Memory
hacking.) Anyone want to take a stabe at this?  Email me and I'll forward
your info to her.
 
Thanks,
 

Natasha

 

 <http://www.natasha.cc/> Natasha Vita-More

 

Chair, <http://humanityplus.org/>  Humanity+
PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK

 
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Aug 11 09:48:51 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:48:51 +0100
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:
> Here is a notion that probably has cropped up (or been crushed resoundingly)
> in the literature: despite the principle that evolution is blind to
> phenotypes once they're past reproductive capacity (due allowance made for
> keeping grannies alive to tend to babies, teach them to speak, etc), I
> wonder if some apparent instances of "deterioration" might actually be
> adaptations promoting the survival of one's lineage.
>
> It occurs to me that in a highly intelligent and memetic species like ours,
> memory management in the old (you can't remember what you ate this morning,
> but vividly recall the nutritious summer of 1887 or the brutal cold snap of
> 1922) might not be [entirely] an entropic accident.
>
> The current vital generations can be depended on to store recent events and
> trends, and maintain the liturgical coding of what's happened to the tribe
> and environment for many hundreds or even thousands of years--but perhaps
> sharp memories that retain hazard and opportunity information from 50-60-70
> years ago, if treated respectfully by the young, were beneficial in our
> preliterate EEA. If the maintenance cost of retaining full memory in old age
> is too great, perhaps early memories are given special care by the brain?
>
>

I hae me doots, Captain.

You say 'despite the principle that evolution is blind to phenotypes
once they're past reproductive capacity' then propose something that
depends on that premise.  If the effect exists it must be something
that evolution is blind to.

Current theory is that when pre-history humans were evolving they had
a life expectancy of around 30 years, with 50 years being exceptional.
More significantly, women had a lower life expectancy because of the
dangers of continual childbirth. So the effect should be present less
in women than in men.

I don't see how evolution could have generated a beneficial effect in
70 year old humans at a time when 70 year old humans didn't exist.


BillK


From sparge at gmail.com  Thu Aug 11 15:14:01 2011
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:14:01 -0400
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <00b501cc57d6$6d5b4e60$4811eb20$@att.net>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dPfg7s-ujkkPUCt67nowjkY=PiUOZSX6973gZkytB0_w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbJ9m4e=JUvy8y8=c6EMZcu6LBTpC5_EaW5PoM8nh4BeCA@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b501cc57d6$6d5b4e60$4811eb20$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2ePzUJ71OddAshasB3S_Re96uzu9+5xTeXYHT2=XJdVwA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 11:26 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> Having misspent my youth in Florida, I not only missed out on owning a sled,
> I had never even seen one until I was 19 yrs old. ?However I did wax my
> surfboard, which would be an example of a solid which acts as a lubricant
> against a liquid.

Hmm. I row competitively and it's fairly common knowledge that waxing
boats doesn't make them faster. I googled surfboard waxing and
everything I found says it's done to the deck to make it less
slippery. E.g.:

http://www.surfinghandbook.com/knowledge/beginners-surfing-tips/surf-wax/

  Surf wax is for the deck of the board, and keeps you from slipping
off. It?s hilarious to watch surfing newbies take their shining new
board straight from the shop to the beach and try to surf with no wax.
What are they thinking!? I?ve also heard stories of people waxing the
underside of their board. I don?t know how people get this idea. Maybe
they think the wax is supposed to help the board glide on the water.

I'm not a hydrodynamicist, but I think that in order to reduce surface
friction you need some kind of physical texturing like the "shark
skin" bathing suits that have been outlawed in competition.

-Dave



From eugen at leitl.org  Thu Aug 11 15:22:14 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:22:14 +0200
Subject: [ExI] NBIC/GRIN Elements as Philosopher's Magnum Opus
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2ePzUJ71OddAshasB3S_Re96uzu9+5xTeXYHT2=XJdVwA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20110806211456.vgkwqnfvwow0kggk@webmail.natasha.cc>
	<CALAdGNTKyuKOLvtV5oShS_Bn6e7xMZh3UShcjiVs759M10R3Bg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA4A7B8B3764E8286B195621C5733CC@DFC68LF1>
	<CALAdGNTxD_3zD+o4RYUti-ys1uLXGHJXjUCRaVj8jOK2MivzjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dQvfKSRZb-=h+VJLndt-h9siP0PSJZ17Quxk8nCEHxTw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNTAC9=nvGtVHFKS-dKcZqXo14pjTm8ecPyahsSSJwzDvg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAM5aL2dPfg7s-ujkkPUCt67nowjkY=PiUOZSX6973gZkytB0_w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbJ9m4e=JUvy8y8=c6EMZcu6LBTpC5_EaW5PoM8nh4BeCA@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b501cc57d6$6d5b4e60$4811eb20$@att.net>
	<CAM5aL2ePzUJ71OddAshasB3S_Re96uzu9+5xTeXYHT2=XJdVwA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110811152214.GQ16178@leitl.org>

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:14:01AM -0400, Dave Sill wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 11:26 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> >
> > Having misspent my youth in Florida, I not only missed out on owning a sled,
> > I had never even seen one until I was 19 yrs old. ?However I did wax my
> > surfboard, which would be an example of a solid which acts as a lubricant
> > against a liquid.
> 
> Hmm. I row competitively and it's fairly common knowledge that waxing
> boats doesn't make them faster. I googled surfboard waxing and

But aren't you supposed to wax the Moon? Or was it rhapsody? I forget.

> everything I found says it's done to the deck to make it less
> slippery. E.g.:
> 
> http://www.surfinghandbook.com/knowledge/beginners-surfing-tips/surf-wax/
> 
>   Surf wax is for the deck of the board, and keeps you from slipping
> off. It?s hilarious to watch surfing newbies take their shining new
> board straight from the shop to the beach and try to surf with no wax.
> What are they thinking!? I?ve also heard stories of people waxing the
> underside of their board. I don?t know how people get this idea. Maybe
> they think the wax is supposed to help the board glide on the water.
> 
> I'm not a hydrodynamicist, but I think that in order to reduce surface
> friction you need some kind of physical texturing like the "shark
> skin" bathing suits that have been outlawed in competition.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Thu Aug 11 16:26:12 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:26:12 -0500
Subject: [ExI] we must remember this
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4402A4.3090104@satx.rr.com>

On 8/11/2011 4:48 AM, BillK wrote:

> I don't see how evolution could have generated a beneficial effect in
> 70 year old humans at a time when 70 year old humans didn't exist.

Well, an effect preferentially protecting earlier memories that would 
prove beneficial both in youth and later. However, an aging expert on 
the GRG list (where I cross posted) commented:

 > As I understand it, it's not the process of accessing old memories
 > that is superior.  It's the writing of new information into long-term
 > memory that deteriorates.  For some people this fails completely, so
 > their long-term memory becomes a read-only memory.

That makes sense and probably gazumps my notion--as long as special 
maintenance isn't required to sustain or reinforce old memories, because 
if it is that might support my (not very serious) suggestion.

Damien Broderick


From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Thu Aug 11 17:27:15 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:27:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Penrose book?
Message-ID: <1313083635.80852.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Anyone here read _Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe_ by Roger Penrose? If so, any comments? Hoping?to dig into it on my next holiday. (I've read a couple of his other books, so I'm hoping there'll be much to learn and disagree with.:)
?
Regards,
?
Dan
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From zero.powers at gmail.com  Thu Aug 11 21:36:10 2011
From: zero.powers at gmail.com (Zero Powers)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:36:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] 'Electronic Skin' Grafts Gadgets to Body
Message-ID: <CAKW2FFWvR=syGCTC09kNdECwvq-H52GuUpRsNfcyp=erVunJ8w@mail.gmail.com>

And so it begins...

"He may have had a laser in his watch and a radio in his lighter, but even
James Bond didn't sport gadgets tattooed to his skin. Now he could, thanks
to the development of ultrathin electronics that can be placed on the skin
as easily as a temporary tattoo."

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/electronic-skin-grafts-gadgets-t.html?ref=hp#.TkRFWYpvesg.facebook
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Aug 11 23:49:01 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:49:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] 'Electronic Skin' Grafts Gadgets to Body
In-Reply-To: <CAKW2FFWvR=syGCTC09kNdECwvq-H52GuUpRsNfcyp=erVunJ8w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKW2FFWvR=syGCTC09kNdECwvq-H52GuUpRsNfcyp=erVunJ8w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008101cc5881$3f69de30$be3d9a90$@att.net>

Hi Zero!  You drop in for a few minutes, you leave for months if not years,
drop in again.  Don't leave this time bud.  {8-]

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Zero Powers
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 2:36 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] 'Electronic Skin' Grafts Gadgets to Body

 

And so it begins...

 

"He may have had a laser in his watch and a radio in his lighter, but even
James Bond didn't sport gadgets tattooed to his skin. Now he could, thanks
to the development of ultrathin electronics that can be placed on the skin
as easily as a temporary tattoo."

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/electronic-skin-grafts-gadgets
-t.html?ref=hp#.TkRFWYpvesg.facebook

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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Fri Aug 12 04:24:10 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:24:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <008101cc5881$3f69de30$be3d9a90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Back in 1993 Frank Tipler wrote an interesting book called "The Physics of Immortality". In 2007 the poor man went a little funny in the head, you know, just a little funny,? and he went and did a silly thing; he wrote another book saying we should look for divine DNA on the Shroud of Turin and check for radiation around the tomb of the Blessed Virgin Marry that was caused by an intense beam of neutrinos that must have shot out of the bottom of her feet as she ascended into heaven. Anyway, in 1993 he still had all his marbles and he gave a fairly plausible rough outline of how the universe might be able to perform an infinite (not just very large) number of calculations; to do that you'd need an infinite (not just very large) amount of energy but he thought the laws of physics and of cosmology were so constituted as to allow for that. If you could perform an infinite number of calculations then infinite subjective time is possible even if objectively
 time comes to an end. 

>From the assumption that immortality was physically possible Tipler worked backward and made a number of predictions about what he thought the laws of the universe must be for immortality to happen. Tipler's predictions turned out to be wrong, some spectacularly wrong; he predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, then it would stop, then it would change direction and collapse in on itself; from the heat of that imploding fireball he thought a hyper-advanced civilization could theoretically extract an infinite amount of energy. But we now know that due to Dark Energy the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating not decelerating so that fireball will never happen. It's clear we don't live in the sort of universe that Tipler thought we did, but could we still extract an infinite amount of energy from the real universe and thus perform an infinite number of calculations? Perhaps.

Suppose you had 2 spools of string connected together by an axle and you extended the 2 strings to cosmological distances 180 degrees apart from each other. As long as the Dark Energy force between the atoms in the string that were trying to force them apart was not stronger than the attractive electromagnetic force holding the atoms of the string together the string would not expand as the universe expanded, so there would be a tension on the strings, so there would be torque on the spool, so the axle would rotate. The axle could be connected to an electric generator and it seems to me you'd get useful work out of it. Of course you'd have to constantly add more mass-energy in the form of more string to keep it operating, but the amount of mass per unit length of string would remain constant, however because the universe is accelerating the amount of energy per unit length of string you'd get out of it would not remain constant but would increase
 asymptotically to infinity. If the theories about the Big Rip turn out to be true and the acceleration of the universe is itself accelerating then it should be even easier to extract infinite energy out of the universe; it would just be a simple matter of cosmological engineering. What could go wrong? 

If you have infinite energy then you can perform an infinite number of calculations, so you could have an infinite number of thoughts, so you would have no last thought (the definition of death), so subjectively you would live forever. Of course the objective universe might have a different opinion on the matter and insist that everything including you had come to an end, but that hardly matters, subjectivity is far more important than objectivity; at least I think so.? 

? John K Clark 

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 12 06:25:48 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:25:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <008101cc5881$3f69de30$be3d9a90$@att.net>
	<1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <007a01cc58b8$adb4b630$091e2290$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of john clark
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?

 


>.Back in 1993 Frank Tipler wrote an interesting book called "The Physics of
Immortality".

How many of us here studied Tippler in college physics?  I did.  His text
was very popular and readable.

>.In 2007 the poor man went a little funny in the head, you know, just a
little funny,  and he went and did a silly thing; he wrote another book
saying we should . check for radiation around the tomb of the Blessed Virgin
Marry that was caused by an intense beam of neutrinos that must have shot
out of the bottom of her feet as she ascended into heaven.

I have the Physics of Immortality, but didn't get this other book.  

Couple things about this comment: in a sense there were intense beams of
neutrinos that shot out the bottom of her feet, if you don't push too hard
on the adjective "intense."  There are intense beams of neutrinos shooting
out the bottoms of your feet right now.  Since neutrinos scarcely interact
with matter at all, yet there is one created with each nuclear fusion, we
can estimate the theoretical neutrino flux from the collective stars all
about, overhead constantly regardless of the orientation of our feet.  So
there would be (in a kind of loose sense) a beam of neutrinos shooting out
every surface of our bodies constantly, as well as a (~)beam going in the
other direction simultaneously.  Neutrinos are our friends.  Such
interesting little spin carriers are they, never causing problems much, but
so useful are they in protecting our cherished notions of conservation of
angular momentum.

Ja, I know I am stretching the point to give old Frank some wiggle room, the
way we do for all our favored old professors in their dotage.  If he said
the neutrinos would result in radiation around the tomb of the blessed
"Virgin" Mary, I would suggest he review how seldom a neutrino causes
anything to form a radioactive isotope.

 

>. Tipler's predictions turned out to be wrong, some spectacularly wrong; he
predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, then it would stop,
then it would change direction and collapse in on itself.John K Clark

 

That this notion turned out to be apparently wrong is one of the saddest
things that have ever happened to me.  This of course means I have had a
happier life than I deserve.  That aside, the closed universe is an idea I
claim to have independently thought of in high school.  I was reading about
the big bang and how space is quantized.  I theorized that if the universe
is closed, then there is a finite number of particles in a finite 4-space.
Both are unimaginably large of course, but finite.  If so, there is a finite
number of ways a finite number of particles can arrange themselves in a
finite quantized space.  

Then the line of reasoning goes thus: if the universe exploded forth in a
big bang, then after it collapses, the same thing can happen again. If so,
and time is infinite (for how can time be finite?) then there are an
infinite number of big bangs, over a quite unimaginably large span of time.
If so, every possible combination of particles in finite space would
eventually occur in infinite space time.  If so, this exact arrangement of
everything will happen again.  Furthermore, it will happen again an infinite
number of times.  And it has already happened before.  An infinite number of
times.

spike

 

 

  



 

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From jedwebb at hotmail.com  Fri Aug 12 09:13:17 2011
From: jedwebb at hotmail.com (Jeremy Webb)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:13:17 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <008101cc5881$3f69de30$be3d9a90$@att.net>,
	<1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <COL106-W53A24DAEF77D4BC885728AB6250@phx.gbl>



Infinity
and deities: This comes from systems of metaphysics that show that
(for the intensive purposes of mankind) deities can by prayed to at
any possible location, and at any point in time. However whether this
is changed by the speed of light, and fails at any given distance,
and whether this will change over a very long period of time, has not
been tested.


Comedy
Smart Alec Answer:
To
carry out infinite calculation at any given location in the universe
would require infinite electricity. The mass of electrons used would
form a black hole and any such computer would be destroyed.


Jeremy
Webb (Good morning from the UK)

Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:24:10 -0700
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?

"Back in 1993 Frank Tipler wrote an interesting book ...
... John K Clark  ..."

 		 	   		  
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 13:00:53 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:00:53 +0200
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a7AU9WYtDMzo6nbrrmrNpn=t=542KD2WTDeCGeB9E9SGQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 11 August 2011 11:48, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Current theory is that when pre-history humans were evolving they had
> a life expectancy of around 30 years, with 50 years being exceptional.
>

Once more, life expectancy has not much to do with lifespan, and has to do
with the probability of your being killed at any time by predators,
infections, hunger, accidents, lack of parental or elderly care, etc.
Conversely, no matter how well you treat your cat, it is not going to live
fifty years any way.

In fact, lifespan has been *shortened* until sometimes in XIX century in
comparison with prehistory, and in spite of that cctuagenarians have always
existed.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From jonano at gmail.com  Thu Aug  4 18:57:17 2011
From: jonano at gmail.com (Jonathan Despres)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 14:57:17 -0400
Subject: [ExI] I am lending money to scientists
Message-ID: <CAGa90njwYTCCYomCGOZzsyN8L+ym7jHS8NJpWHNjLkY-dYtOWA@mail.gmail.com>

Hello,

If you are interested, I am lending money to scientists

the web site built for this purpose is at:

http://technoloans.org

Thanks to share this information with your scientific friends,

--Jon


From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 14:29:34 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:29:34 +0100
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a7AU9WYtDMzo6nbrrmrNpn=t=542KD2WTDeCGeB9E9SGQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a7AU9WYtDMzo6nbrrmrNpn=t=542KD2WTDeCGeB9E9SGQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgNO67dat3K+aNk5393Z=hYPGKhCE_fGkBcqf7JJGdVEQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/12 Stefano Vaj wrote:
> Once more, life expectancy has not much to do with lifespan, and has to do
> with the probability of your being killed at any time by predators,
> infections, hunger, accidents, lack of parental or elderly care, etc.
> Conversely, no matter how well you treat your cat, it is not going to live
> fifty years any way.
>
> In fact, lifespan has been *shortened* until sometimes in XIX century in
> comparison with prehistory, and in spite of that cctuagenarians have always
> existed.
>
>

I don't think anybody is disagreeing with this point.

But if most people die (by whatever means) by their 30s, then
evolution has no chance to develop enhanced characteristics for the
70s and over age group. Evolution will enhance the attributes that
suit a live fast, die young population.


BillK


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Aug 12 14:53:52 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:53:52 -0500
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
 000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgNO67dat3K+aNk5393Z=hYPGKhCE_fGkBcqf7JJGdVEQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>	<CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>	<CAPoR7a7AU9WYtDMzo6nbrrmrNpn=t=542KD2WTDeCGeB9E9SGQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgNO67dat3K+aNk5393Z=hYPGKhCE_fGkBcqf7JJGdVEQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E453E80.2030903@satx.rr.com>

On 8/12/2011 9:29 AM, BillK wrote:

> if most people die (by whatever means) by their 30s, then
> evolution has no chance to develop enhanced characteristics for the
> 70s and over age group. Evolution will enhance the attributes that
> suit a live fast, die young population.

But did "most people die" by their 30s? It's not even clear to me that 
most babies died in infancy in our small group roaming-band EEA--without 
hospitals, much less puerperal fever? less contagion?--and if some 
proportion will live into their 50s, 60s, 70s, even older, and serve a 
useful function conducing to the well-being of their kin, that's all you 
need. Dead children, in any case, don't contribute to the gene pool 
(except perhaps by removing bearers of deleterious genes, and taking 
some pressure off better-equipped siblings). Anyway, we are a K- not 
r-selected species, exactly NOT "live fast, die young".

Damien Broderick


From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 14:48:40 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:48:40 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <COL106-W53A24DAEF77D4BC885728AB6250@phx.gbl>
References: <008101cc5881$3f69de30$be3d9a90$@att.net>
	<1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<COL106-W53A24DAEF77D4BC885728AB6250@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyHst7DsPAkg2GLjufgUaVH-kmRDr-NH_zvUHv1nhw7GFQ@mail.gmail.com>

Spike: it's a pretty popular notion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return
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From anders at aleph.se  Fri Aug 12 15:54:37 2011
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:54:37 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E454CBD.3030400@aleph.se>

john clark wrote:
> Suppose you had 2 spools of string connected together by an axle and 
> you extended the 2 strings to cosmological distances 180 degrees apart 
> from each other. As long as the Dark Energy force between the atoms in 
> the string that were trying to force them apart was not stronger than 
> the attractive electromagnetic force holding the atoms of the string 
> together the string would not expand as the universe expanded, so 
> there would be a tension on the strings, so there would be torque on 
> the spool, so the axle would rotate.
>

One of us over here (Stuart Armstrong) has had the same idea. So far we 
have not found any cosmologist who can explain what is wrong with it.

My money would be on that there is something wrong here, but it is 
likely subtle.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University 



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Fri Aug 12 16:02:44 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:02:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <007a01cc58b8$adb4b630$091e2290$@att.net>
Message-ID: <1313164964.50626.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

?On Fri, 8/12/11, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
?" I theorized that if the universe is closed, then there is a finite number of particles in a finite 4-space.? Both are unimaginably large of course, but finite.? If so, there is a finite number of ways a finite number of particles can arrange themselves in a finite quantized space. Then the line of reasoning goes thus: if the universe exploded forth in a big bang, then after it collapses, the same thing can happen again. If so, and time is infinite (for how can time be finite?) then there are an infinite number of big bangs, over a quite unimaginably large span of time.? If so, every possible combination of particles in finite space would eventually occur in infinite space time.? If so, this exact arrangement of everything will happen again.? Furthermore, it will happen again an infinite number of times.? And it has already happened before.? An infinite number of times."
That's Eternal Return, Friedrich Nietzsche had a similar idea, but to me a finite number of thoughts is a pretty low rent sort of immortality, just repeating the same old exact things over and over, like the decimal expression of a rational number. In a way it would be the opposite of the scenario I was talking about; the objective universe says you're still alive but subjectively you only go around once and you're dead. To me immortality means having an infinite number of non-repeating thoughts, and it's irrelevant if it takes a finite or infinite amount of objective time (if there were such a thing) to do it. True immortality is more like the decimal expression of a irrational number.

?John K Clark

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From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 16:23:31 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:23:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] I am lending money to scientists
In-Reply-To: <CAGa90njwYTCCYomCGOZzsyN8L+ym7jHS8NJpWHNjLkY-dYtOWA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGa90njwYTCCYomCGOZzsyN8L+ym7jHS8NJpWHNjLkY-dYtOWA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTyYgOu3U27PwyKqnTmhTNBUnGtXS5XLrb8=GzBgELFoA@mail.gmail.com>

The amounts given seem to be in the microlending category,
and wouldn't purchase most scientific instruments that are
able to produce a financial return on investment.

More seriously, if I read this right, you're offering 10% interest
*per month*.  That's about 314% per year - loan shark grade.
Credit cards tend to keep it under 30% per year.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Jonathan Despres <jonano at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> If you are interested, I am lending money to scientists
>
> the web site built for this purpose is at:
>
> http://technoloans.org
>
> Thanks to share this information with your scientific friends,
>
> --Jon
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 16:26:08 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:26:08 +0100
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <4E453E80.2030903@satx.rr.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a7AU9WYtDMzo6nbrrmrNpn=t=542KD2WTDeCGeB9E9SGQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgNO67dat3K+aNk5393Z=hYPGKhCE_fGkBcqf7JJGdVEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E453E80.2030903@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjL5LUTi_sonS7WPusn1899tCzJ3gKgoJKzfFsXXsnv4A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Damien Broderick  wrote:
> But did "most people die" by their 30s? It's not even clear to me that most
> babies died in infancy in our small group roaming-band EEA--without
> hospitals, much less puerperal fever? less contagion?--and if some
> proportion will live into their 50s, 60s, 70s, even older, and serve a
> useful function conducing to the well-being of their kin, that's all you
> need. Dead children, in any case, don't contribute to the gene pool (except
> perhaps by removing bearers of deleterious genes, and taking some pressure
> off better-equipped siblings). Anyway, we are a K- not r-selected species,
> exactly NOT "live fast, die young".
>
>

Hey, I was there! I remember it well.

Well, it was pre-historical times, so science is guessing, based on
best evidence. All the bones found seem to be from around 30-40 years
old or younger. But there may be other reasons for no old bones being
found.

The r/K selection theory has fallen by the wayside these days.
See:
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/R/K_selection_theory>
Quote:
In the 1970s and 1980s, several studies failed to produce experimental
corroboration of the r/K theory, and, as a result, r/K selection
theory was discarded by biologists studying life-history evolution by
the early nineties.[12] Even though hundreds of papers used r/K
selection theory to analyze life history data, and attempted to fit
them into the r/K selection model, not a single study was able to
demonstrate a correlation between fluctuation and adaptation or to
show a tradeoff between r- and K-selected traits.
-----------------

If you think back to Victorian times, the poor had short lifespans and
many children, most of whom died young. Who can forget 'Every sperm is
Sacred?'


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 12 17:02:32 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:02:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyHst7DsPAkg2GLjufgUaVH-kmRDr-NH_zvUHv1nhw7GFQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <008101cc5881$3f69de30$be3d9a90$@att.net>	<1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<COL106-W53A24DAEF77D4BC885728AB6250@phx.gbl>
	<CAKrqSyHst7DsPAkg2GLjufgUaVH-kmRDr-NH_zvUHv1nhw7GFQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <012001cc5911$a23fad60$e6bf0820$@att.net>

 

 

>. On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite
computation?

 

Spike: it's a pretty popular notion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

 

Thanks Will.  

 

When one studies calculus in high school or college, one should really
ponder deeply the concept of infinity, rather than merely toss about
memorized definitions of the awesome concepts of aleph null, aleph one and
so forth.  If one wastes perfectly good time contemplating infinity, the
recurring universe notion is inescapable.  If one makes a bad habit of such
contemplation, one risks a fate similar to what happened to Robert Pirsig in
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  The concept of infinity is just
so stunningly awesome, it cannot be contained in the confines of a finite
brain.  

 

No need to waste perfectly good money on recreational drugs: infinity blows
the mind for free.

 

spike

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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 17:46:59 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:46:59 -0600
Subject: [ExI] [GRG] NewAbs: The Phenotype of IQ is Polygenic x 1,
	000 Genes
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgNO67dat3K+aNk5393Z=hYPGKhCE_fGkBcqf7JJGdVEQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C6.BA.15242.753124E4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com>
	<CAN0+hJoSMyZVYcTCuHcN5x6PcUr5D-2Okjq1ByY5Z4LJoWViAA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E42D688.9040709@satx.rr.com>
	<CAL_armgw45t35wD8AH7VJUMKDHUGRQDrRjpi-M=UEF9tuiNNtg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a7AU9WYtDMzo6nbrrmrNpn=t=542KD2WTDeCGeB9E9SGQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armgNO67dat3K+aNk5393Z=hYPGKhCE_fGkBcqf7JJGdVEQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZT6cuXNFqCTskSC261UbmMZ6Vs-4N-orpG5M1hAeLGTQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 8:29 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/8/12 Stefano Vaj wrote:
>> Once more, life expectancy has not much to do with lifespan, and has to do
>> with the probability of your being killed at any time by predators,
>> infections, hunger, accidents, lack of parental or elderly care, etc.
>> Conversely, no matter how well you treat your cat, it is not going to live
>> fifty years any way.
>>
>> In fact, lifespan has been *shortened* until sometimes in XIX century in
>> comparison with prehistory, and in spite of that cctuagenarians have always
>> existed.
>
> I don't think anybody is disagreeing with this point.
>
> But if most people die (by whatever means) by their 30s, then
> evolution has no chance to develop enhanced characteristics for the
> 70s and over age group. Evolution will enhance the attributes that
> suit a live fast, die young population.

OK, I'm going to go out a little bit on a limb here, and disagree with
this point.

I believe that a certain amount of longevity of human elders is
selective in the Darwinian sense, so long as you also extend Darwinism
into the area of memes. In pre-writing cultures, story telling, songs,
epic poems and other mnemonics were the primary mechanisms for
maintaining cultural knowledge over multi-century time frames. These
memes were likely very important to the survival of groups as a whole.
Only through these types of stories would you know about tsunamis,
volcanoes, and other disasters that come around only now and again and
might wipe out the entire group. Also, many life preserving memes
applicable on a more day to day basis, how to hunt the buffalo
effectively, etc. were passed on using these mechanisms. The longer
the elders lived, the more faithfully these memes were reproduced into
the younger generations. An old story teller (in at least American
Indian cultures) chose an acolyte at a young age, around 4 or 5, and
began teaching their stories in a process that took about 5-10 years.
If the elder started the copying process too early, they decreased
their value to the group and took a productive member of society out
of the race too long, and if they started too late, then some memes
would be lost. It is a delicate balance that the old story tellers are
very aware of on a conscious level.

Genetics would favor groups that had successful elders (in terms of
memetic reproduction) over the long term. Memetics would favor groups
with successful elders over a shorter term as well. You only need a
few people living into their 50s to achieve this success, so the genes
for longevity need not be common in the groups, merely extant.

So, I disagree with the idea that whatever happens after you reproduce
does not affect the success of your genes. I have Dawkins on my side
for this one too, if I understand him correctly.

-Kelly


From js_exi at gnolls.org  Fri Aug 12 19:23:36 2011
From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:23:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Forager lifespan
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1313064002.25257.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1313064002.25257.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <4E457DB8.7010000@gnolls.org>

On 8/11/11 5:00 AM, BillK wrote:
> Current theory is that when pre-history humans were evolving they had
> a life expectancy of around 30 years, with 50 years being exceptional.
> More significantly, women had a lower life expectancy because of the
> dangers of continual childbirth. So the effect should be present less
> in women than in men.
>
> I don't see how evolution could have generated a beneficial effect in
> 70 year old humans at a time when 70 year old humans didn't exist.

It is a common mistake to assume average life expectancy is the same as 
average adult life expectancy.  Foragers have low average lifespans 
because of high infant mortality.  However:

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf

"The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a 
range of 68-78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional 
equivalent of an "adaptive" human lifespan."
[...]
"Illnesses account for 70 percent, violence and accidents for 20 
percent, and degenerative diseases for 9 percent of all deaths in our 
sample."
[...]
"Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of hunter-gatherers and 
of the life cycle of Homo sapiens. Survivorship to grandparental age is 
achieved by over two-thirds of people who reach sexual maturity and can 
last an average of 20 years. "

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6hzaiioy9og/Sl9gtNggeiI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/ZKUc6J7bV0w/s400/hunter-gatherer+lifespan+table.jpg

Also relevant:

"Between Zeus and the Salmon: The Biodemography of Longevity" (1997)
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309057876&page=176

You can start reading at the above link.  One example: In the Hiwi, "In 
any case, once a child reaches adult age, the prospect of surviving to a 
reasonably old age is high. For example, a woman who reaches the average 
age of first reproduction (age 19) has about a 50 percent chance of 
reaching age 65.2.  This suggests that living well past the age of last 
reproduction is a common experience for human females."

And then:

Ages of death of a traditionally-living Inuit population during the 
years 1822 to 1836.  "Excluding infant mortality, about 25% of their 
population lived past 60...It's possible that life expectancy would have 
been higher before contact with the Russians, since they introduced a 
number of nasty diseases to which the Inuit were not resistant."

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/mortality-and-lifespan-of-inuit.html

Unless we assume that modern foraging cultures underwent massive genetic 
selection for longevity since the spread of agriculture less than 10 
Kya, it seems likely that 70 year old humans did exist in meaningful 
numbers, and evolution could indeed have generated a beneficial effect 
in them.

JS
http://www.gnolls.org




From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 12 21:01:21 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:01:21 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
Message-ID: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>

This should appeal to Damien.   :)
<http://www.happyplace.com/9574/grammar-test-keeps-idiots-off-of-the-internet>

Quote:
We dream of a day when this Internet entrance exam is mandatory,
creating a grammatically sound, idiot-free online experience for the
four of us who actually pass it.


BillK


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Aug 12 21:21:56 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:21:56 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E459974.50506@satx.rr.com>

On 8/12/2011 4:01 PM, BillK wrote:

> This should appeal to Damien.   :)

> <http://www.happyplace.com/9574/grammar-test-keeps-idiots-off-of-the-internet>

Yes, but that url fails its own test (IMO). Oddly, the story's headline 
itself doesn't:

<How to keep the grammatically challenged off the Internet.>


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 02:13:21 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:13:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

?On Fri, 8/12/11, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
"This should appeal to Damien.???:)
<http://www.happyplace.com/9574/grammar-test-keeps-idiots-off-of-the-internet>"
"Quote:
We dream of a day when this Internet entrance exam is mandatory,
creating a grammatically sound, idiot-free online experience for the
four of us who actually pass it."
I agree that its important to know the difference between to, too and two, but in general this grammar Gestapo is full of shit. He gets all hot and bothered over the distinction between "effect" and "affect" but according to the dictionary in my Mac a "effect" is a change that is the result of an action, while "affect" means have a *effect* (yes it actually used that word) on or make a difference to. So I looked at a online dictionary and found that "affect" means to have an influence on or cause a change in, while effect means something brought about by a cause. I'll be damned if I see any reason for having two words that mean exactly the same thing, and its even more puzzling why anybody would get upset for using the wrong one.

Linguist Steven Pinker wrote a amusing editorial about pointless grammatical rules at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22pinker.html

? John K Clark 
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From rtomek at ceti.pl  Sat Aug 13 02:38:52 2011
From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 04:38:52 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [ExI] I am lending money to scientists
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108130414140.32683@tau.ceti.pl>
References: <CAGa90njwYTCCYomCGOZzsyN8L+ym7jHS8NJpWHNjLkY-dYtOWA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNTyYgOu3U27PwyKqnTmhTNBUnGtXS5XLrb8=GzBgELFoA@mail.gmail.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.64.1108130414140.32683@tau.ceti.pl>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108130438000.32683@tau.ceti.pl>

On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> The amounts given seem to be in the microlending category,
> and wouldn't purchase most scientific instruments that are
> able to produce a financial return on investment.
> 
> More seriously, if I read this right, you're offering 10% interest
> *per month*.  That's about 314% per year - loan shark grade.
> Credit cards tend to keep it under 30% per year.

Terrific deal.

If I were a scientist, I would _give_ _you_ my money for, say, 150-200% a 
year, which would probably beat every other form of investment on this 
planet. And I would finance my research from the money you payed 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 lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 03:06:41 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:06:41 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo. com>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

John wrote:

>I agree that its important to know the difference between to, too 
>and two, but in general this grammar Gestapo is full of shit. He 
>gets all hot and bothered over the distinction between "effect" and 
>"affect" but according to the dictionary in my Mac a "effect" is a 
>change that is the result of an action, while "affect" means have a 
>*effect* (yes it actually used that word) on or make a difference 
>to. So I looked at a online dictionary and found that "affect" means 
>to have an influence on or cause a change in, while effect means 
>something brought about by a cause. I'll be damned if I see any 
>reason for having two words that mean exactly the same thing, and 
>its even more puzzling why anybody would get upset for using the wrong one.

affect is also a noun with a very different meaning. And effect is
also a verb with a very different meaning.

As a linguist, I'm a descriptivist. As a writer, I'm open to innovation.
But there's a difference between dialect, ideolect, or coinage
and not knowing what meanings the words already come with.

I *will* judge people (and I'm far from alone) whose non-standard
usage seems based on ignorance. I will probably not hire them.
But then, I'm someone who can't turn a page with a tyspo unless
I carefully correct it (with an acid-free archival pen), even in a
library book.

>Linguist Steven Pinker wrote a amusing editorial about pointless 
>grammatical rules at:

Yes, he's not talking about this. He's talking about the ersatz
nonsense that was invented, that has no historical basis, usually
the result of applying concepts from Latin that have nothing to do
with English. He is not talking about what this captcha is testing.


-- David.



From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Aug 13 03:49:21 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:49:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E45F441.1020503@satx.rr.com>

On 8/12/2011 9:13 PM, john clark wrote:

> Linguist Steven Pinker wrote a amusing editorial about pointless
> grammatical rules

John, you're a highly intelligent person, so your indignation about 
established grammar can't be due to your *not getting* the differences 
you cite--unless you suffer from (or rejoice in) dyslexia, like my 
frequent co-writer Rory. I've always assumed you were trolling on this 
topic for the entertainment value, although it got old pretty fast. Or 
maybe you're a devout spelling simplifier, like George Bernard Shaw, who 
despite his fame and authority got nowhere in his campaign. (Do you 
spell that "campain" or "campayn"? If not, why not?)

You really can't see how it micro-delays the understanding of an 
educated reader when "their" is used instead of "there" or "they're," or 
"its" instead of "it's," and that these delays add up to frustration and 
eventually to a downgrading of the estimated worth of the ungrammatical 
writer? There's a guy on the GRG Longevity list who insists of leaving 
out the customary space between the end of one sentence and the start of 
the next, which makes reading his posts about as much fun as grinding 
sandpaper on your eyeball.

But speaking of Pinker, a most amusing guy--I've read four rather long 
books by him, and quite a few essays, and I can't remember his ever 
using ungrammatical English. If he means "their" he never uses one of 
the alternative homophones. Why do you suppose that is? A conspiracy of 
grammar Gestapo among his publishers? Probably, yes--but if Pinker 
really meant to argue that it makes no difference, he should insist on 
spattering his pages with confused "affects" and "effects" instead of 
acting on his knowledge that the words have quite different meanings 
even if sometimes they sound quite similar.

Damien Broderick


From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 04:24:47 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:24:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of David Lubkin
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 8:07 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Captchas

John wrote:

>>I agree that its important to know the difference between to, too and 
>>two, but in general this grammar Gestapo is full of shit...


>I *will* judge people (and I'm far from alone) whose non-standard usage
seems based on ignorance. I will probably not hire them...

Shouldn't it be "I probably will not hire them..."  ?

>...But then, I'm someone who can't turn a page with a tyspo unless I
carefully correct it (with an acid-free archival pen), even in a library
book...

Tyspo?

{8^D

I have made an obsessive hobby of finding errors in books.  There is one
which is remarkably clean: Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden
Braid.

>...Yes, he's not talking about this. He's talking about the ersatz nonsense
that was invented...-- David.

Language forms such an interesting playground.  I have entertained myself
endlessly with it's wackiness.

spike




From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Aug 13 04:49:06 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:49:06 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E460242.4030105@satx.rr.com>

On 8/12/2011 11:24 PM, spike wrote:

>> ...But then, I'm someone who can't turn a page with a tyspo unless I
> carefully correct it (with an acid-free archival pen), even in a library
> book...
>
> Tyspo?
>
> {8^D

I suspect you {8^D too soon. Looks like the old fanzine gag 
"poorfreading" to me...

Damien Broderick


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 04:58:50 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:58:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1313211530.8786.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 12, 2011, at 11:06 PM, David Lubkin wrote:

  >"affect is also a noun with a very different meaning."

Not just different but VERY different?? My dictionary says the noun form of "affect" means "influencing behavior or action", the very same dictionary says "influencing" means "the capacity to have an *effect*". If that is different is sure as hell isn't VERY different 

We already have a perfectly good word for those meanings, effect, as in cause and effect, so the only excuse "affect" has for existing is its secondary meaning "to pretend".

 >"And effect is also a verb with a very different meaning."

And as a verb "effect" means "to cause something to happen or bring about", and "cause" means "a person or thing that gives rise to a phenomena", as in "the punch you gave me caused me to have a bloody nose" or "the rain caused me to walk faster". I'll be damned if I can see the difference between these two words that you think is so VERY important.

  John K Clark







From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 05:38:44 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:38:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <1313213924.75221.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Sat, 8/13/11, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
"I have made an obsessive hobby of finding errors in books.? There is one
which is remarkably clean: Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden
Braid."
But they must be there, Hofstadter said he refused to change one word for later editions of that great book, the publisher found some typos but Hofstadter wouldn't let them change even that for the new editions, he wanted the typos to remain and so they did.

?John K Clark
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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 05:30:11 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:30:11 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E45F441.1020503@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <1313213411.24828.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Fri, 8/12/11, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
? "maybe you're a devout spelling simplifier, like George Bernard Shaw" 
He said that if you used the same rules of pronunciation and spelling that are used in the words tough, women, and nation then the word "Fish" should be spelled as "Ghoti". As a matter of fact the speech synthesizer on my computer DOES pronounce Ghoti as Fish! 
"he should insist on spattering his pages with confused "affects" and "effects" instead of acting on his knowledge that the words have quite different meanings" 
Not just different meanings but QUITE different meanings?? I think not.

?John K Clark


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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 05:54:25 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:54:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E460242.4030105@satx.rr.com>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>	<002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
	<4E460242.4030105@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <004201cc597d$7509eab0$5f1dc010$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
Subject: Re: [ExI] Captchas

On 8/12/2011 11:24 PM, spike wrote:

>>> ...But then, I'm someone who can't turn a page with a tyspo unless I
carefully correct it...
>
>> Tyspo?
>
> {8^D

>I suspect you {8^D too soon. Looks like the old fanzine gag "poorfreading"
to me...

Damien Broderick

Ja, I repeated the gag by tossing in an "it's."  I know that is one of your
pet peeves.  {8^D

Should not the past tense of the verb {8^D be {8^Ded.  Or perhaps it is one
of those irregular verbs in which the tense is indicated by the spelling,
such as ride and rode?  So in that spirit, today I {8^D but yesterday I
{8vD?

spike







From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 06:03:40 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:03:40 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313213924.75221.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
	<1313213924.75221.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <004301cc597e$c0905ea0$41b11be0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of john clark
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 10:39 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Captchas

 


On Sat, 8/13/11, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

"I have made an obsessive hobby of finding errors in books.  There is one
which is remarkably clean: Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden
Braid."

 

 

 

But they must be there, Hofstadter said he refused to change one word for
later editions of that great book, the publisher found some typos but
Hofstadter wouldn't let them change even that for the new editions, he
wanted the typos to remain and so they did.

 John K Clark

 

 

There was at least one that I think was intentional.  I had it marked as the
only typo I could find, but then later I realized it was a subtle gag on the
theme of atta.gccg. where he was talking about DNA and base pairs.

 

I agree with his notion of leaving them in there.  It will encourage geeks
to study the book to try to find them.

 

Your comment doesn't surprise me.  I had the privilege of meeting Hofstadter
once, at the Nerdstock at Stanford on 1 April 2000.  A couple things
surprised me about him: he is a small guy, about 5 ft 5 or so and thin.  The
other thing was that he seemed a bit irritable, annoyed by minor things,
such as they had set up a speaker's table without the traditional white
cloth.  But the audience at Nerdstock was so awed by that collection of Geek
Gods, we would never notice such details as a missing white table top cloth.

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 06:10:29 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:10:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313213411.24828.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <4E45F441.1020503@satx.rr.com>
	<1313213411.24828.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <004801cc597f$b41fe6d0$1c5fb470$@att.net>

 

>. On Behalf Of john clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] Captchas

 


 

  ". confused "affects" and "effects" .  I think not.

 John K Clark

 

 

 

The similarity of affect and effect is a good example of a minor flaw in the
English language, but there are bigger ones.  Do suggest your own favorites.
Mine is that English has the same word for you singular and you plural.  So
egregious is that flaw that many, perhaps most, regional dialects provide a
patch of sorts, one that is really needed.  How many can y'all think of?  I
am confident youse will know them.  Ye be sharp wordsters.  You guys know
language.  spike

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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 10:48:17 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:48:17 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <201108131048.p7DAmX13011230@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Spike wrote:

>I have made an obsessive hobby of finding errors in books.

I don't look for tyspos; they scream at me for attention. I've spotted
the typo in 6 pt grey text on grey paper in the mass of car rental
contract, as if it was <blink><strong>-ing at me.

Not sure if it's genetic or conditioning, since my engineer/writer
dad and my physicist/writer mother had it, and now my daughter
does.

Damien B:

>Looks like the old fanzine gag "poorfreading" to me...

I've always seen it spelled porfratting, but yours might be Aussie.
The letters slid over on the boat.

John Clark:

>I'll be damned if I can see the difference between these two words 
>that you think is so VERY important.

Then I guess I won't be hiring you. Also for SHOUTING and for
misquoting me (I said "very different," not "very important," which
has a very different meaning).

>But they must be there, Hofstadter said he refused to change one 
>word for later editions of that great book, the publisher found some 
>typos but Hofstadter wouldn't let them change even that for the new 
>editions, he wanted the typos to remain and so they did.

I always liked Don Knuth's offer of $2.56 for each person who
was first person to report a typo in one of his books.


-- David.



From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 10:57:22 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:57:22 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Requieum
Message-ID: <201108131057.p7DAvV7j022684@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the death of my father,
Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin. Mathematician, professor, electrical
and aerospace engineer, farmer, failed politician in two countries,
inventor, columnist, writer, colonel in military intelligence,
competitive pistol shooter, 4 SD intellect, father of thirteen
extraordinary kids, unquenchable punster, political advisor,
humorist, Zionist from Flatbush; inventor of the Permissive Action
Link; pioneer in drone aircraft, microwaves, electronic warfare,
acoustics, speech recognition; amateur photographer, sf reader,
and dozens more descriptors.

Lots to like. Lots not to. But certainly not someone you'd ever
forget.


-- David.



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 13:51:21 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:51:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108131048.p7DAmX13011230@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1313243481.8105.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Sat, 8/13/11, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:

"Then I guess I won't be hiring you. Also for SHOUTING and for misquoting me (I said "very different," not "very important," which has a very different meaning)."


OK, so the meanings of the two words are VERY different but not VERY important; nevertheless I am a little surprised that despite this large difference nobody, including you, is able to come right out and say exactly (or even approximately) what that NOT very important difference is.

And by the way, I have no plans on hiring you either, and I would rather piss on a spark plug than work for you. 

?John K Clark

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 14:43:02 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:43:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <004801cc597f$b41fe6d0$1c5fb470$@att.net>
References: <4E45F441.1020503@satx.rr.com>
	<1313213411.24828.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<004801cc597f$b41fe6d0$1c5fb470$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJ3Ni=6Ff2RDY_7_=SRMQ0PqYtDZmDT9nKzf_ZFGM3iRg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/13 spike <spike66 at att.net>

>
>
> The similarity of affect and effect is a good example of a minor flaw in
> the English language, but there are bigger ones.  Do suggest your own
> favorites.  Mine is that English has the same word for you singular and you
> plural.  So egregious is that flaw that many, perhaps most, regional
> dialects provide a patch of sorts, one that is really needed.  How many can
> y?all think of?  I am confident youse will know them.  Ye be sharp
> wordsters.  You guys know language.  spike****
>
>
I would like a nongendered singular pronoun that isn't the awkward fumbling
"his or her"

"A gender-agnostic writer should have a word to express his or her idea
without focusing on either 'his' or 'her' gender."
(though I especially love self-referential sentences like the one above or
like this one)

Frequently we use "their" even though it is wrong.  The artificial "one"
would be even worse here; "...express one's own idea."  I'm not even sure
that doesn't change the meaning in some subtle ways.


My wife would add that "you guys" as the plural form of you is unacceptable
- only through loosening the definition of "guy" to become "person" does
this phrase not exclude (or reassign gender) of the women at the table when
a waitress asks, "How are you guys today?"   Or perhaps even more egregious
is the possession rule "add apostrophe S" to the already plural word 'guys'
to make a word that is homophonic with "guises" as in "Let me get you guys's
check"
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 14:46:25 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:46:25 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313243481.8105.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.c
 om>
References: <201108131048.p7DAmX13011230@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313243481.8105.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

I wrote:

>Then I guess I won't be hiring you. Also for SHOUTING and for misquoting me
>(I said "very different," not "very important," which has a very 
>different meaning).

John Clark replied:

>OK, so the meanings of the two words are VERY different but not VERY important

Fallacy 1. My posting noted that I'd said the meanings in question were
very different. I said nothing either way about whether the difference in
meanings was very important.

>nevertheless I am a little surprised that despite this large 
>difference nobody, including you, is able to come right out and say 
>exactly (or even approximately) what that NOT very important difference is.

Fallacy 2. That I (we) do not explain words to you does not mean that
I (we) cannot.


-- David.



From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 14:51:58 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 07:51:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108131048.p7DAmX13011230@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>	<002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
	<201108131048.p7DAmX13011230@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <00a701cc59c8$8db4a820$a91df860$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of David Lubkin
...

>...I always liked Don Knuth's offer of $2.56 for each person who was first
person to report a typo in one of his books.


-- David.


Indulge me, I have a funny Donald Knuth story.  GIMPS found a record prime,
the local GIMPSters had a dinner party at a restaurant in Palo Alto.  We
ordered our dinner, busy Friday evening, took a while.  Rumor had it that
THE DONALD might show, although he was crazy busy trying to finish a book.
About twenty or more minutes after we had ordered, in comes THE DONALD.  The
waitresses showed up with the food just as he sat down.  One of the
GIMPSters piped up and said "Dr. Knuth, do take my dinner sir, I am in no
hurry, they can make me a new one."  He accepted, practically inhaled an
eNORmous chicken chimichanga, in minutes, then he thanked everyone and
bolted!  He had eaten and was gone before the waitress had even showed up
with the replacement dinner for the guy who gave up his.   {8^D

Knuth was an odd duck.  Never did really say much.  Didn't have a chance to.
No pleasant dinner banter, no chit chat.  Even as he devoured that
chimichanga, he seemed deep in thought.

After we finished dinner, the one of the cofounders of GIMPS, Scott
Kurowski, got up and thanked everyone for coming and for their participation
in the project.  He said he had to run and catch a plane, but was picking up
the dinner tab for everyone.  It was one of those trendy spendy Palo Alto
places, and there were about 20 of us, so I would be surprised if Scott got
out of there for much less than 1000 bucks.  What a guy!

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 15:01:50 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:01:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJ3Ni=6Ff2RDY_7_=SRMQ0PqYtDZmDT9nKzf_ZFGM3iRg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4E45F441.1020503@satx.rr.com>	<1313213411.24828.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<004801cc597f$b41fe6d0$1c5fb470$@att.net>
	<CAOJFdbJ3Ni=6Ff2RDY_7_=SRMQ0PqYtDZmDT9nKzf_ZFGM3iRg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00a801cc59c9$ee4c7b30$cae57190$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty



>.You guys know language.  spike


>.I would like a nongendered singular pronoun that isn't the awkward
fumbling "his or her"

Interesting point, ja.


>."A gender-agnostic writer should have a word to express his or her idea
without focusing on either 'his' or 'her' gender."
(though I especially love self-referential sentences like the one above or
like this one)

Me too.  I like sentences that say me, when the me refers to the actual
sentence.  Example:  I am a true statement, so write me early and often.


>.My wife would add that "you guys" as the plural form of you is
unacceptable - ." as in "Let me get you guys's check" 

Agree.  What we have is clumsy any way it is done.  We use the feminine
pronouns as gender specific, whereas the masculine pronouns are ambiguous
gender.   At any mixed table, it is considered OK to say you guys, but if
even one man is present, never acceptable to say you ladies.  Spanish has
something pretty similar, and perhaps other languages too.  Europeans, does
your language have an analogous situation?

I have tried to reverse it by using she and her as a gender ambiguous
pronoun, but it hasn't caught on much.

spike

 





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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 15:30:14 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:30:14 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJ3Ni=6Ff2RDY_7_=SRMQ0PqYtDZmDT9nKzf_ZFGM3iRg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4E45F441.1020503@satx.rr.com>
	<1313213411.24828.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<004801cc597f$b41fe6d0$1c5fb470$@att.net>
	<CAOJFdbJ3Ni=6Ff2RDY_7_=SRMQ0PqYtDZmDT9nKzf_ZFGM3iRg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaKUyyoMsy6pGibF1B+uHvvBLGXojZ_vp33=pp57OeA_g@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/13 Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com>:
> Or perhaps even more egregious
> is the possession rule "add apostrophe S" to the already plural word 'guys'
> to make a word that is homophonic with "guises" as in "Let me get you guys's
> check"

This one is a real Utahism... it is so common here... you actually
HEAR the two es sounds! It's like fingernails on a chalk board....

The other one is like the use of like to like mean like whatever you
like like it to mean. Like you know what I like mean? AARRGGHH!!!

-Kelly


From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 15:34:42 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:34:42 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <00a701cc59c8$8db4a820$a91df860$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armgoAaqXV+CUK3OnN=RhpkasOQhLtH1FueJkMckQ3aNiNA@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313201601.39245.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108130334.p7D3YvLx009050@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<002701cc5970$effac4e0$cff04ea0$@att.net>
	<201108131048.p7DAmX13011230@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<00a701cc59c8$8db4a820$a91df860$@att.net>
Message-ID: <201108131534.p7DFYwb1021111@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Spike wrote:

>Indulge me, I have a funny Donald Knuth story.  GIMPS found a record prime,

Curious coincidences with your story: Two of the people I went to
grad school with were Cathy Knuth (not sure what the relationship
was, but she *was* a CS major, and around the right age to be
his daughter or niece) and David Slowinski (who was able to find
all those Mersenne primes because he had a job at Cray exercising
the new supercomputers). Our AI professor (and my doctoral advisor)
was Larry Page's father.

All at little Moo U. At the same time that Magic Johnson was there,
too. I ran into Slowinski again when I was at Livermore.


-- David.



From giulio at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 14:55:16 2011
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:55:16 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Requieum
In-Reply-To: <201108131057.p7DAvV7j022684@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <201108131057.p7DAvV7j022684@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJye4qTRJ_zR6Q4R_Q1bRmW8+E57=eSGfxjcTj-gRABS68Q@mail.gmail.com>

I am sorry to hear that your father is no longer with us David, but
from your description I see that he has lived a really rich, full and
productive life, much more intense and probably much more fun than
most of us. Here is to Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin!

G.

On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 12:57 PM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the death of my father,
> Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin. Mathematician, professor, electrical
> and aerospace engineer, farmer, failed politician in two countries,
> inventor, columnist, writer, colonel in military intelligence,
> competitive pistol shooter, 4 SD intellect, father of thirteen
> extraordinary kids, unquenchable punster, political advisor,
> humorist, Zionist from Flatbush; inventor of the Permissive Action
> Link; pioneer in drone aircraft, microwaves, electronic warfare,
> acoustics, speech recognition; amateur photographer, sf reader,
> and dozens more descriptors.
>
> Lots to like. Lots not to. But certainly not someone you'd ever
> forget.
>
>
> -- David.
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 15:54:20 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:54:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 13, 2011, at 10:46 AM, David Lubkin wrote:
"Fallacy 1. My posting noted that I'd said the meanings in question were
very different. I said nothing either way about whether the difference in
meanings was very important."
Whenever somebody reads something they must make inferences about it or it will remain incomprehensible. You took the time to set the record straight and point out that you did NOT say that the difference in meaning between the words "effect" and "affect" was very important. It is entirely reasonable to infer that there was a reason for you to take the trouble to do this, it is entirely reasonable to assume there was a reason you didn't want anybody to infer that you believed this difference was very important. It was also entirely reasonable to conclude you thought the difference in meaning was in fact NOT very important. If that is not the meaning you wanted people to infer then you should learn to write more clearly.

But never mind all that, do you think the difference between "effect" and "affect" is VERY important or do you not? If the answer is yes then please explain why, if the answer is no then don't bother responding because your comments wouldn't be very important. 

? >"Fallacy 2. That I (we) do not explain words to you does not mean that I (we) cannot."



So you could easily show everybody that you were right and I was wrong but you choose not to do so because you are angry at me. If you expect people to believe that then my company would like to sell your company some swamp land.

? John K Clark

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 17:23:02 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:23:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/13 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> But never mind all that, do you think the difference between "effect" and "affect" is VERY important or do you not? If the answer is yes then please explain why, if the answer is no then don't bother responding because your comments wouldn't be very important.

I know the above wasn't directed at me, but I'll answer anyway.  Yes;
important.  Yes; very important.  No; VERY important.  They're is no
need two shout about it but their is a distinction between too words.
If written language is secondary in importance to spoken language,
then all homophones should be normalized to phonetic spelling and we
would have to either live with the ambiguity resolved via context or
find some alternate way to pronounce the nuances between red and read.
 It is my understanding that Spain has a governing body for legalizing
the spelling of words to protect their pronunciation.  I assume this
comes from thousands of years of common speech among illiterate
proles.

I'm not sure how we could quantitatively measure the information
content of the Internet between written and non-written communication.
 I'm not sure if pr0n should qualify as communication for this purpose
but it also doesn't seem right to discount that volume of bandwidth
either.  Anyway, considering even the text-only communication of this
list we might assume the written word should take precedence over the
unique flapping of meat that is regional pronunciation of words.  In
that case, the difference between effect/affect should be treated as
significantly as feet/feat or less/lass  (both are one letter changes
e-to-a, I'll grant the significance of 1 letter out of 4 is
technically greater than 1 out of 6 but still mostly irrelevant to
this discussion)



From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 17:33:56 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:33:56 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKTARzQs9CKiuOYocaxrfSmnB6hU0jgsaxU5ge1z3GaNw@mail.gmail.com>

Moments after sending my last contribution, my wife stumbled upon this
strikingly appropriate video:

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Aug 13 17:46:49 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:46:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E46B889.1000302@satx.rr.com>

On 8/13/2011 12:23 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote:

>  considering even the text-only communication of this
> list we might assume the written word should take precedence over the
> unique flapping of meat that is regional pronunciation of words.  In
> that case, the difference between effect/affect should be treated as
> significantly as feet/feat or less/lass  (both are one letter changes
> e-to-a,

Does the ever-more-frequently-seen confusion of "then" for "than" 
reflect vocal usage? I've never *heard* anyone say "I'd rather have X 
then Y" unless they meant X followed by Y, but maybe for some it's a 
schwa phoneme leading to the kind of error that causes USians to type 
"do" when they mean "due." (Neither are homophonic to an Aussie, which 
is a cause of further confusion.)

But I note with mild interest that Jon K Klerc does not insist on his 
manly spark-plug- pissing right to substitute "affact" or "effact" or 
"eefact" in his quest to obliterate pointless lexical distinctions.

Damien Broderick


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 13 17:45:38 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:45:38 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313257538.79782.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Sat, 8/13/11, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

?"Yes; important.? Yes; very important.? No; VERY important.? They're is no
need two shout about it but their is a distinction between too words."
And that distinction is....
homophones should be normalized to phonetic? (...)
Blah blah blah
 It is my understanding that Spain has(...)
Blah blah
"I'm not sure how we could quantitatively measure the information content of (...)"
Blah.
"the difference between effect/affect should be treated as significantly as feet/feat or less/lass"? 
And so we come to the end of two (not to or too) long paragraphs and you STILL haven't given even a hint what that VERY important difference is.

?John K Clark

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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Aug 13 17:59:58 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:59:58 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKTARzQs9CKiuOYocaxrfSmnB6hU0jgsaxU5ge1z3GaNw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbKTARzQs9CKiuOYocaxrfSmnB6hU0jgsaxU5ge1z3GaNw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E46BB9E.7070803@satx.rr.com>

On 8/13/2011 12:33 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote:

> Moments after sending my last contribution, my wife stumbled upon this
> strikingly appropriate video:
>
> Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

Ha ha. I have my wife send all my emails, too. Fry does make a point (in 
his fancy-pants posh accent), but he still admits to wincing when 
someone aspirates "h" as "haitch"...


From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 17:54:07 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:54:07 -0700
Subject: [ExI] lubrication: skimboard on the beach
Message-ID: <00e801cc59e1$ff9cc6c0$fed65440$@att.net>

 

In light of our recent discussion of lubrication, check out the first minute
of this video:

 

----- 


http://www.zapiks.com/the-coolest-dog-in-the-world.html 

 

A very thin laminar flow of water trapped beneath the skimboard and the sand
creates a nearly frictionless interface, which allows the boarder to do
something that looks impossible.  A good rider can skim fifty meters or
more, and if you have the right kind of board, you can spin it around, do
tricks and so forth.

 

This brings back fond memories of riding a skimboard on the beach in my
misspent youth.  In my teenage years, I had access to an excellent place for
this, Cocoa Beach.  In some ways riding a skim board is more fun than riding
a surfboard: you get more rides in a given length of time, you don't spend
as much time paddling out, you have less risk of hitting a swimmer, more
physically challenging, better exercise, and on the Florida east coast, the
waves are seldom any good anyway because it is too far inside a big
continental shelf.  

 

Besides that, I never was worth a damn at surfing, but I was good on a
skimboard, better than anyone I knew because I understood something
important: the skimboard works best when there is almost no water left.  If
the water is about half a centimeter depth or less, you go like there is no
friction at all, and the spectators go wild.  Plenty of them are from New
Joisey and have never seen anyone ride a skimboard.  It's a hoot!  They even
laugh with a funny accent.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 18:21:46 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:21:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>

 

 

>".I would rather piss on a spark plug than."

 

This comment reminded me of a funny story.  Do indulge me, for I am in a
mood for funny stories.

 

Far too many years ago, in the early 80s, women were coming into the
engineering world in significant numbers for the first time.  At the end of
the young professionals yearlong tour, they were assigned positions, after
which there was the traditional wild party in the desert (young single
crowd), but this year was different in that in addition to the usual fifteen
or so young men, there were four engineering women.  So, the traditional
venue, a local park with no improvements other than a couple picnic tables,
was unsuitable since it had no bathrooms or even an outhouse.  This had
never been an issue before, since it was all guys out there anyways.  The
women proposed the venue be moved to a more suitable location, but in the
Navy, tradition is sacred, so on went the party in the usual place, which
annoyed the young ladies, since they would suffer far more inconvenience
should they opt to join the lads in devouring excessive quantities of beer.
They plotted revenge.

 

At the party, tradition demanded the new engineers endure a round of Beer
Hand Luke.  This consisted of the participant holding 32 ounce bottle of
beer in each hand, at which time his hands (his, meaning male participant)
would be taped over with sturdy duct tape, plenty of it.  Now the caps on
both bottles would be opened.  He was to finish both bottles before the tape
came off.  Otherwise, well, no one there was going to unzip the trousers of
the hapless Beer Hands, and so he might go home smelling rather fragrant.
Hey, it's the Navy, this is tradition, live with it.

 

The party went on, out in that desert park with no restrooms.  Beer flowed,
and a good time was had, but when the tape came off, immediately the newly
freed Beer Hands would scamper off into the inky blackness of the desert to
allow the beer to go free.  But this time, the revenge-minded ladies had
come prepared.  They were aiming their camera in the approximate direction
of the sound and FLASH.  Monday comes, and around are being passed a number
of photographs of robust urine streams, most of which showed only from about
the waist down.  The photos made the rounds, as the office ladies tried to
match skin tones of the hands and penii to decide which photo went with
which lad.

 

The one thing I noticed, which sticks with me to this day, is that even the
most robust urine stream immediately dispersed into an arc of individual
droplets, which was quite educational.  I realized that a urine stream would
probably not be electrical conductor.  All those stories about hobos
urinating upon the third rail of the subway track and having their privates
blown off were apparently mythical urban legends.

 

Years went by.  A fun local TV show called Mythbusters actually tested the
notion with a urinating dummy.  They confirmed that indeed, any urine or
water stream consists of individual droplets and is not particularly
conductive to electricity.  Buster the anthropomorphic dummy could safely
urinate on the third rail all he wanted.

 

I learned that the tradition is alive to this day, although they have
inexplicably changed the name of it to Edward Beer Hands.

 

spike

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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 18:48:24 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:48:24 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E46BB9E.7070803@satx.rr.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbKTARzQs9CKiuOYocaxrfSmnB6hU0jgsaxU5ge1z3GaNw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E46BB9E.7070803@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <201108131848.p7DImgZj015037@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Damien B wrote:

>Ha ha. I have my wife send all my emails, too. Fry does make a point 
>(in his fancy-pants posh accent), but he still admits to wincing 
>when someone aspirates "h" as "haitch"...

In Israel, I read anything in English omnivorously, from Jacqueline Susann
to Somerset Maugham. As a result, I knew many words that I'd never
heard pronounced. (When I came back to the US for college, I remember
pronouncing "epitome" as if it were epi- + tome.)

So I had an argument once with my father and stepmother. My British
stepmother insisted that "herb" was pronounced identical to the name
Herb. For some reason, my Brooklyn father agreed with her. They
claimed that no one pronounces it /erb/, and pronouncing it that way
was just my ignorance from being isolated from English speakers.

Do you call the last letter of the alphabet zed?


-- David.



From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 19:05:18 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:05:18 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313257538.79782.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313257538.79782.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKBTZOjbnyMd47_1DPmjZuyDf4_Cyx8bBkQfMGes+U9tw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/13 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> And so we come to the end of two (not to or too) long paragraphs and you STILL haven't given even a hint what that VERY important difference is.

Seriously?  If I though you would accept my definition I might provide
one, except i doubt that you would.  Nobody has ever heard of Mike
Dougherty so my authority to provide any kind of insight is negligible
since I have not been published in any credible (or uncredible, or
even incredible) scholarly journals.  I would perhaps refer you to The
Dictionary for definitions of words and even provide URL to online
dictionaries so you could achieve consensus among various meanings -
but you have previously expressed your annoyance at others'
presumption to give you what you are capable of finding for yourself.
Since I'm sure you are capable of using various resources to find
literal definitions of words, I'll pass on the opportunity to provide
my comparatively worthless opinion of two specific words and instead
continue this entertaining discussion about words in general.  :)


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Aug 13 19:05:31 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:05:31 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108131848.p7DImgZj015037@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>	<CAOJFdbKTARzQs9CKiuOYocaxrfSmnB6hU0jgsaxU5ge1z3GaNw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E46BB9E.7070803@satx.rr.com>
	<201108131848.p7DImgZj015037@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <4E46CAFB.3010108@satx.rr.com>

On 8/13/2011 1:48 PM, David Lubkin wrote:

> My British
> stepmother insisted that "herb" was pronounced identical to the name
> Herb. For some reason, my Brooklyn father agreed with her. They
> claimed that no one pronounces it /erb/, and pronouncing it that way
> was just my ignorance from being isolated from English speakers.

Aussies find "erbs" an especially comical pronunciation, but then 
everyone else laughs at Aussie-speech, mite.

> Do you call the last letter of the alphabet zed?

Si.

Damien Broderick


From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 19:07:12 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:07:12 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E46CAFB.3010108@satx.rr.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAOJFdb+RMg2+g9LCCV8RQzTkjFtNO1iMb5w2kvv5tg-Vi+iJWg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbKTARzQs9CKiuOYocaxrfSmnB6hU0jgsaxU5ge1z3GaNw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E46BB9E.7070803@satx.rr.com>
	<201108131848.p7DImgZj015037@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<4E46CAFB.3010108@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJf3WXTDiaa_AX+YVgXHdV058d63_pQPOxMrUW8894KEQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> On 8/13/2011 1:48 PM, David Lubkin wrote:
>> Do you call the last letter of the alphabet zed?
>
> Si.

That's what we call the third letter.


From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Sat Aug 13 19:42:22 2011
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:42:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <mailman.467.1313262359.618.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <1313264542.46937.YahooMailClassic@web114401.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> asked:
> 
> Do you call the last letter of the alphabet zed?

It has always struck me as ludicrous that americans pronounce it "Zee", inviting (to say the least) confusion with the letter C.

(That, and the use of a verb for the rubber rim of a wheel)

Ben Zaiboc



From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 19:01:23 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:01:23 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgyqVZvhkBRJoHKC_TAxJrdeE2SyDpFjw+wDphWZK=auQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/13 spike wrote:
<story snip>
> The one thing I noticed, which sticks with me to this day, is that even the
> most robust urine stream immediately dispersed into an arc of individual
> droplets, which was quite educational.? I realized that a urine stream would
> probably not be electrical conductor.? All those stories about hobos
> urinating upon the third rail of the subway track and having their privates
> blown off were apparently mythical urban legends.
>
> Years went by.? A fun local TV show called Mythbusters actually tested the
> notion with a urinating dummy.? They confirmed that indeed, any urine or
> water stream consists of individual droplets and is not particularly
> conductive to electricity.? Buster the anthropomorphic dummy could safely
> urinate on the third rail all he wanted.
>


Please don't try this at home!

There have been several cases reported in newspapers of electrocution
deaths with burn marks to prove the cause.

One critic of Mythbusters wrote
Subway systems use direct current. When Jamie and Adam tested this
myth, they used a generator which produced alternating current. This
in itself totally screwed up their results, since they did not test
the system using accurate data.

Secondly, they made no allowance for the return of current. In 3rd
rail systems, the third rail itself carries a positive charge, where
as the running (track) rails carry a negative charge. Once the power
is used by the traction motors in the cars, it is returned through the
track rails to the power distribution station.used a generator which
produced AC and third rail systems use DC.
--------------------------


Voltage probably matters as well.

At least one death has been reported from peeing on an unnoticed power
line that had been brought down in a storm. Power lines can carry huge
voltages.



BillK



From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 13 21:43:25 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:43:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgyqVZvhkBRJoHKC_TAxJrdeE2SyDpFjw+wDphWZK=auQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
	<CAL_armgyqVZvhkBRJoHKC_TAxJrdeE2SyDpFjw+wDphWZK=auQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <012101cc5a02$08634660$1929d320$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] Captchas

2011/8/13 spike wrote:
...
>
>> Years went by.? A fun local TV show called Mythbusters actually tested 
> the notion with a urinating dummy.? They confirmed that indeed, any 
> urine or water stream consists of individual droplets and is not 
> particularly conductive to electricity.? Buster the anthropomorphic 
> dummy could safely urinate on the third rail all he wanted.
>


>...Please don't try this at home!

>...There have been several cases reported in newspapers of electrocution
deaths with burn marks to prove the cause.

At the risk of overposting today: OY VEY!  Thanks for the warning BillK.

>...One critic of Mythbusters wrote Subway systems use direct current. When
Jamie and Adam tested this myth, they used a generator which produced
alternating current...

Eeesh.  It brings up one of those nightmare scenarios where some silly prole
saw the show and confidently declared "Hey y'all, watch this shit!" which
became his last words.  Then Adam and Jamie would be indirectly responsible
for his death.  They definitely need to retest that myth.  I do recall the
photos of the Beer Hand Lukes and thought it remarkable that the stream,
which I had always assumed was a continuous stream, were discrete spherical
droplets within a few inches of the release point.  On the other hand,
direct current can arc, as we see in a welder.  The myth busters should have
used a welder.
--------------------------

>...Voltage probably matters as well.

Voltage is pretty much the only thing that does matter in this case,
assuming sufficient current is available.

>...At least one death has been reported from peeing on an unnoticed power
line that had been brought down in a storm. Power lines can carry huge
voltages.  BillK

Ja, but power lines carry only AC, so I assume the Myth Buster's experiment
is applicable.  Another possible issue is whether Buster's artificial
genitalia sufficiently simulates the bio variety.  I can't think of any
reason necessarily, but it is possible that any artificial nozzle we can
create would somehow cause larger and fewer droplets, this being less
conductive than smaller and more numerous, thus giving hapless proles
unfounded confidence.

I propose creating an artificial urinating device, photograph it in the
night, and compare to evolution's version of the same device.

spike






From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Aug 13 21:57:53 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:57:53 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <012101cc5a02$08634660$1929d320$@att.net>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
	<CAL_armgyqVZvhkBRJoHKC_TAxJrdeE2SyDpFjw+wDphWZK=auQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<012101cc5a02$08634660$1929d320$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armifwvB2F_WzT8bGdeDiHTB+YNiDsZGY2n8cMribzzmgjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 10:43 PM, spike wrote:
> Ja, but power lines carry only AC, so I assume the Myth Buster's experiment
> is applicable. ?Another possible issue is whether Buster's artificial
> genitalia sufficiently simulates the bio variety. ?I can't think of any
> reason necessarily, but it is possible that any artificial nozzle we can
> create would somehow cause larger and fewer droplets, this being less
> conductive than smaller and more numerous, thus giving hapless proles
> unfounded confidence.
>
>


The other thought that occurs to me is style of peeing.

Men don't always compete to see who can pee highest up the wall. I.e.
aiming upwards to make an arc that would break up into discrete drops.

If you are staggering drunk and desperate to release the pressure I
suspect that the style might be to lean one hand against the nearest
wall / tree and pee pretty much straight down. A straight down stream
would be pretty much a continuous conductor.

Oh, and there have also been cases of dogs and horses being
electrocuted while peeing.
e.g. against faulty street light poles.

BillK



From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 13 22:23:45 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 18:23:45 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <012101cc5a02$08634660$1929d320$@att.net>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
	<CAL_armgyqVZvhkBRJoHKC_TAxJrdeE2SyDpFjw+wDphWZK=auQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<012101cc5a02$08634660$1929d320$@att.net>
Message-ID: <201108132224.p7DMO3XL005486@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Spike wrote:

>Eeesh.  It brings up one of those nightmare scenarios where some silly prole
>saw the show and confidently declared "Hey y'all, watch this shit!" which
>became his last words.  Then Adam and Jamie would be indirectly responsible
>for his death.  They definitely need to retest that myth.

Mythbusters is great fun but it's quite clear that while they can
prove something's possible, all their failures establish is that
*they* failed.

I hope (but doubt) the viewers realize this.

It's fun, though, when they fail, to devise a better experiment
than the one they tried.

It goes with the other parlor games I've played with my daughter,
e.g., watching commercials with an eye to identifying the mix
of fallacy and emotional manipulation (my favorite are variations
of the tautology "only X is X," although it's hard not to be struck
by "gold has never been worth zero"), and faux compliments
(that is, remarks taken as compliments that actually aren't, like
"you've never looked lovelier" (ugly as usual) or "I'll never forget
our date" (try as I might)).

I feel much the same about Bullshit! as I do about Mythbusters.
Fun, a lot of sizzle, but not that much steak.

Perhaps both best considered as gateway drugs to critical
thinking. This generation's version of Wff 'n Proof. Lure them
in with Kari and Teller before we hit them with predicate
calculus and Bayesian reasoning.


-- David.



From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sun Aug 14 00:00:30 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 19:00:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313243481.8105.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313243481.8105.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E47101E.6020703@satx.rr.com>

On 8/13/2011 8:51 AM, john clark wrote:
>
> OK, so the meanings of the two words are VERY different but not VERY
> important; nevertheless I am a little surprised that despite this large
> difference nobody, including you, is able to come right out and say
> exactly (or even approximately) what that NOT very important difference is.

Well, let's see. As a guy pointed out here not long ago:

an "effect" is a change that is the result of an action

effect means something brought about by a cause.

[Example: an insight brought about in your mind by reading this post]

while

"affect" means to have an influence on or cause a change in

"affect" means have a *effect* on or make a difference to.

[Example: the process by which my reposting these definitions affects 
your mind so that you experience that insight]

If that is still too hard to follow, try this:

You can affect me by punching me in the snout (or by SHOUTING BULLSHIT! 
on my screen).

The effect is to make my nose bleed (or to make me consider once again 
typing *plonk*).

Damien Broderick




From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 11:21:33 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:21:33 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Penrose book?
In-Reply-To: <1313083635.80852.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313083635.80852.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a6=bo5F96N0LsuRHDAkyPguhZAcOW+Gi4K0Mg7TNH6oFw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/11 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

> Anyone here read _Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the
> Universe_ by Roger Penrose?
>

Can't say that I like him much, but I curious of what extraordinary new view
he may have now on the universe, so thank for point it out...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sun Aug 14 16:31:38 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 09:31:38 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E47101E.6020703@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <1313339498.69562.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 13, 2011, at 8:00 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:
" "affect" means to have an influence on or cause a change in"
And that is exactly precisely what an effect does." "affect" means have a *effect* on or make a difference to."
As opposed to "effect" which means NOT having an effect on or NOT making a difference to. Or maybe not."If that is still too hard to follow,"
It is, far far too hard. You seem passionate in insisting there is a profound difference but I'll be damned if I see it. 
"try this: You can affect me by punching me in the snout (or by SHOUTING BULLSHIT! on my screen)."
No doubt. And either of those things would bring about a change in you 
that was the result of an action; and as you just admitted in your post 
the word for something like that is "effect"."The effect is to make my nose bleed" 
 It's weird, I could have used those very same two examples myself to illustrate that there is
 absolutely no difference between the two words except, as I already 
mentioned, when "affect" is used to mean pretend or phony. I guess those two words just effect our minds differently.



?John K Clark 
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 17:35:22 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:35:22 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyGgdgVe2FaeN+7-POZM8fhixW6JEUDPP8H2xu1d=MMFPw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4E47101E.6020703@satx.rr.com>
	<1313339498.69562.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAKrqSyG8H1u42_CYi9qjMBz84edcwtoGroz0PV3cdB5xoN+6+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAKrqSyGgdgVe2FaeN+7-POZM8fhixW6JEUDPP8H2xu1d=MMFPw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyGi314ZYmqfzgQMsayYpH1C_S03hDGyH23FW_=ZNkP2BQ@mail.gmail.com>

It is very easy John.   Affect is the verb, and effect is the noun, around a
central idea of causal impact.  Affect is the verb that means "to cause a
status in" and effect is the noun that means "a status that has been
caused."  I believe there may be a case for equating the two nouns "affect"
and "effect" (the former carrying more of a habitual mode while the latter
is more instance-specific) and the two verbs "affect" and "effect" (where
the difference is a sort of double-mirror through indirect/direct object as
well as active/passive voice.)  However, one of these pairs is a noun and
one is a verb.  They form a beautiful linguistic diptych/tetrad that you
have grossly underestimated the subtle power of.

On Aug 14, 2011 12:45 PM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Aug 13, 2011, at 8:00 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> " "affect" means to have an influence on or...
And that is exactly precisely what an effect does.


>
> " "affect" means have a *effect* on or make a difference to."
As opposed to "effect" which means NOT having an effect on or NOT making a
difference to. Or maybe not.


>
> "If that is still too hard to follow,"
It is, far far too hard. You seem passionate in insisting there is a
profound difference but I'll be damned if I see it.

>
> "try this: You can affect me by punching me in the snout (or by SHOUTING
BULLSHIT! on my screen)...
No doubt. And either of those things would bring about a change in you that
was the result of an action; and as you just admitted in your post the word
for something like that is "effect".


>
> "The effect is to make my nose bleed"
It's weird, I could have used those very same two examples myself to
illustrate that there is absolutely no difference between the two words
except, as I already mentioned, when "affect" is used to mean pretend or
phony. I guess those two words just effect our minds differently.

 John K Clark


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
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From gsantostasi at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 17:47:11 2011
From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 12:47:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Penrose book?
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a6=bo5F96N0LsuRHDAkyPguhZAcOW+Gi4K0Mg7TNH6oFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313083635.80852.YahooMailNeo@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAPoR7a6=bo5F96N0LsuRHDAkyPguhZAcOW+Gi4K0Mg7TNH6oFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL+RtPfsx9x_LYkM810_gE+C4HA0s4c3oTv_p21xb99L2REunA@mail.gmail.com>

I like Penrose a lot (beside some of his statements about the
impossibility/difficulty of machine becoming aware).
I didn't read the book but I read some of his latest work on cosmology. The
main discovery is that faint concentric rings were found in the pattern of
hot and cold spot in the Cosmic Microwave Background. The interpretation of
the presence of these rings is that the current universe is the rebound of a
previous Big Crunch followed by a Big Bang.
The rings are a signature of events happened before the Big Bang.
Giovanni


2011/8/14 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>

> 2011/8/11 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>
>
>> Anyone here read _Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the
>> Universe_ by Roger Penrose?
>>
>
> Can't say that I like him much, but I curious of what extraordinary new
> view he may have now on the universe, so thank for point it out...
>
> --
> Stefano Vaj
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 18:12:19 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:12:19 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>

On another list I post on someone commented:

> I'm not concerned about 2000. I'm concerned about 2012.

With good reason.

I have made a case (Evolutionary psychology, memes and the origin of
war) that evolutionary selection in the stone age is behind popular
support for irrational leadership.

It's a moderately involved model, but the net result is that stone age
tribes were "better off" in terms of gene survival if they fought when
resources got tight (instead of starving). ?So what got selected are
the genes that shape psychological mechanisms such as those that cause
xenophobic memes to thrive in economic hard times.

Back in 1987 I wrote:

"Some memes (for example Nazism) are observed to thrive during periods
of economic chaos just as diseases flourish in an undernourished
population. ?Thus it is not much of a surprise that Nazi-related
beliefs emerged in the Western farm states during the recent hard
times."

I now understand why

To get back to Simon's concern for 2012, you should *expect* people
under relatively worsening economic stress to favor xenophobic memes
and leadership that ranges from irrational to downright insane
(Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.)

This will get worse until the economics hits an uptick after people
get used to a lower level. ?Of course irrational leadership usually
gets into wars (the stone age function of such leadership) and that
over time that makes the economy worse.

Or to put it in more familiar terms, "The beatings will continue until
moral improves."

Keith



From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 18:50:54 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:50:54 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313164964.50626.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <007a01cc58b8$adb4b630$091e2290$@att.net>
	<1313164964.50626.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a5faYEj9hoZnP=AkdVwbCCpguVpph8ydR_g9nN1L4XnOQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/12 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> That's Eternal Return, Friedrich Nietzsche had a similar idea

As a Certified Priest of the Nietzschean Church, what I can say is
that the Eternal Return has two basic meanings (and interpretation).

The first one is historical and metaphorical and "educational", and
has little to do with cosmological models.

There is however little doubt that N. himself was considering the
concept as a cosmological view. Basically, this goes as follows: since
we must believe that universe is finite (otherwise we would be
transferring monotheistic concepts of deity on Nature), given an
unlimited amount of time any conceivable configuration of the universe
would be returning after a sufficient number of steps.

OTOH, this idea is denied by the Second Principle of Thermodynamics:
we must accept that some things happen, but they do converge towards a
status where nothing more will, let alone things that previously did.

Steinhardt's and others' cosmologies, however, find rather persuasive
reasons how this could be escaped. And in their multiverses, given an
infinite number of universes, nothing would contradict the fact that
all the possible configurations thereof should be replicated
simultaneously, and in time, any number of time one could care to
think of.

--
Stefano Vaj


From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 19:12:28 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:12:28 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhbNc797futjb2v8MPGDKXDsktTcAjNEH6BqkxiwEA5Mg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 7:12 PM, Keith Henson  wrote:
<snip>
> To get back to Simon's concern for 2012, you should *expect* people
> under relatively worsening economic stress to favor xenophobic memes
> and leadership that ranges from irrational to downright insane
> (Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.)
>
> This will get worse until the economics hits an uptick after people
> get used to a lower level. ?Of course irrational leadership usually
> gets into wars (the stone age function of such leadership) and that
> over time that makes the economy worse.
>
>


I am nervous about applying this analysis to present day US. There
seem to be too many other factors.

For example, 'economic stress' has been planned and organised by the
'leaders'. The plan is a staggeringly unbelievable transfer of wealth
to 0.1% of the population. The stress at the lower levels is
alleviated by food stamps and electronic entertainment, with
disruption controlled by policing and surveillance.

Permanent wars are encouraged by the leaders as war funding continues
the transfer of wealth from the state to the leaders.  Recruiting for
the defence forces also helps to mop up some of the unemployment
stress.

So we have economic stress and wars deliberately enabled by totally
rational (though psychopathic) leaders.
It seems a sort of reversal of your theory.


BillK



From spike66 at att.net  Sun Aug 14 19:09:29 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 12:09:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002101cc5ab5$b1ba0380$152e0a80$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 11:12 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] Old still true

On another list I post on someone commented:

>> I'm not concerned about 2000. I'm concerned about 2012.

>...With good reason.

>...I have made a case (Evolutionary psychology, memes and the origin of
war) that evolutionary selection in the stone age is behind popular support
for irrational leadership...Keith



Oy vey, ja.  Add to that all the weird game theory involved in democracy,
where for instance partisans of one party enroll in the competing party and
intentionally support extremist candidates that are unelectable.  I think I
see that happening now.

spike



From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sun Aug 14 21:09:33 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 17:09:33 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <002101cc5ab5$b1ba0380$152e0a80$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
	<002101cc5ab5$b1ba0380$152e0a80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <201108142109.p7EL9us5001847@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Spike wrote:

>Oy vey, ja.  Add to that all the weird game theory involved in democracy,
>where for instance partisans of one party enroll in the competing party and
>intentionally support extremist candidates that are unelectable.  I think I
>see that happening now.

The trouble with that game is that sometimes those "unelectable
extremist candidates" *do* get elected, and are far worse for
those opposing partisans than a tamer alternative would have
been.

For instance, Joe Heinous is elected President of the United
States and gets to appoint two heinette Justices. Or an Adolf
Heinous starts a true despotic reign.

As a New Hampshire resident who gets to vote in whichever
party's primary I want, I'm tempted to try to play that game. But
seeing the ways it could go wrong, I choose to vote *for*
someone.

The only bit of game theory is that I might vote for a primary
candidate because I think they are bringing up issues that
should be discussed and I want them around for a few more
debates and press interviews. In the actual election, the
calculation is vote for my preference unless the race is very
close between two other candidates, one tolerable and one
not.


-- David.



From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Sun Aug 14 23:19:10 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 01:19:10 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Complete Genomics, consigli per gli investimenti
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a7p3D9+N77xRcCj2DeWnCRd5vXUHNn9mZSNCFOCndYJSQ@mail.gmail.com>

http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/11/complete-genomics-stock-plummets-despite-thousands-of-new-genomes-on-order/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=192fe9cf58-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Mon Aug 15 01:10:04 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:10:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Requieum
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJye4qTRJ_zR6Q4R_Q1bRmW8+E57=eSGfxjcTj-gRABS68Q@mail.g
	mail.com>
References: <201108131057.p7DAvV7j022684@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAKTCJye4qTRJ_zR6Q4R_Q1bRmW8+E57=eSGfxjcTj-gRABS68Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201108150110.p7F1AU2L028281@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Giulio wrote:

>I am sorry to hear that your father is no longer with us David, but
>from your description I see that he has lived a really rich, full and
>productive life, much more intense and probably much more fun than
>most of us. Here is to Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin!

Thanks, Giulio. He was, actually, deeply frustrated, because his ideas
that saw fruition were a fraction of the good ones he'd had. *I* have a
knack for seeing a products and services that will be needed in
18 months. Just enough time to get them done just as people realize
they need them. *He* kept inventing things decades before anyone
wanted them, that eventually made other people billions.

*That* seems to be the family curse -- my grandfather, my father,
and I have all invented things that made *other people* rich.

But it was inspiring to grow up surrounded by a bevy of talented
people. I just *assumed* I would do something cool myself, because
everyone around me did.

Then as an adult, I found other coteries to draw from, like my extropian
family, as smart, gifted, and odd as the one I was born into.


-- David.



From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Mon Aug 15 02:24:57 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:24:57 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo. com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201108150226.p7F2QZmK025266@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

I'm not going to respond to Clark's apparent trolling, but there
are important points in our exchange that bear expansion
and discussion with the rest of you.

No two words are exactly synonymous. Each has a sound and a
shape and a meaning and a history. Each word was coined
because there wasn't an existing word that meant quite what the
neologist meant, and then it moved on from there.

For that matter, the same word doesn't mean exactly the same
thing in my brain as it does in yours, or in my brain at two different
times in my life.

Particularly for writers like Damien and me, or anyone who
paints or teaches or sells with her words, we need all the words
to choose from.

Since, as Bill Buckley noted, "[y]ou see, that word, and a
hundred or so others, are a part of my *working* vocabulary,
even as a C augmented eleventh chord with a raised ninth can
be said to be an operative resource of the performing jazz
pianist....."

"Because just as the discriminating ear greets gladly the C
augmented eleventh, when just the right harmonic moment
has come for it, so the fastidious eye encounters happily the
word that says exactly what the writer wished not only said but
conveyed, here defined as a performing writer sensitive to
cadence, variety, marksmanship, accent, nuance, and drama."

But there's another side to it. Where I said I probably wouldn't
hire someone "whose non-standard usage seems based on
ignorance."

Our young Perry Metzger made the point about 20 years ago
on the Libertarian Party mailing list that the farther out your
ideas are, the more conventional you need to be when you
sell them. He therefore advocated that all libertarians wear
a suit while preaching the gospel.

No one will think less of you because you (say) use 'affect'
and 'effect' correctly. But some will notice and will think
less of you if you don't.

I won't hire someone who doesn't because the conflation
of words is nails on a chalkboard to me, and suggests to
me that I couldn't trust him to get the words right when he
has to write something or speak on my behalf, and that
I couldn't trust that he'd get the details right in his regular
work.

Whether it's finding work in this lousy economy, keeping
the work you have, or persuading others on one of the
crazy ideas we here advocate, it's essential to exude
competence. And getting the details wrong is a good way
to convince people you don't have it.


-- David.



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 04:31:21 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:31:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyGi314ZYmqfzgQMsayYpH1C_S03hDGyH23FW_=ZNkP2BQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313382681.32685.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 14, 2011, at 1:35 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:
"It is very easy John.?? Affect is the verb"Very easy? My dictionary says that both affect and effect can be a verb or a noun, as a verb affect means "have an effect on or make a difference to". I could be wrong but I believe an effect can have an effect as well; it could make a difference to something too, in fact if it doesn't then its not an effect.
 "and effect is the noun"My dictionary also says as a noun effect means a change that is the result of an action. It does not say how a difference is different from a change, but that is not surprising, I have seen little evidence that lexicographers have a deep insight into the nature of causality or of philosophy or of science or of much of anything except defining words with, you guessed it, other words. I think that people who like to read dictionaries are fooling themselves, they get the feeling of increasing their wisdom without actually gaining anything . 

On the other hand maybe I'm wrong and when I'm wrong I'll admit it, so I'll concede the debate and admit the words mean VERY different things if you just do one little thing for me, tell me what measurement I need to make to determine if electron X effected electron Y or if electron X affected electron Y.? And then tell me what sort of test equipment I'll need to perform the experiment to discriminate between these two VERY different physical properties.
?John K Clark



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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 04:48:48 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:48:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108150226.p7F2QZmK025266@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1313383728.58708.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Sun, 8/14/11, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:

>? " I probably wouldn't hire someone "whose non-standard usage
>? seems based on ignorance."

For Christ's sake, stop with the big boss hiring routine, nobody wants to work for your crummy little company! 

?John K Clark


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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Mon Aug 15 05:30:21 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:30:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313383728.58708.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313383728.58708.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E48AEED.8030902@satx.rr.com>

On 8/14/2011 11:48 PM, john clark wrote:

>  >  " I probably wouldn't hire someone "whose non-standard usage
>  >  seems based on ignorance."
>
> For Christ's sake, stop with the big boss hiring routine,// nobody wants
> to work for your crummy little company!

When you can't win us over with the lexical power of your intellect, you 
turn to charm?

Damien Broderick


From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 08:13:06 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 01:13:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Requieum
In-Reply-To: <201108150110.p7F1AU2L028281@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <201108131057.p7DAvV7j022684@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAKTCJye4qTRJ_zR6Q4R_Q1bRmW8+E57=eSGfxjcTj-gRABS68Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<201108150110.p7F1AU2L028281@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy1aVRK7KpgO8i9yoXi0h-N9+dCXgcd0YVhhyKiG3Y__4A@mail.gmail.com>

David Lubkin wrote:
Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the death of my father,
Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin. Mathematician, professor, electrical
and aerospace engineer, farmer, failed politician in two countries,
inventor, columnist, writer, colonel in military intelligence,
competitive pistol shooter, 4 SD intellect, father of thirteen
extraordinary kids, unquenchable punster, political advisor,
humorist, Zionist from Flatbush; inventor of the Permissive Action
Link; pioneer in drone aircraft, microwaves, electronic warfare,
acoustics, speech recognition; amateur photographer, sf reader,
and dozens more descriptors.
>>>


I am very sad to hear about the loss of your father, even ten years after
the event.  I suspect I may be losing my own fairly soon.

Your dad seems to have been a real renaissance man!  And thirteen kids...
Wow!  I have an uncle that I never got to meet, who was in some ways cut
from similar cloth.  He was an IBM Fellow, and I also think inducted into an
engineering hall of fame.  But did I inherit "good at math" genes?  Nope!


>Lots to like. Lots not to. But certainly not someone you'd ever
>forget.

Yeah, I know about that...


Best wishes,

John
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 14:06:46 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:06:46 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyFsJST1B=ga2gbP-OwZjBpsOxzo-uR5pf4z4PGMAAuwjw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313383728.58708.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4E48AEED.8030902@satx.rr.com>
	<CAKrqSyFsJST1B=ga2gbP-OwZjBpsOxzo-uR5pf4z4PGMAAuwjw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyF7CSdy5wtnoNHs3UB1FkSGOzmFw18pVV-m2caHYxhTZg@mail.gmail.com>

John, your electron quip is poorly made.  Your electron X will never effect
Y because to effect is "to bring about" and that sort of thing does not
happen.  I can guarantee that your electron has *affected* the other because
that means "to cause a change." The verb "affect" means something like "to
effect (v) an effect (n) on an affect (n); or, to bring about a change in
status.  Thanks.

On Aug 15, 2011 1:31 AM, "Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

On 8/14/2011 11:48 PM, john clark wrote:

>  >  " I probably wouldn't hire someone "whose non-standa...
When you can't win us over with the lexical power of your intellect, you
turn to charm?

Damien Broderick


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extrop...
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 14:56:59 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:56:59 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a44jsNX-FHazDMO28q5iB2ovN0Vo5Cz_SV1X0kuBEr3Bg@mail.gmail.com>

On 14 August 2011 20:12, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have made a case (Evolutionary psychology, memes and the origin of
> war) that evolutionary selection in the stone age is behind popular
> support for irrational leadership.
>

At the end of the day, I suspect that it is impossible to define what
"rational" leadership might be unless one defines not not only the
circumstances, but the societal goals it should strive to achieve.

Moreover, *all* kinds of leadership are historically "irrational" in the
sense that sooner or later they end up being defeated by new revolutionary
?lites commanding popular support on the basis on new principles and myths.

That is, unless and until a really efficient, globalised, perfectly stagnant
Brave New World installs.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Mon Aug 15 15:13:35 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:13:35 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313383728.58708.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo. com>
References: <201108150226.p7F2QZmK025266@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313383728.58708.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201108151514.p7FFE2hG003543@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

I wrote:

 >  " I probably wouldn't hire someone "whose non-standard usage
 >  seems based on ignorance."

John replied:

>For Christ's sake, stop with the big boss hiring routine, nobody 
>wants to work for your crummy little company!

Wrong on four points, just within the last clause! Many people do,
it's not crummy, it's not little, and it's not one.

I have made or affected hiring decisions at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Apollo Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle,
Thinking Machines, EMC, Kollsman, and several other crummy
little companies that no one wants to work for.


-- David.



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 15:24:24 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 08:24:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyF7CSdy5wtnoNHs3UB1FkSGOzmFw18pVV-m2caHYxhTZg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313421864.64585.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Mon, 8/15/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
?"Your electron X will never effect Y because to effect is "to bring about" and that sort of thing does not happen. "
BULLSHIT. Effect means a change brought about by an action. Electron X brings about a change to the? Schrodinger wave function of electron Y, and that brings about a change in the probability distribution of electron Y, and probability can be detected by experiment.??? 
? "I can guarantee that your electron has *affected* the other because that means "to cause a change." "
If it's guaranteed then I want my money back. My dictionary says "affected" means touched by (and the two electrons never touch) or influenced by external factors. So how can I change something without influencing it, or influence something without changing it? An experiment that can discriminate between those two things would be most interesting, so tell me all about it! And then you'd get to tell physicists that they've been misusing the word "effect" for centuries; in fact if one electron can't effect another electron then the word "effect" should NEVER be used for anything. Ever. And then we would just have one word for the same thing, "affect"; and that would be fine with me because that would just be equivalent to changing the spelling of the word "effect" to "affect". I'd get used to it eventually.
"The verb "affect" means [...]"
As I said before, both effect and affect can be either a noun or a verb. And before you engage in more logical contortions to try to justify the need for both these words ask yourself one question, do you honestly think that this mythical effect-affect distinction is needed for clarity of language? Suppose Everett's quantum interpretation turns out to be true and in one universe a cocoanut falls on your head and it effects you, and in the other universe a cocoanut falls on your head and it affects you, how are these two universes different?

?John K Clark

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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 16:12:10 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:12:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a5faYEj9hoZnP=AkdVwbCCpguVpph8ydR_g9nN1L4XnOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313424730.77882.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 14, 2011, at 2:50 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
"Basically, this goes as follows: since we must believe that universe is finite (otherwise we would be transferring monotheistic concepts of deity on Nature), given an unlimited amount of time any conceivable configuration of the universe
would be returning after a sufficient number of steps."
If an infinite amount of matter is not allowed why is an infinite amount of time OK? And even if I knew that the idea was true, just repeating the same thing over and over would not soften death's sting one bit, at least not for me. 
"OTOH, this idea is denied by the Second Principle of Thermodynamics"
No, the second law of thermodynamics allows massive decreases in entropy if you have infinite time, in fact it insists on it, and such things would happen an infinite number of times. Quantum mechanics is involved in assigning probabilities to things and this raises a problem for Everett's multiverse idea, how can you divide infinity by infinity and get a finite number to use as a probability? If the universes can be in any order then its hopeless, so the multiverse people try to find a physical reason for ordering the universes in one particular way, then probabilities in infinite sets make a little more sense although some say its still a little fuzzy and the controversy continues. They call this ordering a "measure".

?John K Clark 

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From gsantostasi at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 16:23:24 2011
From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:23:24 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108150226.p7F2QZmK025266@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108150226.p7F2QZmK025266@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAL+RtPcZxOpyhRMW_2HDnP=Th5w6_7=zqxd6YJkb4YBCt0P3WQ@mail.gmail.com>

The words affect and effect, even if similar, have indeed different usage
and meaning. I agree on this.
The best way to understand these differences is to look up their etymology.
As a non-mother language speaker I have to say, though, that the difference
is so subtle and the two words so similar in pronunciation that when these
words are used in common language it makes English very ineffective. It is
not by chance that even mother language speakers are confused. Even with my
background in Latin (I had to study it for 5 years in high-school) and
experience in my Italian mother language I have to stop and think about what
these words really mean. In Latin the difference between these words is
obvious because the grammar and usage is pretty different than in English.
As in many instances in English, it is simply best to memorize common usage
and then apply it in mindlessness manner.
This approach is true for the pronunciation of many words (that seems
extremely arbitrary for an Italian speaker given that in our language
pronunciation has very precise rules, so much so that we don't even have a
word for spelling, everybody knows how to spell perfectly since the first
year of elementary school).
English is not a subtle language. Its best value is in its efficiency to
communicate ideas in a direct and simple way. It is not a good language for
philosophy as German (or even Italian) for example.
But English is a perfect language for science.
This is why I think that English fails in this particular instance. It would
be better if some other combination of words would eventually be used
instead of the affect-effect duo.
Giovanni






On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 9:24 PM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com>wrote:

> I'm not going to respond to Clark's apparent trolling, but there
> are important points in our exchange that bear expansion
> and discussion with the rest of you.
>
> No two words are exactly synonymous. Each has a sound and a
> shape and a meaning and a history. Each word was coined
> because there wasn't an existing word that meant quite what the
> neologist meant, and then it moved on from there.
>
> For that matter, the same word doesn't mean exactly the same
> thing in my brain as it does in yours, or in my brain at two different
> times in my life.
>
> Particularly for writers like Damien and me, or anyone who
> paints or teaches or sells with her words, we need all the words
> to choose from.
>
> Since, as Bill Buckley noted, "[y]ou see, that word, and a
> hundred or so others, are a part of my *working* vocabulary,
> even as a C augmented eleventh chord with a raised ninth can
> be said to be an operative resource of the performing jazz
> pianist....."
>
> "Because just as the discriminating ear greets gladly the C
> augmented eleventh, when just the right harmonic moment
> has come for it, so the fastidious eye encounters happily the
> word that says exactly what the writer wished not only said but
> conveyed, here defined as a performing writer sensitive to
> cadence, variety, marksmanship, accent, nuance, and drama."
>
> But there's another side to it. Where I said I probably wouldn't
> hire someone "whose non-standard usage seems based on
> ignorance."
>
> Our young Perry Metzger made the point about 20 years ago
> on the Libertarian Party mailing list that the farther out your
> ideas are, the more conventional you need to be when you
> sell them. He therefore advocated that all libertarians wear
> a suit while preaching the gospel.
>
> No one will think less of you because you (say) use 'affect'
> and 'effect' correctly. But some will notice and will think
> less of you if you don't.
>
> I won't hire someone who doesn't because the conflation
> of words is nails on a chalkboard to me, and suggests to
> me that I couldn't trust him to get the words right when he
> has to write something or speak on my behalf, and that
> I couldn't trust that he'd get the details right in his regular
> work.
>
> Whether it's finding work in this lousy economy, keeping
> the work you have, or persuading others on one of the
> crazy ideas we here advocate, it's essential to exude
> competence. And getting the details wrong is a good way
> to convince people you don't have it.
>
>
>
> -- David.
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/**mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-**chat<http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
>
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Mon Aug 15 16:26:40 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:26:40 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Neither unique facts nor lies
Message-ID: <201108151627.p7FGQxAa028116@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

I'd like a range of opinions about words and others you think
belong in the same set.

To me, a fact is true. If it's not true, it's not a fact.

On the other hand,  it is often used in practice, to refer to
something that is alleged or supposed.

To me, a lie requires intent. If you thought what you said was
true, it isn't a lie.

On the other hand, I often hear people, on realizing that something
they'd said wasn't true, say "Oops. I lied."

I took neither... nor... to be valid only for binary choices. For more
than two, it's "not A or B or..." But I've been convinced by
historical example that I was wrong.

Unique is also considered binary, and "very unique" or "more
unique" is mocked. I have no problem with treating unique as
a fuzzy value. That is, instead of either 0 (false) or 1 (true), it
can have any value from 0 to 1, inclusive.

Pregnant is similar. A woman with a fertilized egg is no less
pregnant, technically, than someone who's nine or ten months
along or carrying triplets, but it seems appropriate to refer
to the latter as "very pregnant."

Given the sequence (A, B, C), if I refer to the former, do I
mean (A) or (A B), and does the latter mean (B C) or just (C)?


-- David.



From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 16:28:47 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:28:47 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313421864.64585.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAKrqSyF7CSdy5wtnoNHs3UB1FkSGOzmFw18pVV-m2caHYxhTZg@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313421864.64585.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyEK69bG0QkupU_EBJZ7eFn9xxfb4LrZKNBjSL3mTr+Gng@mail.gmail.com>

It's just nice to have variety.  If you want to really be the person you are
exuding, John, then you might have to make more verbal concessions than
you'd like to, lest you are seen as a hypocrite.  Also u have a shitty
dictionary

On Aug 15, 2011 11:37 AM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Mon, 8/15/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  "Your electron X will never e...

BULLSHIT. Effect means a change brought about by an action. Electron X
brings about a change to the  Schrodinger wave function of electron Y, and
that brings about a change in the probability distribution of electron Y,
and probability can be detected by experiment.

>
>   "I can guarantee that your electron has *affected* the other because
that means "to cause a ch...

If it's guaranteed then I want my money back. My dictionary says "affected"
means touched by (and the two electrons never touch) or influenced by
external factors. So how can I change something without influencing it, or
influence something without changing it? An experiment that can discriminate
between those two things would be most interesting, so tell me all about it!
And then you'd get to tell physicists that they've been misusing the word
"effect" for centuries; in fact if one electron can't effect another
electron then the word "effect" should NEVER be used for anything. Ever. And
then we would just have one word for the same thing, "affect"; and that
would be fine with me because that would just be equivalent to changing the
spelling of the word "effect" to "affect". I'd get used to it eventually.

"The verb "affect" means [...]"

As I said before, both effect and affect can be either a noun or a verb. And
before you engage in more logical contortions to try to justify the need for
both these words ask yourself one question, do you honestly think that this
mythical effect-affect distinction is needed for clarity of language?
Suppose Everett's quantum interpretation turns out to be true and in one
universe a cocoanut falls on your head and it effects you, and in the other
universe a cocoanut falls on your head and it affects you, how are these two
universes different?

 John K Clark


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 16:44:40 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:44:40 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313424730.77882.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAPoR7a5faYEj9hoZnP=AkdVwbCCpguVpph8ydR_g9nN1L4XnOQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313424730.77882.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a6xwbDD9YHoFCN-okbvvj6uw_LtDtLA4T=bOsnqB-+PRw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/15 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> If an infinite amount of matter is not allowed why is an infinite amount of time OK? And even if I knew that the idea was true, just repeating the same thing over and over would not soften death's sting one bit, at least not for me.

Nietzsche's view is that infinity of time does not make for a
"biblical" attribute, on the contrary, it is biblical thinking that
time was created by God and will come to an end after the Final
Judgment. As for "death's sting", the myth of the Eternal Return is
not supposed to be consolatory, rather the opposite. Such thought, by
being "unbearable" for most contemporaries, would select the strongest
amongst them. In such sense, it need not be "true" in any strict
physical sense, but it might be enough to contemplate it as a radical
form of refusal of eschatological expectations.

This is what I referred to by saying that it is not basically, or
exclusively, a cosmological concept. In this sense, I think Max More
is too severe with Nietzsche, because one may well still think that
his or her destiny is to overcome its mere human status while being
persuaded that such overcoming is a process to be forever repeated (in
the double sense that horizons move and that the same scenario may
represent itself over and over).

> No, the second law of thermodynamics allows massive decreases in entropy if you have infinite time, in fact it insists on it, and such things would happen an infinite number of times.

Yes, if you have an infinite time at hand anti-entropic fluctuations
of arbitrary amplitude are bound to take place sooner or later. Some
multiverse theories, AFAIK, exactly imply that universes are born as
bubbles of extreme low entropy popping out just because they can, and
slowly decaying back to a very high entropy status. There are however
a number of objections to this ideas...

--
Stefano Vaj


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 16:42:33 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:42:33 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313426553.35545.YahooMailClassic@web82908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Sun, 8/14/11, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
"On another list I post on someone commented:"

?"> I'm not concerned about 2000. I'm concerned about 2012."
If the Mayan's were smart enough to predict the end of the world 500 years in the future I don't understand why they weren't smart enough to defeat a hundred Spaniards and their diseases. A friend of mine tried to convince me that the world would end in 2012 so I offered to buy his very nice house for $10,000 but I wouldn't take possession until December 22 2012, in the meantime he could continue to live there rent free and I'd even pay his property tax. For some reason he turned me down.

?John K Clark?????? 



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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 16:51:11 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:51:11 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyEK69bG0QkupU_EBJZ7eFn9xxfb4LrZKNBjSL3mTr+Gng@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313427071.63752.YahooMailClassic@web82903.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 15, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:
"u have a shitty dictionary"u thenk soo? Tell it to the people at Apple or Dictionary.com .

John K Clark
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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Mon Aug 15 17:03:15 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:03:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Neither unique facts nor lies
In-Reply-To: <201108151627.p7FGQxAa028116@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1313427795.94414.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Mon, 8/15/11, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
"Unique is also considered binary, and "very unique" or "more
unique" is mocked. I have no problem with treating unique as
a fuzzy value." 
And I HATE very unique! I hate things that are very one of a kind. If unique is now to mean rare (we already have a word for that and it works fine) then we will need a replacement word for the idea unique once conveyed, and unique was perfect, I liked the fact it had a q in it, q may not be unique but it is odd. I might have to hire somebody who said "very unique" because almost everybody does, but my opinion of him would drop a notch. 

?John K Clark

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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 17:16:26 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:16:26 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyFUgpQm2xNYoheGAev-6ZxRRgxRxMJkthW6cp6Juptc9Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKrqSyEK69bG0QkupU_EBJZ7eFn9xxfb4LrZKNBjSL3mTr+Gng@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313427071.63752.YahooMailClassic@web82903.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAKrqSyFUgpQm2xNYoheGAev-6ZxRRgxRxMJkthW6cp6Juptc9Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyHobvBr4tfMw5VXduT9tDqT690Bq9EZ3ZBtm3v3Vz=4Gg@mail.gmail.com>

I was just trollin, it was overcontemptuous though so I apologize.

On Aug 15, 2011 1:04 PM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Aug 15, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:
>
> "u have a shitty dictionary"
u thenk soo? Tell it to the people at Apple or Dictionary.com .

John K Clark

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 18:14:02 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:14:02 +0100
Subject: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.
Message-ID: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>

This might interest budding rocket scientists.

<http://openrocket.sourceforge.net/features.html>

OpenRocket is an free, fully featured model rocket simulator that
allows you to design and simulate your rockets before actually
building and flying them.

OpenRocket features a full six-degree-of-freedom simulation, realistic
wind modeling, a multitude of different components including free-form
fins and canted fins, automatic design optimization, clustering and
staging.
------------------


BillK


From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 19:38:26 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:38:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Old still true (BillK)
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB7ChMwhRx1roQ9CSxCBJ9DM+XmuaRi+-7_kzZp8S7O2qQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 5:00 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> I am nervous about applying this analysis to present day US.

You should be.  Human psychological traits of this kind were shaped in
the stone age.  Some of them, such as capture-bonding (which happened
to Elizabeth Smart and Patty Hearst) are rarely turned on today.
Still, there is a very high correlation between economic prospects and
social disruptions, wars, riots, and related.  Note that like
virtually all biological responses, it is the *relative* conditions
compared to the past that is significant.  (How far into the past?  A
topic for investigation.)

> There seem to be too many other factors.

There are a lot of factors, but this has always been the case.  No two
events in all of human history are exactly the same.  None the less,
the general response to recurring economic or ecological stress has
been consistent throughout history.and prehistory as far as we can
see.  I cite Azar Gat and Steven A. LeBlanc in this regard.

> For example, 'economic stress' has been planned and organised by the
> 'leaders'.

Sorry, I just can't believe that.  This is emergent, the result of a
vast number of individual decisions, with no central organization.
People just can't do planing and organization that large without
leaving tracks on the scale of the Apollo program.  I wish they could
because a lot of very desirable things could get done, but they just
can't.

> The plan is a staggeringly unbelievable transfer of wealth
> to 0.1% of the population.

That's 1/1000 of the population.  Taking the US at 300 M, that's
300,000 people.  The transfer of wealth to this small a group may well
be happening, but it has to be emergent.  I just can't buy the idea
that it could be planned or organized.

> The stress at the lower levels is
> alleviated by food stamps and electronic entertainment, with
> disruption controlled by policing and surveillance.

snip

Spike wrote:
>
> Oy vey, ja. ?Add to that all the weird game theory involved in democracy,
> where for instance partisans of one party enroll in the competing party and
> intentionally support extremist candidates that are unelectable. ?I think I
> see that happening now.

Democracy itself is remote from the time most of this selection occurred.

What drove the selection was human population growth till the
ecosystem could no longer feed them.  Then it was time for to fight
neighbors.  Win or lose this reduced the population.

The EP question to ask is where did the memes of democracy or
monogamy, or monotheism come from?  Why did these do well in hosts
whose psychological mechanisms were shaped in the stone age?  Are
there external conditions where one or more of this list of memes will
be extinguished?

You really need to be careful in applying psychological mechanisms out
of the stone age to current events except in the most general terms.

One of the theories for war is that they result from an excess of
males in the population.  According to that theory, China should be
the most warlike country in the world.  They are not, and my
prediction is that China will not get in a war unless they are
attacked because the economic outlook for the Chinese is positive.

The US, on the other hand, though having a substantially higher
average income per capita than China, is looking at poor economic
prospects in comparison to the past.  In addition the US was attacked
(9/11).  My EP based expectation is that the US will continue to be
involved in wars.  It is entirely possible that the US will go further
along the route Germany experienced in the 1930s.

There *are* differences of course.  The US population is relatively
heterogeneous compared to Germany at that time.  It is hard to imagine
an internal pogrom in the US on the order of what happened to the
Tutsi in Rwanda or the educated in Cambodia, but it's not out of the
question.  In Europe the Muslims would be the most likely target of a
spasm, but in the US there are so many potential targets, Blacks,
Hispanics, Asians and numerous religious and cultural groups that it
seems difficult for any one of them to be targeted.

Also, it is hard to say exactly how bad things would have to get for
this to happen.

The one calibration point I can think of is Saudi Arabia.  Between
population growth and falling oil prices, the income per capita fell
75% there.  That seems to have been enough for OBL and company to
recruit the 9/11 suicide hijackers.

Keith



From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 20:02:14 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:02:14 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <1313426553.35545.YahooMailClassic@web82908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313426553.35545.YahooMailClassic@web82908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a496LEBKJX-VM-c9qv5PncrPcVpR93aiVcTi8fFKVtr7A@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/15 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> If the Mayan's were smart enough to predict the end of the world 500 years in the future I don't understand why they weren't smart enough to defeat a hundred Spaniards and their diseases.

You are falling yourself for a trivial Mayan trick, that is putting
their invaders and pretty much the rest of the world under the
delusion that they have disappeared, while in fact they are dominating
the planet. One has just to ban Mayan psychowaves by wearing a tinfoil
hat for a couple of years to realise what the real reality around us
really is. :-)

--
Stefano Vaj


From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 21:03:27 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:03:27 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Old still true (BillK)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7ChMwhRx1roQ9CSxCBJ9DM+XmuaRi+-7_kzZp8S7O2qQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7ChMwhRx1roQ9CSxCBJ9DM+XmuaRi+-7_kzZp8S7O2qQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armg8OuAz1DG48isYf3Kx11zE7HBJELyAQnyoyeNx4fbYKA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
> Sorry, I just can't believe that. ?This is emergent, the result of a
> vast number of individual decisions, with no central organization.
> People just can't do planing and organization that large without
> leaving tracks on the scale of the Apollo program. ?I wish they could
> because a lot of very desirable things could get done, but they just
> can't.
>
> That's 1/1000 of the population. ?Taking the US at 300 M, that's
> 300,000 people. ?The transfer of wealth to this small a group may well
> be happening, but it has to be emergent. ?I just can't buy the idea
> that it could be planned or organized.
>


'Emergent' within a relatively small group of billionaires would be an
acceptable description.

The financial industry and the Fed are run by a very small group of
people. The Fed managers and Goldman Sachs managers swap jobs on a
regular basis. It's called a revolving door.

The Goldman, Citibank, etc. billions buy a lot of influence in Congress.

It was deliberate policy to move jobs to China and shut down the US
factories while increasing CEO salaries astronomically.

But it wasn't hard times that caused the US wars. The US population
has been remarkably quiet and few are actually in the army.  It was
the military industrial corporations lobbying for defence expenditure
money.



BillK



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 21:47:27 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:47:27 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaFcOtbnQ_Q6r7Ja0xw-M1L2uH2SufwwprJqM3Z2+R5Bw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/13 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>
>>??I would rather piss on a spark plug than??
>
> This comment reminded me of a funny story.? Do indulge me, for I am in a
> mood for funny stories.

I am a big fan of Mythbusters, primarily because it's so fun to watch
a group of people who so obviously are enjoying what they are doing.
The science is often a bit iffy, but that's not why I watch the show.
I knew they had the frozen turkey thing wrong the first time, but I
couldn't explain EXACTLY why... anyway, when I saw the peeing on the
rail sequence, I had to laugh at least to some extent because of an
experience that I had as a youth. My brother and I were hired to put
up a barb wire fence for a doctor who thought he wanted to be a farmer
too... At one point, my brother relieved himself on a nearby extant
fence that had an electric line. When he hit the electric line (which
was not at ground level, probably contributing to the fact that the
stream had not yet broken up), the effect was that he immediately
collapsed into a rather noisy pile of pure pain looking something like
a fetus. It took him nearly 20 minutes to recover to the point that he
could continue working. It took the rest of us nearly as long to
recover from the laughing fit that we broke into when we realized what
he had done.

The fact that the farmer was a doctor relates to a different part of
the story where he stitched up a boy that ripped his arm open
installing the fence up a little hill. Barb wire is harder to install
on hills, (seems like that should be part of the common sense
database)... Now why would a doctor be carrying a stitching kit in his
pocket??

-Kelly



From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 21:21:58 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:21:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQqt2zj-CxPcrnRBdkJ=FNduvkJW2Cjt5Ly6oooaQsE5w@mail.gmail.com>

If OpenRocket seems way too complex, try this
stepping stone:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

Do a few launches to get the hang of it.  Then, try
to get something in orbit - no matter how crude
and sloppy (also known as "elliptical").  Once you
can do that, you'll have more or less mastered
what KSP provides, and you might be ready for
OpenRocket.

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 11:14 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> This might interest budding rocket scientists.
>
> <http://openrocket.sourceforge.net/features.html>
>
> OpenRocket is an free, fully featured model rocket simulator that
> allows you to design and simulate your rockets before actually
> building and flying them.
>
> OpenRocket features a full six-degree-of-freedom simulation, realistic
> wind modeling, a multitude of different components including free-form
> fins and canted fins, automatic design optimization, clustering and
> staging.
> ------------------
>
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 23:28:12 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:28:12 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwaFcOtbnQ_Q6r7Ja0xw-M1L2uH2SufwwprJqM3Z2+R5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201108131447.p7DElfvs007473@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313250860.28724.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<010001cc59e5$dd05cef0$97116cd0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaFcOtbnQ_Q6r7Ja0xw-M1L2uH2SufwwprJqM3Z2+R5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLZ22g0VSiyEpRwMR1eGZr_YZV7iq=N4e3wR=+cda-vAA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> The fact that the farmer was a doctor relates to a different part of
> the story where he stitched up a boy that ripped his arm open
> installing the fence up a little hill. Barb wire is harder to install
> on hills, (seems like that should be part of the common sense
> database)... Now why would a doctor be carrying a stitching kit in his
> pocket??

Because the doctor is smart enough to stay away from barbed wire and
also smart enough to employ someone who didn't understand why they too
should stay away from it.  The doctor also possesses the skills (and
apparently equipment) to repair the ignorant when damaged.  :)


From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 00:03:17 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:03:17 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Neither unique facts nor lies
In-Reply-To: <201108151627.p7FGQxAa028116@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <201108151627.p7FGQxAa028116@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+nqmAj3ZBGh7GvfyrKJMred+iJF+RBoECX314N6c1SqA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 11:26 AM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> Unique is also considered binary, and "very unique" or "more
> unique" is mocked. I have no problem with treating unique as
> a fuzzy value. That is, instead of either 0 (false) or 1 (true), it
> can have any value from 0 to 1, inclusive.

If you have only seen 1 example of something should it be called rare
rather than unique?  Unless you have examined the complete universe of
things, then you have to conclude that you do not have enough
information to declare something unique.  Rare seems to have some
subjective measure such that the countable number of items in the
universe of rare is less than those that are common but more than
those that are extremely rare or candidate-unique.  I think the fuzzy
value you attribute to unique is a measure of confidence regarding the
yet-unexamined universe.

> Given the sequence (A, B, C), if I refer to the former, do I
> mean (A) or (A B), and does the latter mean (B C) or just (C)?

I would suggest "former" requires some reference to the current item.
If you have been discussing the ordered sequence A,B,C and you have
been talking about B then the former could be understood as A.  I
would also understand if you were talking about C that the "former"
would refer to {current minus one} or {immediately prior}.  While most
people would probably correct the reference from further context if
you made an alternate use of "former"  (discussing C then using
"former" as referent to A)  The parse rules for this kind of reference
would be needlessly complicated.  I would suggest "latter" be the
next-in-sequence opposite to "former."


From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 15 23:48:11 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:48:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <1313426553.35545.YahooMailClassic@web82908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313426553.35545.YahooMailClassic@web82908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJF=LDQFJ+rs0O5oXCDiHWmsTFK822OL9_pY8LhJPpTBQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/15 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> If the Mayan's were smart enough to predict the end of the world 500 years in the future I don't understand why they weren't smart enough to defeat a hundred Spaniards and their diseases. A friend of mine tried to convince me that the world would end in 2012 so I offered to buy his very nice house for $10,000 but I wouldn't take possession until December 22 2012, in the meantime he could continue to live there rent free and I'd even pay his property tax. For some reason he turned me down.

They were possibly smart enough, but greatly underinformed.  Aztecs
took tribute in the form of slaves, gold (and cacao, etc.) all the
time.  I believe they though King Charles was the next neighboring
tribal chief.  Cortez had technology in the form of canons and horses.
 More importantly he had unexpectedly exploited the meme of
Quetzalcoatl that had already infected the Aztec mind before the
European diseases could wipe out huge populations.  Once the pagan
gold showed up in Europe, the Church was eager to enlighten their
souls with the good news (and take their gold).  It really was a
perfect storm of ignorance vs technology.

Ironically, the Aztecs were the warrior mercenaries that subjugated
the Mayans.  The stronger military took political power, the stronger
cultural power continued to dominate mind-share even after the regime
change.

I wonder if those Europeans who survived the plague were effectively
"selected" for disease resistance.  This would certainly have given
them an edge in the biological warfare that decimated the natives.



From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Tue Aug 16 02:42:20 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:42:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Neither unique facts nor lies
In-Reply-To: <1313427795.94414.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313427795.94414.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E49D90C.70107@sbcglobal.net>

On 8/15/2011 10:03 AM, john clark wrote:
> On *Mon, 8/15/11, David Lubkin /<lubkin at unreasonable.com>/* wrote:
>
>     "Unique is also considered binary, and "very unique" or "more
>     unique" is mocked. I have no problem with treating unique as
>     a fuzzy value."
>
> And I HATE very unique! I hate things that are very one of a kind. If 
> unique is now to mean rare (we already have a word for that and it 
> works fine) then we will need a replacement word for the idea unique 
> once conveyed, and unique was perfect, I liked the fact it had a q in 
> it, q may not be unique but it is odd. I might have to hire somebody 
> who said "very unique" because almost everybody does, but my opinion 
> of him would drop a notch.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
" I might have to hire somebody who said "very unique"..."  Sounds like 
a uniquely perfect plan!

FutureMan

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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 03:46:41 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:46:41 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Old still true (BillK)
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armg8OuAz1DG48isYf3Kx11zE7HBJELyAQnyoyeNx4fbYKA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7ChMwhRx1roQ9CSxCBJ9DM+XmuaRi+-7_kzZp8S7O2qQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armg8OuAz1DG48isYf3Kx11zE7HBJELyAQnyoyeNx4fbYKA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaUaa=S1ZeAG_Kvaa6zZsa_Cn_CbsJhsippXH2ACWLAPw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:03 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But it wasn't hard times that caused the US wars. The US population
> has been remarkably quiet and few are actually in the army. ?It was
> the military industrial corporations lobbying for defence expenditure
> money.

There is always danger in pointing to a single cause of any given war,
even if the history tests demand it. I have always been intrigued, for
example, at just how much our involvement in Iraq can be traced back
to the attempted assassination of George Bush (41) the father of
George Bush (43) who was the guy starting the war...

Perhaps history will have more to say on this topic someday.

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 03:31:24 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:31:24 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Old still true
In-Reply-To: <002101cc5ab5$b1ba0380$152e0a80$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB7AEeVmXD316ufTTumLQ=PCSU6SwOgskxdOg5ur02iCDg@mail.gmail.com>
	<002101cc5ab5$b1ba0380$152e0a80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYPCio1sLgcpbbOJdo0LSm+pY+gj6agMtSCqTBFkQbULw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 1:09 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Oy vey, ja. ?Add to that all the weird game theory involved in democracy,
> where for instance partisans of one party enroll in the competing party and
> intentionally support extremist candidates that are unelectable. ?I think I
> see that happening now.

I voted for Obama before I voted against him... :-)

-Kelly



From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Tue Aug 16 04:41:46 2011
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:41:46 -0600
Subject: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E49F50A.9030806@canonizer.com>


Bill,

Wow, that is way cool!!

In only a few minutes I download it and modeled a 3 Stage (each with a D 
engine) rocket I built many  years ago.

It was a one time launch vehicle made out of paper towel tubes; engines 
glued in, carrying pyrotechnics (Firecrackers to blow up each booster 
stage after it separated, and finally about 7 oz of fire crackers and 
spinning flowers... for the payload).  We launched it on new years eve 
one year.  This simulation says it probably got close to 1000 feet 
before lighting up the payload, which sounds about what I remember, 
though spinning flowers don't look very impressive that far away.  I 
recovered the first booster stage (was very slow, probably dropped off 
about 200 ft) partially blown up by the firecrackers, but never saw 
anything else.

I tried simulating more than 3 such D stages, but evidently it maxes out 
at simulating 4 stages?  Let me know if anyone knows how to do more than 
this.  And what does the Stability rating in "cal" units represent?  I 
always wondered how adding weight in the front of a rocket made it more 
stable.  Had I had this simulator, I would have known I could have 
easily added a 4th stage.  Just don't use cardboard for fins on such a 
rocket, the first time I simulated, I forgot to convert the top two 
stage fins from the default cardboard to balsa wood, and the simulator 
simulated them shearing off during the final stage! ;)

I have the .ork file for this if anyone is interested (off list e-mail 
on request).  Does anyone else have any fun .ork files they've built, or 
thought about building to share?

Thanks!!

Brent Allsop


On 8/15/2011 12:14 PM, BillK wrote:
> This might interest budding rocket scientists.
>
> <http://openrocket.sourceforge.net/features.html>
>
> OpenRocket is an free, fully featured model rocket simulator that
> allows you to design and simulate your rockets before actually
> building and flying them.
>
> OpenRocket features a full six-degree-of-freedom simulation, realistic
> wind modeling, a multitude of different components including free-form
> fins and canted fins, automatic design optimization, clustering and
> staging.
> ------------------
>
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Aug 16 05:25:54 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:25:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.
In-Reply-To: <4E49F50A.9030806@canonizer.com>
References: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E49F50A.9030806@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <016201cc5bd4$f901a250$eb04e6f0$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop

...I always wondered how adding weight in the front of a rocket made it more
stable...
Brent Allsop


Brent, the center of mass of a rocket needs to be forward of the center of
pressure in order to keep it flying pointy end first.  Notice with your tail
heavy rockets, they would go unstable immediately after ignition, when the
rocket fuel is all back there and the CG is aft.  When the rocket burns off
some of the fuel the CG moves forward and you get stability.

Agreed this simulation would have been way cool in our misspent youth.  Back
in those days, we just had to try stuff until we found what works.  A good
for instance of something that didn't work right: using metal containment
vessels and loading our own rocket fuel.  The reasoning went like this: the
metal motors should be able to contain more pressure than the paper element
rocket motors, so the thrust should go up, ja?  Well, ja right, but the
metal containment also weighed a lot more, which pulled the CG of the rocket
aft, so it was far more likely to go unstable.  Also, with the higher
pressures, it was more likely to explode.  If the rockets crashed or
exploded very often, that could become an expensive hobby.

spike



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Tue Aug 16 14:27:09 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:27:09 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <201108151514.p7FFE2hG003543@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1313504829.67307.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 15, 2011, at 11:13 AM, David Lubkin wrote:
"I have made or affected hiring decisions at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Apollo Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle,
Thinking Machines, EMC, Kollsman, "
OK you've convinced me, you're rich I admit it; you probably live in a big house in a effluent community too.

?John K Clark

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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 14:34:28 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:34:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313504829.67307.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <201108151514.p7FFE2hG003543@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1313504829.67307.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyFf4M_LyUhf09+QdXjoU_oh51GMPjoAG_VKXim-J7xoWg@mail.gmail.com>

All right: I'll give you 'affect' and 'effect,' but I won't take 'affluent'
and 'effluent!'

On Aug 16, 2011 10:28 AM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Aug 15, 2011, at 11:13 AM, David Lubkin wrote:
>
> "I have made or affected hiring decisions at L...
OK you've convinced me, you're rich I admit it; you probably live in a big
house in a effluent community too.

 John K Clark


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 14:56:36 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:56:36 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Old still true (BillK)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7ChMwhRx1roQ9CSxCBJ9DM+XmuaRi+-7_kzZp8S7O2qQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7ChMwhRx1roQ9CSxCBJ9DM+XmuaRi+-7_kzZp8S7O2qQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a5OEDVvjzX4Xhb0KLqgpFvZ3qodkUvQtBPC0V7-wMcgUw@mail.gmail.com>

On 15 August 2011 21:38, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some of them, such as capture-bonding (which happened
> to Elizabeth Smart and Patty Hearst) are rarely turned on today.

That is, unless international relationships are concerned. :-)

> What drove the selection was human population growth till the
> ecosystem could no longer feed them. ?Then it was time for to fight
> neighbors. ?Win or lose this reduced the population.

What else is new? :-)

> One of the theories for war is that they result from an excess of
> males in the population. ?According to that theory, China should be
> the most warlike country in the world. ?They are not, and my
> prediction is that China will not get in a war unless they are
> attacked because the economic outlook for the Chinese is positive.

"War", OTOH, is just one of many, many possible facets of competition.

Let alone the kind of ritualised fights of modern Europe between the
armed forces of governments recognising one another's legitimacy (and
ultimate immunity), which has been out of fashion at least since the
end of WWII.

> The one calibration point I can think of is Saudi Arabia. ?Between
> population growth and falling oil prices, the income per capita fell
> 75% there. ?That seems to have been enough for OBL and company to
> recruit the 9/11 suicide hijackers.

Mmhhh, economic reductionism. Lord Byron went to fight the Greek war
of independence, and yet he was not especially destitute. OBL himself
was doing quite well out of Saudi feodalism (and perhaps CIA's salary
during the first Afghan insurgence) when he engaged in his crusade
(sorry, Jihad).

But sure, the frustration of seeing your personal income dropping mayu
encourage you to consider what dominant rebellious memes might
suggest.

-- 
Stefano Vaj



From giulio at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 15:07:52 2011
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:07:52 +0200
Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?teleXLR8_returns=2C_featuring_quantum_phys?=
	=?windows-1252?q?icist_Gildert_on_=91Hack_the_Multiverse!=92?=
Message-ID: <CAKTCJyfaP1TJ6zgCHkbniZjBzoiqy8P5qS22mn-kCAC84PdBpg@mail.gmail.com>

On KurzweilAI: teleXLR8 returns, featuring quantum physicist Gildert
on ?Hack the Multiverse!?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/telexlr8-returns-featuring-quantum-physicist-gildert-on-hack-the-multiverse

See also, on the teleXLR8 website: Suzanne Gildert on Hack the
Multiverse!, OpenQwaq, August 21 2011, 10am PST, and Welcome to the
2011 season!
http://telexlr8.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/suzanne-gildert-on-hack-the-multiverse-openqwaq-august-21-2011-10am-pst/
http://telexlr8.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/welcome-to-the-2011-season/



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 16 15:59:38 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:59:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
Message-ID: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>

 

Here's a first shot at something we have been discussing here for years:

 

http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/15/computer-chip-sized-spacecraft-will-exp
lore-space-in-swarms/

 

I have long thought an MBrain would be made of trillions of these things.

 

spike

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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Aug 16 16:13:51 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:13:51 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <1313504829.67307.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313504829.67307.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E4A973F.1070105@satx.rr.com>

On 8/16/2011 9:27 AM, john clark wrote:

>    a effluent community

There we have it. But what is it we have? Options:

1. Coat-trailing <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coat-trailing> 
a.k.a. trolling

2. Leg-pulling

3. Selective brain damage

4. Deficient education

5. Stupidity

6. Other

Since 5 is obviously inapplicable, and 3 or 4 unlikely, I'd guess 1 
rather than 2, but I hope it's the other way around.

Damien Broderick


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Aug 16 16:24:12 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:24:12 -0500
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
In-Reply-To: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4A99AC.6020108@satx.rr.com>

On 8/16/2011 10:59 AM, spike wrote:

> I have long thought an MBrain would be made of trillions of these things.

Yeah, but what about TrES-2b, the really really dark large planet 
recently found in close orbit about a fairly nearby star?** A Jupiter 
Brain only 750 light years distant?

Damien Broderick

**<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110812-new-planet-darkest-black-coal-kipping-science-space-kepler/>


From eugen at leitl.org  Tue Aug 16 16:30:29 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:30:29 +0200
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
In-Reply-To: <4E4A99AC.6020108@satx.rr.com>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
	<4E4A99AC.6020108@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <20110816163029.GC16178@leitl.org>

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 11:24:12AM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote:
> On 8/16/2011 10:59 AM, spike wrote:
>
>> I have long thought an MBrain would be made of trillions of these things.
>
> Yeah, but what about TrES-2b, the really really dark large planet  
> recently found in close orbit about a fairly nearby star?** A Jupiter  

1200 K, so nothing will survive there. The star als is still visible, so it's not it.

Moreover, you're reading this message, so it's definitely not it.

> Brain only 750 light years distant?
>
> Damien Broderick
>
> **<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110812-new-planet-darkest-black-coal-kipping-science-space-kepler/>

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 16 16:23:32 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:23:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E4A973F.1070105@satx.rr.com>
References: <1313504829.67307.YahooMailClassic@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4E4A973F.1070105@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <004501cc5c30$d77ab2f0$867018d0$@att.net>



Thanks to all who have contributed to Captchas.  As much as he loves
wordplay, Herr Moderator is waxing weary of the Capthas thread.  Ordinarily
this kind of lighthearted banter and punmanship is encouraged and even
noichahed.  Fun is always allowed here.  But I have detected a vague lack of
the spirit of fun and lightheated companionship.  I do request we let it go,
shall we?  Or failing that, at least tone it downwardly?

spike


Subject: Re: [ExI] Captchas




From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Tue Aug 16 17:35:22 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:35:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Captchas
In-Reply-To: <4E4A973F.1070105@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <1313516122.68484.YahooMailClassic@web82903.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Jesus it was just a joke! Damien, this is the second time in as many days you accused me of trolling, you seem to find it inconceivable that anyone you don't consider unusually stupid could sincerely hold a view other than your own. I would have expected a little more imagination from a science fiction writer. While its true, as must be obvious, that I enjoy a good argument I have never found the need to lie of or even exaggerate my opinions to get one started; from a very young age I learned that all I needed to do is say what I really think and the howls of protest start almost immediately. 

?John K Clark? 
======= 


--- On Tue, 8/16/11, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:


On 8/16/2011 9:27 AM, john clark wrote:

>? ? a effluent community

There we have it. But what is it we have? Options:

1. Coat-trailing <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coat-trailing> a.k.a. trolling

2. Leg-pulling

3. Selective brain damage

4. Deficient education

5. Stupidity

6. Other

Since 5 is obviously inapplicable, and 3 or 4 unlikely, I'd guess 1 rather than 2, but I hope it's the other way around.

Damien Broderick

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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 18:23:01 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:23:01 -0600
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
In-Reply-To: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZNp0XAvcyC_uvVNxY4O3A-C7=jbj8xK80t8tAHb4LwxA@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/16 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>
>
> Here?s a first shot at something we have been discussing here for years:
>
>
>
> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/15/computer-chip-sized-spacecraft-will-explore-space-in-swarms/

Very cool. I had the understanding that cosmic rays were bad on
silicon chips... Is that correct? If so, what do you think these
babies are made of?

> I have long thought an MBrain would be made of trillions of these things.

Configured into a Dysan Cloud surrounding the sun, no doubt. :-)

-Kelly



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 16 19:03:28 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:03:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwZNp0XAvcyC_uvVNxY4O3A-C7=jbj8xK80t8tAHb4LwxA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZNp0XAvcyC_uvVNxY4O3A-C7=jbj8xK80t8tAHb4LwxA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008b01cc5c47$2f9ea020$8edbe060$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
Subject: Re: [ExI] bradbury nodes

2011/8/16 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>
>>
http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/15/computer-chip-sized-spacecraft-will-exp
lore-space-in-swarms/

>...Very cool. I had the understanding that cosmic rays were bad on silicon
chips... Is that correct? If so, what do you think these babies are made of?
-Kelly

Silicon substrate is still our best technology for interplanetary space.
Our silicon chips can be made to work in space, but there is the
radiation-related phenomenon of SEUs, or Single Event Upsets.  These are
usually caused by cosmic rays of such high energy, they cannot be
effectively shielded.  They can cause eventual breakdowns of the substrate
as well, but what I have in mind is some type of on-chip redundancy which
would allow a SEU-impacted* chip to recover and restore corrupted data.  

spike


*I would have said SEU-_ffected chip, but after all the recent free
education on that topic, I am not sure if it is affected or effected.  I
simply cannot take the risk.  I propose that the words affect and effect
both be replaced by the word sffect, reasoning that since s is adjacent to
both e and a, one can always claim a typo, rather than reveal ignorance.
Furthermore, if we have demonstrated anything at all by the tiresome
Captchas thread, it is that it is a language flaw to have two different
words with both similar spellings and similar meanings.  Two words can be
similar, but they must choose either spelling or definition, not both,
otherwise we invite confusion and conflation, such as with the words sour
and dour and the words confusion and conflation.  Homo is fine, but it must
be nym or phone, not both.  Twin words are those words which both look alike
and act alike, simultaneously homonyms and synonyms.  I propose we eschew
all twin words.

Of course we need to identify twin words in order to eschew them.  This
reminds me of an exercise that was assigned to a class of freshman nursing
students in which they were asked to list every profane or vulgar word they
knew, especially those which could refer to body parts or functions, and
list their definitions if they knew them.  Hilarity ensued.

In the spirit of hearty companionship and infamous Extropian wordplay, we
need make a list of twin words:

Affect and effect  (dammit!  {8-[    )  
Sour and dour
 





From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 19:41:50 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:41:50 +0100
Subject: [ExI] U.S. cities try to adapt to climate change
Message-ID: <CAL_armi3NhecNE9jMuu_TtzGYTvyDVbLdK__HkGDxiB4aFOLsw@mail.gmail.com>

U.S. cities try to adapt to climate change
by Wendy Koch, USA TODAY       Aug 16, 2011

Adapt to climate change? While some members of Congress debate its
scientific validity, U.S. cities are going beyond efforts to mitigate
climate change with lower greenhouse gas emissions. They're at the
forefront of an emerging trend: adaptation.

"It's a new field," says Brian Holland, director of climate programs
at ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA. His association
launched a Climate Resilient Communities program last year to help
cities study effects of climate change and finance ways to adapt.
Nearly 600 local governments, representing one-fourth of the U.S.
population, have signed on.

<http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/08/us-cities-adapt-climate-change/1>

Financing such projects is a challenge now for local governments, but
not all needed changes require extra cash, says David Bragdon,
director of long-term planning and sustainability for New York City.

"It's altering the way we're doing things," he says. "It's building
something to fit the likely conditions of the future."
--------------------


BillK


From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Aug 16 22:30:41 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:30:41 -0400
Subject: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.
In-Reply-To: <016201cc5bd4$f901a250$eb04e6f0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E49F50A.9030806@canonizer.com>
	<016201cc5bd4$f901a250$eb04e6f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLoyepez1G6G_nReqwcwqYxq664hBhiJC4DVO9i4sEx8g@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 1:25 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> pressures, it was more likely to explode. ?If the rockets crashed or
> exploded very often, that could become an expensive hobby.
>

Yeah, it could cost you an arm and a leg.



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 16 22:36:05 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:36:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn gillette
Message-ID: <00b201cc5c64$e8a16cc0$b9e44640$@att.net>

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/jillette.atheist.libertarian/index.htm
l?hpt=hp_c2

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 16 22:50:46 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:50:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbLoyepez1G6G_nReqwcwqYxq664hBhiJC4DVO9i4sEx8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgOKYBDQJfeYfkrT32NN1xTK5qmL76qh=zCFz7Sk6cr2w@mail.gmail.com>	<4E49F50A.9030806@canonizer.com>	<016201cc5bd4$f901a250$eb04e6f0$@att.net>
	<CAOJFdbLoyepez1G6G_nReqwcwqYxq664hBhiJC4DVO9i4sEx8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00ba01cc5c66$f0acfc70$d206f550$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: Re: [ExI] It's not rocket science - Well, it is actually.

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 1:25 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> pressures, it was more likely to explode. ?If the rockets crashed or
exploded very often, that could become an expensive hobby.

>Yeah, it could cost you an arm and a leg.


We had a local rocketry club back in the late 60s.  Whenever the
commercially sold kit rockets were launched, which always had kit motors,
nothing ever went wrong.  Out of hundreds of launches, I don't remember any
of them ever doing anything unexpected.  But when the homebrew models showed
up, either airframe, nozzle or motor, everyone would get waaaaay back, way
back.  Those failures were durn near as common as successes for the amateur
rocket designers.  We had wild instabilities, we sometimes had shrapnel
explosions, but we never did actually injure anyone.   Never destroyed any
actual property either, other than the experimental rockets themselves.
Things were different back in those days.  People didn't get uptight much
about things like that.  It was the Space Coast Florida in the Space Decade.
Danger was more accepted.

spike




From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug 17 15:34:59 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:34:59 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

This is from another email forum, but I wanted to get some opinions from folks here. Do you think Dennis's concern is valid? He seems to believe string theory and all that is eating up and laying waste to the field.
?
Regards,
?
Dan
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>
To: "atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com" <atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2011 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: [atlantis_II] Subconscious Working Hard

? 
My area of interest is theoretical physics [,]?so cosmology, gravity, QM are the primary areas
of interest.? I view most of the allied fields as engineering applications.
?
I do have a horse in the race and it is certainly true that I view string theory as interesting
mathematics with little value in physics - certainly not enough value to justify it having
taken over virtually all of theoretical physics everywhere in the world.? The?popularizations
that are still published are virtually all in lock step with perhaps one partially interesting book
every 5 years or so about all you can hope for.
?
I don't have any more stats than my own observation of not being able to find much of
anything any more.? Bored and still looking for that once in a 5 year book.
?
Dennis
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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Wed Aug 17 15:49:33 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:49:33 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Guns Germs and Steel (was: Old still true)
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJF=LDQFJ+rs0O5oXCDiHWmsTFK822OL9_pY8LhJPpTBQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313596173.84013.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Mon, 8/15/11, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

"I wonder if those Europeans who survived the plague were effectively
"selected" for disease resistance.? This would certainly have given
them an edge in the biological warfare that decimated the natives."
According to Jared Diamond that is exactly what happened. He notes that most major diseases can be traced back to herds of domesticated animals, and for reasons not clearly understood many more animals (and plants too incidentally) that were suitable for domestication were indigenous to the old world than were indigenous to the new. Even when a good animal for domestication was found in the Americas, such as the llama, the practice could not spread as extensively or as rapidly as it did in the old world due to the limitations of geography; the primary axis of Asia-Europe is east west while in the Americas it is north south. So the old world had vast amounts of land at the same longitude and the same climate that a domesticated species could rapidly move into, while in the Americas you'd have to go north or south and face the problem of a different climate. As a result of all this people in Asia-Europe had been exposed to more plagues and for a longer
 time than people in the Americas, so they had immunities the native Americans did not.

?John K Clark

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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 17 16:09:58 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:09:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 8:35 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking

 

This is from another email forum, but I wanted to get some opinions from
folks here. Do you think Dennis's concern is valid? He seems to believe
string theory and all that is eating up and laying waste to the field.

 

Regards,

 

Dan

 

 

Dan, this has long been a concern of those outside string theory, but I look
at it this way.  String theory has few if any commercial applications.
There is *plenty* of physics going on in microdevices and other areas where
there are enormous economic incentives.  String theory is not competing with
that, and that is where the money is.  I don't worry if a few physics
professors struggle over their 14 dimensional mathematics and eat up some
small and dwindling theoretical research budget supplied by governments.  I
cheer for them, hope they find interesting stuff.  I am interested in
theoretical physics myself.  I worry they may have taken a long and
fruitless path.  But I don't lose any sleep over it.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>
To: "atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com" <atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2011 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: [atlantis_II] Subconscious Working Hard

  

My area of interest is theoretical physics [,] so cosmology, gravity, QM are
the primary areas
of interest.  I view most of the allied fields as engineering applications.
 . 
Dennis

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From amon at doctrinezero.com  Wed Aug 17 16:09:54 2011
From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:09:54 +0100
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
Message-ID: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>

I've just posted something new on my blog which might be of interest to
folks here:

http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-new-century/

All the Best,
Amon
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 16:58:21 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:58:21 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyEbfJHUtsez7ywxqKvxOZs59EhJ=Ab3mUJzLcm+h-6-jA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAKrqSyEbfJHUtsez7ywxqKvxOZs59EhJ=Ab3mUJzLcm+h-6-jA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyHVUWVwvA1iPHTkms1BAyf0cF-MS3nSNnz4DWnkTySq1g@mail.gmail.com>

Sounds pretty good.  I especially admire your ideas about the number of
members needed--of my few found enlighteneds, almost all think a movement
can flourish from a cabal of something like under ten people.  Impossible.

Do you live in the states?  You write American but date European, I assume
it is just the h+ perfectionism though.  I would like to meet in the
physical world.  It is good to find more links in this jewelled net braided
gold...

On Aug 17, 2011 12:40 PM, "Amon Zero" <amon at doctrinezero.com> wrote:

I've just posted something new on my blog which might be of interest to
folks here:

http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-new-century/

All the Best,
Amon
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From amon at doctrinezero.com  Wed Aug 17 17:03:10 2011
From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:03:10 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ Talk The new Century
In-Reply-To: <0D92899AC01E472CB2055783885551CE@DFC68LF1>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<0D92899AC01E472CB2055783885551CE@DFC68LF1>
Message-ID: <CAAoBNdXk_vVBAFL+mdqEPifzM7cRSiWL6ac9BFEi=p+jKbiCRA@mail.gmail.com>

On 17 August 2011 17:55, Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:

> **
> Nice site and I love the graphics. But I am not too fond of zero
> suffering.  In fact, I don't mind a little headache every now and then and
> actually I like a solid mental or physical struggle to overcome.  The notion
> of a zero suffering reminds me of the notion of "perfection", which is
> something I find little value in because once perfection is reached, there
> is no further aim/goal.  The very act of perfection, in and of itself, lacks
> praxis. I wonder if the same could be said of "zero suffering".  If it is a
> "transhuman praxis" you are fostering (and the transhuman praxis is what I
> personally value above all else), then it must not have zero suffering in
> order to be a viable praxis.
>


Thanks very much for that Natasha - That's very much appreciated!

Yes, I can't disagree with you at all there, but there are two brief things
I'd say. The second is that we focus on involuntary suffering, which of
course comes with its own issues and doesn't make for such a good soundbite.

The second is that, to my mind at least, the Abolitionist mem (i.e. Zero
(involuntary) suffering) is like a totem or ideal to gather under, but not
one that should preclude short-term efforts on any number of fronts. As
transhumanists, we can all agree that making life better is the highest
goal, and while it would be glib to say "the rest is details", I feel it
would be a mistake not to make the effort at all, just because we expect a
difficult journey. (Not that I think you're suggesting that - I'm just
saying...)

All the Best,
A
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug 17 16:51:50 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:51:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
Message-ID: <1313599910.942.YahooMailNeo@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Thanks for responding to this. To play Devil's Advocate, what about, say, QCD. That theory had little practical application, yet it seems like a fairly successful and fruitful area of research. And were we to go back further, one might wonder about the work of Kepler. Little immediate application, though the long term pay out, especially once it was integrated with other work, seems quite large. Might not the same be possible for string theory?
?
Regards,
?
Dan
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
To: 'Dan' <dan_ust at yahoo.com>; 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 12:09 PM
Subject: RE: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking


Dan, this has long been a concern of those outside string theory, but I look at it this way.? String theory has few if any commercial applications.? There is *plenty* of physics going on in microdevices and other areas where there are enormous economic incentives.? String theory is not competing with that, and that is where the money is.? I don?t worry if a few physics professors struggle over their 14 dimensional mathematics and eat up some small and dwindling theoretical research budget supplied by governments.? I cheer for them, hope they find interesting stuff.? I am interested in theoretical physics myself.? I worry they may have taken a long and fruitless path.? But I don?t lose any sleep over it.
?
spike
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug 17 16:54:40 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:54:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <393110BB-5E3F-4770-B851-E77727AB2095@gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<393110BB-5E3F-4770-B851-E77727AB2095@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313600080.69308.YahooMailNeo@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I'm not sure. Dennis?
?
Regards,
?
Dan

From: Chaim800 <chaim800 at gmail.com>
To: Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking



He may have valid concerns.
As a counterpoint, has he looked into the work of R.M. Santilli and his colleagues?

Ian (Yossi) Jacobs
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From amon at doctrinezero.com  Wed Aug 17 17:05:01 2011
From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:05:01 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ Talk The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAAoBNdXk_vVBAFL+mdqEPifzM7cRSiWL6ac9BFEi=p+jKbiCRA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<0D92899AC01E472CB2055783885551CE@DFC68LF1>
	<CAAoBNdXk_vVBAFL+mdqEPifzM7cRSiWL6ac9BFEi=p+jKbiCRA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAoBNdXRyROVF-+2EmVkpFmNJxQ7xv-9AHboAhrFRTnq=Lez7Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 17 August 2011 18:03, Amon Zero <amon at doctrinezero.com> wrote:

>
> The Abolitionist meme (i.e. Zero (involuntary) suffering) is like a totem
> or ideal to gather under, but not one that should preclude short-term
> efforts on any number of fronts.
>


In other words, I would say that there is a beautiful irony in the fact that
an utterly impractical ideal or symbol can sometimes be one of the most
powerful, and therefore useful, things in the world...
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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 17:19:40 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:19:40 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRbbDYRLRi9gsntVg4aq7OY13RtU2BNm5_5V0XFb=NNiQ@mail.gmail.com>

Somewhat incoherent.  For example, the paragraph that starts with
"Zero State will exist on two levels" only goes on to describe one.
You need to, in that paragraph or at the start (not later on) in the
very next one, start a sentence with "The second level is" or words
to that effect.  (And no, the words you have used in those locations
do not have that effect.)

Also, if you're seriously proposing an autonomous government that
does not start with securing your own land that no other sovereign
nation claims, you have no chance.  True autonomy starts with
physical - including geographic - autonomy.  Always has, and the
Singularity doesn't look like it will change this.  (Even in a purely
virtual environment, you're not truly autonomous if some other
group owns - and can, if you displease them, shut down - the
physical hardware you run on.)

If, on the other hand, you're proposing a political party that can
take over a nation (presumably the USA - but you should state
this explicitly, especially if you want sister political parties in
other nations), that at least has a chance of working, though you
need to explore further the other political parties that are out
there now: which ones can you co-opt?  (Trying to go it your own
is a much larger challenge than you envision.  Start by googling
"ballot access laws", to find the level of public support you'll need
before you can even get on the ballot - and yes, this does mean
you'll need means of generating that support before you can run
any candidate.  If that seems like a nearly impossible challenge
to you, it is - but only "nearly".  It's doable with a lot more work
than you've displayed willingness to consider in this post.)

2011/8/17 Amon Zero <amon at doctrinezero.com>:
> I've just posted something new on my blog which might be of interest to
> folks here:
>
> http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-new-century/
>
> All the Best,
> Amon
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Aug 17 16:55:04 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:55:04 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ Talk The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0D92899AC01E472CB2055783885551CE@DFC68LF1>

Nice site and I love the graphics. But I am not too fond of zero suffering.
In fact, I don't mind a little headache every now and then and actually I
like a solid mental or physical struggle to overcome.  The notion of a zero
suffering reminds me of the notion of "perfection", which is something I
find little value in because once perfection is reached, there is no further
aim/goal.  The very act of perfection, in and of itself, lacks praxis. I
wonder if the same could be said of "zero suffering".  If it is a
"transhuman praxis" you are fostering (and the transhuman praxis is what I
personally value above all else), then it must not have zero suffering in
order to be a viable praxis.
 

Natasha

 

 <http://www.natasha.cc/> Natasha Vita-More

 

Chair, <http://humanityplus.org/>  Humanity+
PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK

 

  _____  

From: wta-talk-bounces at transhumanism.org
[mailto:wta-talk-bounces at transhumanism.org] On Behalf Of Amon Zero
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 11:10 AM
To: ExI chat list; World Transhumanist Association Discussion List
Subject: Humanity+ Talk The new Century


I've just posted something new on my blog which might be of interest to
folks here:

http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-new-century/

All the Best,
Amon 
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 17:24:26 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:24:26 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/17 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
> Dan, this has long been a concern of those outside string theory, but I look
> at it this way.? String theory has few if any commercial applications.
> There is *plenty* of physics going on in microdevices and other areas where
> there are enormous economic incentives.? String theory is not competing with
> that, and that is where the money is.? I don?t worry if a few physics
> professors struggle over their 14 dimensional mathematics and eat up some
> small and dwindling theoretical research budget supplied by governments.? I
> cheer for them, hope they find interesting stuff.? I am interested in
> theoretical physics myself.? I worry they may have taken a long and
> fruitless path.? But I don?t lose any sleep over it.

I am not a theoretical physicist, so these are the opinions of a
poorly informed amateur... but I am interested from that perspective.

It is my understanding that much of what is described by string theory
is untestable by experimental means. That is, the energies required to
test string theory experimentally are beyond our ability to create and
may continue to be beyond our ability to create for a very long time.
If this is true, and I have yet to read an article indicating that any
part of string theory has been experimentally verified, then string
theory is an elaborate mathematical construct that is internally
consistent, and *perhaps* nothing more. It lacks (from the layman's
point of view) the beauty that is so common in the rest of physics and
is therefore suspect. And it seems that whenever you string theory
guys run into a problem, you just add another dimension, the problems
go away because they are now magically orthogonal, and you continue on
with your theorizing. There seems to be no physical justification for
adding all these dimensions, or at least it hasn't come across to the
great unwashed (me).

Sometimes, it seems like it rises to a religious belief, with little
science behind it. If it isn't science, should we be spending this
much attention on new age alchemy?

I am with Spike here that I'm more interested in physics that at least
has the possibility of some kind of application eventually. Now, we
all know that we can't tell in advance what is going to have
application and what isn't... look at the math that led to CAT
scanners, it sat dusty on the shelf for more than 50 years. But it
seems that some effort should go in other directions. You can't ALL be
Newton, Einstein or Maxwell, so stop trying to be.

I don't mind that some people chase string theory, but why does the
mass herd of lemmings have to chase it in such large numbers? Is it a
flaw with our educational system? With our grant system? What leads to
this apparent madness?

I can't comment intelligently beyond this, and can not even claim any
degree of measurable intelligence up to this point. I'm just going off
of what I've read in the popular press and seen on NOVA and similar
science programs. If you can't test it, it's magic, not science.

-Kelly



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 17 17:31:34 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:31:34 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1313599910.942.YahooMailNeo@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<1313599910.942.YahooMailNeo@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <00a601cc5d03$835a73d0$8a0f5b70$@att.net>

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking

 

Thanks for responding to this. To play Devil's Advocate, what about, say, QCD. That theory had little practical application, yet it seems like a fairly successful and fruitful area of research. And were we to go back further, one might wonder about the work of Kepler. Little immediate application, though the long term pay out, especially once it was integrated with other work, seems quite large. Might not the same be possible for string theory?

 

Regards,

 

Dan

 

 

 

Ja, good point.  Note that QCD (my limited grasp of it) is really more of a description than it is an explanation.  Every attempt at an explanation-based approach to quantum physics sounds baffling and crazy.  Second, the many applications of QCD do not depend on understanding QCD.  Engineers don?t worry that the physicists are apparently insane, don?t necessarily read their books.  The Josephson junction works fine, even when it looks to me like it should be impossible.  I use them anyway.  A particle doesn?t care if I don?t understand how it can tunnel through an energy barrier.

 

I am one who enjoys blowing my mind with physical theory, cosmology, the awesomeness of nature.  But even I see string theory as an exclusive playground of the top level physicists.  They left me behind soon after general relativity was discovered in the early 1900s.  I have tried to follow, but the equations just don?t translate well to words, any more than hip hop translates to the saxophone.

 

spike

 

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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug 17 17:43:04 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:43:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyHVUWVwvA1iPHTkms1BAyf0cF-MS3nSNnz4DWnkTySq1g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAKrqSyEbfJHUtsez7ywxqKvxOZs59EhJ=Ab3mUJzLcm+h-6-jA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAKrqSyHVUWVwvA1iPHTkms1BAyf0cF-MS3nSNnz4DWnkTySq1g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313602984.26206.YahooMailNeo@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

H+ perfectionism in date format would be, IMO, YYYY.MM.DD (as long as we're sticking to year, month, day combos)?-- not either the American or European standards.
?
Also, "minarchy" is usually used to mean a libertarian government. It seems Amon wants something that'll be more like a modern regulatory welfare state, albeit one that specifically regulates and redistributes in a fashion he approves of. (Let's leave alone, for now, that a minarchy in the usual terms seems a contradiction in terms or, at best, an unstable form of government likely to swiftly grow outside any bounds set on it.) To be sure, he could detail just what his ideal government would be disallowed from doing -- even when it might serve the ends he wants.
?
Other comments?made regarding capitalism also seem off the mark. For instance, what is meant by "unrestrained Capitalism"? Certainly, whatever economic system we live under now -- the one he opines is putting us on the "verge of a Second Great Depression" -- seems highly regulated and has many, varied welfare features. (For the record, I'd be a little more careful with the use of "capitalism." People often use it to mean many things -- an economy where capital accumulation is a major if not dominant feature (generic capitalism), an economy where big business sets policy* (in other words, state capitalism), or a free market (where big businesses might not survive)). Amor's use of "unrestrained" suggests he believes that there are no regulations now and we live under some sort of near total free market.
?
To be sure, one might say that markets or, more precisely,?individuals** are free, but this is always by comparison. If one takes the long view, I think, overally, markets are more regulated now than ever before -- and this trend can be traced back to the late 19th century for the US and Europe. This is not to say that since then regulation has always and everywhere increased, but the recent decade does not offer a counterexample to this. (To be sure, in the late 1970s, some trucking, energy,?and airline deregulation did occur in the US. And some half-baked banking deregulation also took place in the 1980s and the late 1990s. I say half-baked here because that industry is so heavily regulated and subsidized that's this is akin to letting cabinet members compete and calling that a free market in government.)
?
Like Penn Gilette, too (thanks to Spike for posting Penn's essay), it is?"amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness."
?
Regards,
?
Dan
?
* Where do you think all those regulations come from? Many if not most of them are lobby for and written by businesses -- usually ones bent on stifling competition and maintaining their market position through anything but actually satisfying customers.
?
** This isn't really about markets per se, but about what people can do with themselves and their property. Free markets are merely a derivative of that. After all, it's easy to imagine a free society where people in general decide not to interact much or not to interact via markets, as in merely gifting to each other. These are, of course, unlikely on a wide scale or for all interactions, but they do illustrate that it's individual freedom here that matters and on which a truly free market must rest and not vice versa. (Of course, any prohibition or regulation of markets is, by implication, a prohibition or a regulation of individuals, i.e., a limitation of individual freedom.)

From: Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 12:58 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] The new Century


Sounds pretty good.? I especially admire your ideas about the number of members needed--of my few found enlighteneds, almost all think a movement can flourish from a cabal of something like under ten people.? Impossible.
Do you live in the states?? You write American but date European, I assume it is just the h+ perfectionism though.? I would like to meet in the physical world.? It is good to find more links in this jewelled net braided gold...
On Aug 17, 2011 12:40 PM, "Amon Zero" <amon at doctrinezero.com> wrote:
>
>I've just posted something new on my blog which might be of interest to folks here:
>
>http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-new-century/
>
>All the Best,
>Amon 
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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Wed Aug 17 17:55:20 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:55:20 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <00a601cc5d03$835a73d0$8a0f5b70$@att.net>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>	<1313599910.942.YahooMailNeo@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<00a601cc5d03$835a73d0$8a0f5b70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4C0088.5050605@satx.rr.com>

On 8/17/2011 12:31 PM, spike wrote:

> the equations just don?t translate well to words, any more than hip hop
> translates to the saxophone.

Shouldn't that be "the equations just don?t translate well to words, any 
more than the saxophone translates to hip hop"?


From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Wed Aug 17 17:52:07 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:52:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ Talk The new Century
In-Reply-To: <0D92899AC01E472CB2055783885551CE@DFC68LF1>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<0D92899AC01E472CB2055783885551CE@DFC68LF1>
Message-ID: <1313603527.22934.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I'm worried about how much suffering will be inflicted?in the name of "zero suffering." Amon is, after all, talking about using coercion to get his plan in place. To me, that means suffering, so it seems to back in suffering. It's almost like saying we'll have total freedom after we?build and all of us live in a panopticon.
?
Regards,
?
Dan

From: Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc>
To: 'Amon Zero' <amon at doctrinezero.com>; 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>; 'World Transhumanist Association Discussion List' <wta-talk at transhumanism.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Humanity+ Talk The new Century


Nice site and I love the graphics. But I am not too fond of zero suffering.? In fact, I don't mind a little headache every now and then and actually I like a solid mental or physical struggle?to overcome.? The notion of a?zero suffering reminds me of the notion of "perfection", which is something I find little value in because once perfection is reached, there is no further aim/goal.? The very act of perfection, in and of itself, lacks praxis. I wonder if the same could be said of "zero suffering".? If it is a "transhuman praxis" you are fostering (and the transhuman praxis is what I personally value above all else), then it must not have zero suffering in order to be a viable praxis.

Natasha
?
Natasha Vita-More
?
Chair,Humanity+
PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK
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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 17 18:47:01 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:47:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking

2011/8/17 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>> Dan...I am interested in theoretical physics myself.? I worry they may
have taken a long and fruitless path.? But I don?t lose any sleep over it.

...

>...I am with Spike here that I'm more interested in physics that at least
has the possibility of some kind of application eventually. Now, we all know
that we can't tell in advance what is going to have application and what
isn't... look at the math that led to CAT scanners, it sat dusty on the
shelf for more than 50 years... -Kelly


Two fun examples.  In the early 90s I took graduate class up at Stanford in
orbit mechanics.  The text kept referring to a book from way back, so I
looked up the reference.  It had all the necessary equations for rocketry,
orbit maneuvers, specific thrust, pretty much everything in a modern orbit
mechanics text, originally published in... 1865.  While Johnny Reb and Billy
Yank were popping Minnie balls at each other with smooth bore percussion cap
muskets, someone somewhere was working out the equations that were used in
the Gemini program to do on-orbit docking a century later.  The original had
nothing about fuels, no LOX, no hydrogen, none of the mechanical parts, but
he had started with Newton and worked out the propulsion requirements, what
we would now call top level systems engineering, way back in the middle of
the 1800s.  Cool!

A young Stanford doctoral candidate worked out the critical details in a
doctoral thesis in 1968 a system which would later become the THAAD missile.
THAAD is an anti-missile missile with no explosive aboard, which destroys an
incoming missile by colliding with it, waaaay up in the upper atmosphere.
This in itself constitutes an aaaawesome flight feedback controls
accomplishment.  He had early and midcourse guidance using information from
ground based radar and everything.  The only significant departure of his
original thesis from the system coming on line today is that his paper had a
control moment gyro stabilization, whereas the current THAAD is mid-body
thrust stabilized.  I heard from a colleague that there is a theoretical
next generation THAAD which is control moment gyro stabilized.  {8^D  His
thesis sat collecting dust for over two decades, then (according to company
urban legend) they retrieved it from the archives at Stanford and attempted
to make parts of it classified!  {8^D  Haaaahahahaaa!

spike




From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 19:56:01 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:56:01 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 12:47 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
>
> Two fun examples. ?In the early 90s I took graduate class up at Stanford in
> orbit mechanics. ?The text kept referring to a book from way back, so I
> looked up the reference. ?It had all the necessary equations for rocketry,
> orbit maneuvers, specific thrust, pretty much everything in a modern orbit
> mechanics text, originally published in... 1865. ?While Johnny Reb and Billy
> Yank were popping Minnie balls at each other with smooth bore percussion cap
> muskets, someone somewhere was working out the equations that were used in
> the Gemini program to do on-orbit docking a century later. ?The original had
> nothing about fuels, no LOX, no hydrogen, none of the mechanical parts, but
> he had started with Newton and worked out the propulsion requirements, what
> we would now call top level systems engineering, way back in the middle of
> the 1800s. ?Cool!

To follow up on the thought though... what would it have hurt the
world if these equations had been worked out in the 1960s instead of
the 1860s? And, more importantly, would the world have been better off
if the lone genius in 1860 had been working on some technology related
to winning the civil war more quickly? Improving tin cans? Working on
the manufacturing technology of steel? Improving the safety of rail
roads? Or something else a little more in his time?

I worked on a system in the mid 1990s that the world is only
recognizing that they need in the last few years... I feel like
working too far ahead of the curve is counter productive, and it
certainly isn't helpful to business or the betterment of mankind. Yes,
we do need to think years ahead about what is possible, but I don't
think day to day work on stuff that won't be practical for a decade or
more is anything I want to spend significant time on. I feel more
fulfilled working on things that will be helping people in a couple of
years. I do obviously enjoy thinking further out, but I'm talking
about significant time that distracts from what can be done today with
today's technology.

While it's cool that the math for CAT scans was worked out in the
1920s, would it have hurt if they had waited to develop it until the
1970s when they needed it?

-Kelly



From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 20:03:28 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:03:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQ4aDsoqAp7cc9DkmK5AEbotcXy_mRSrQ=1QpJvGCz6fA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> While it's cool that the math for CAT scans was worked out in the
> 1920s, would it have hurt if they had waited to develop it until the
> 1970s when they needed it?

1) What else was it used for in the mean time?

2) Would the last little bits that came together in the 1970s, have
come together if the math hadn't already generally been out there
from some time previous?


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 20:33:35 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:33:35 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQ4aDsoqAp7cc9DkmK5AEbotcXy_mRSrQ=1QpJvGCz6fA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNQ4aDsoqAp7cc9DkmK5AEbotcXy_mRSrQ=1QpJvGCz6fA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaPChZN176MAGXoEqPMx83fq7xguFviy-=zu=Nd=AHxnA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> While it's cool that the math for CAT scans was worked out in the
>> 1920s, would it have hurt if they had waited to develop it until the
>> 1970s when they needed it?
>
> 1) What else was it used for in the mean time?

Nothing, that I am aware of.

> 2) Would the last little bits that came together in the 1970s, have
> come together if the math hadn't already generally been out there
> from some time previous?

The preexisting math was discovered after the idea of reconstruction
from slices was considered, as I understand the story. The CAT scan
was patented in 1975, just as computers were beginning to become
powerful enough to do the reconstruction. Indeed, according to
Wikipedia... "At the time, Hounsfield was not aware of the work that
Cormack had done on the theoretical mathematics for such a device."

Additionally, "In terms of mathematics, the method is based upon the
use of the Radon Transform invented by Johann Radon in 1917. But as
Cormack remembered later,[29] he had to find the solution himself
since it was only in 1972 that he learned of the work of Radon, by
chance."

So the work of Radon had zero effect on the invention of the CAT scan,
even though the work had been done much earlier.

Similarly, there is no evidence that Darwin was aware of the work of
Mendel (according to Dawkins), but the two ideas were combined
sometime around 1905... even though the work with the peas predated
Darwin's publication of the Origin of Species.

-Kelly


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 20:44:10 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:44:10 -0600
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
In-Reply-To: <008b01cc5c47$2f9ea020$8edbe060$@att.net>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZNp0XAvcyC_uvVNxY4O3A-C7=jbj8xK80t8tAHb4LwxA@mail.gmail.com>
	<008b01cc5c47$2f9ea020$8edbe060$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZS-b2uUCJumnUqQzhz5GWhYJSr6FnjDUYVS0xzy78h2w@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 1:03 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
> Subject: Re: [ExI] bradbury nodes
>
> 2011/8/16 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>>
>>>
> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/15/computer-chip-sized-spacecraft-will-exp
> lore-space-in-swarms/
>
>>...Very cool. I had the understanding that cosmic rays were bad on silicon
> chips... Is that correct? If so, what do you think these babies are made of?
> -Kelly
>
> Silicon substrate is still our best technology for interplanetary space.
> Our silicon chips can be made to work in space, but there is the
> radiation-related phenomenon of SEUs, or Single Event Upsets. ?These are
> usually caused by cosmic rays of such high energy, they cannot be
> effectively shielded. ?They can cause eventual breakdowns of the substrate
> as well, but what I have in mind is some type of on-chip redundancy which
> would allow a SEU-impacted* chip to recover and restore corrupted data.

Since it would take tens or hundreds of thousands of years for
interstellar travel, and assuming there is as much troublesome
radiation between stars as near them, there would have to be a LOT of
redundancy to ensure/assure (are these twin words?) that something was
still working once it got to the solar system in question... It's an
interesting problem from a hardware, software and engineering
perspective. Perhaps there is some benefit to the thinking in
Long/Deep Time after all :-)

Of course, if we did send something to a nearby star, chances are we
would later send something faster, so this may be one case where there
is a good point to be made in waiting. As for use inside the solar
system, I'm all for this kind of cheap stuff. Especially for finding
new asteroids/comets, etc.

-Kelly



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 17 21:11:36 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:11:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] bradbury nodes
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwZS-b2uUCJumnUqQzhz5GWhYJSr6FnjDUYVS0xzy78h2w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZNp0XAvcyC_uvVNxY4O3A-C7=jbj8xK80t8tAHb4LwxA@mail.gmail.com>	<008b01cc5c47$2f9ea020$8edbe060$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZS-b2uUCJumnUqQzhz5GWhYJSr6FnjDUYVS0xzy78h2w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007401cc5d22$40394cb0$c0abe610$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
...
>
>> Silicon substrate is still our best technology for interplanetary
space.... what I have in mind is some type of on-chip 
>> redundancy which would allow a SEU-impacted* chip to recover and restore
corrupted data.  spike

>...Since it would take tens or hundreds of thousands of years for
interstellar travel, and assuming there is as much troublesome radiation
between stars as near them, there would have to be a LOT of redundancy...

Agreed.  An interesting question arises for interplanetary space.  Larger
components are less vulnerable to SEUs, but smaller ones allow greater
redundancy.  So is there an optimum size for interstellar travel?  I think
there is, but I do not know what it is that size.  Is that size dependent on
the length of the trip?  I think it does, but I do not know the length of
that trip.

>... to ensure/assure (are these twin words?) ... -Kelly

You win the prize Kelly.  Not only did you provide twin words, you gave us
triplet words: insure/ensure/assure.  The sure triplets.  Off with their
heads.

spike





From thespike at satx.rr.com  Wed Aug 17 22:04:40 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:04:40 -0500
Subject: [ExI] sure
In-Reply-To: <007401cc5d22$40394cb0$c0abe610$@att.net>
References: <003201cc5c2d$80fbefa0$82f3cee0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZNp0XAvcyC_uvVNxY4O3A-C7=jbj8xK80t8tAHb4LwxA@mail.gmail.com>	<008b01cc5c47$2f9ea020$8edbe060$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZS-b2uUCJumnUqQzhz5GWhYJSr6FnjDUYVS0xzy78h2w@mail.gmail.com>
	<007401cc5d22$40394cb0$c0abe610$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4C3AF8.1000806@satx.rr.com>

On 8/17/2011 4:11 PM, spike wrote:

> You win the prize Kelly.  Not only did you provide twin words, you gave us
> triplet words: insure/ensure/assure.  The sure triplets.

Shirley you're not saying these are confusing.

in?sure/in?SHo?or/Verb
1. Arrange for compensation in the event of damage to or loss of 
(property), or injury to or the death of (someone), in exchange for 
regular advance payments to a company

en?sure/en?SHo?or/Verb
1. Make certain that (something) shall occur or be the case.

as?sure/??SHo?or/Verb
1. Tell someone something positively or confidently to dispel any doubts 
they may have


From sjatkins at mac.com  Wed Aug 17 22:52:18 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:52:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4E4C4622.1070102@mac.com>

On 08/11/2011 09:24 PM, john clark wrote:
> Back in 1993 Frank Tipler wrote an interesting book called "The 
> Physics of Immortality". In 2007 the poor man went a little funny in 
> the head, you know, just a little funny,  and he went and did a silly 
> thing; he wrote another book saying we should look for divine DNA on 
> the Shroud of Turin and check for radiation around the tomb of the 
> Blessed Virgin Marry that was caused by an intense beam of neutrinos 
> that must have shot out of the bottom of her feet as she ascended into 
> heaven. Anyway, in 1993 he still had all his marbles and he gave a 
> fairly plausible rough outline of how the universe might be able to 
> perform an infinite (not just very large) number of calculations; to 
> do that you'd need an infinite (not just very large) amount of energy 
> but he thought the laws of physics and of cosmology were so 
> constituted as to allow for that. If you could perform an infinite 
> number of calculations then infinite subjective time is possible even 
> if objectively time comes to an end.
>

Well, even presuming infinite computation it does not follow that any 
particular subject would get an infinite slice in order to experience 
infinite subjective time.  Nor does it follow that you or I, 
recognizably such, would resurrect even given this highly hypothetical 
infinite computation due to an order of infinities issue.  For you to 
resurrect it would be necessary for all the supporting conditions for 
you to exist, not just the atoms in your body, to spontaneously come 
together in one locale in this infinite computational maelstrom.    That 
would also have to be the case for every other being that ever existed, 
ever will exist or ever could exist in any possible configuration of a 
universe  since neither you nor a universe like ours are in no wise 
special if the argument holds water.

Pretty thin hope for immortality and infinite personal vistas if you ask me.

- samantha

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From sjatkins at mac.com  Wed Aug 17 22:57:23 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:57:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] I am lending money to scientists
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTyYgOu3U27PwyKqnTmhTNBUnGtXS5XLrb8=GzBgELFoA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGa90njwYTCCYomCGOZzsyN8L+ym7jHS8NJpWHNjLkY-dYtOWA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNTyYgOu3U27PwyKqnTmhTNBUnGtXS5XLrb8=GzBgELFoA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4C4753.3030105@mac.com>

Depres?  He is a well known troll and worse according to many people I 
highly respect.  Beware.

- samantha



On 08/12/2011 09:23 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> The amounts given seem to be in the microlending category,
> and wouldn't purchase most scientific instruments that are
> able to produce a financial return on investment.
>
> More seriously, if I read this right, you're offering 10% interest
> *per month*.  That's about 314% per year - loan shark grade.
> Credit cards tend to keep it under 30% per year.
>
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Jonathan Despres<jonano at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> If you are interested, I am lending money to scientists
>>
>> the web site built for this purpose is at:
>>
>> http://technoloans.org
>>
>> Thanks to share this information with your scientific friends,
>>
>> --Jon
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 22:57:41 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:57:41 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <00a601cc5d03$835a73d0$8a0f5b70$@att.net>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<1313599910.942.YahooMailNeo@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<00a601cc5d03$835a73d0$8a0f5b70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLXkaoySE0UnvKF3MAEJxXq_PrupkbKPs84knaKUvM14g@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/17 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
> I am one who enjoys blowing my mind with physical theory, cosmology, the
> awesomeness of nature.? But even I see string theory as an exclusive
> playground of the top level physicists.? They left me behind soon after
> general relativity was discovered in the early 1900s.? I have tried to
> follow, but the equations just don?t translate well to words, any more than
> hip hop translates to the saxophone.

Come on spike, you may remember the early days of the space program,
but I seriously doubt you were current on physics' state of the art in
the early 1900's.  :)

"I showed Oppenheimer what'd happen when you fission atoms just so...
I guess that makes me grandfather of the bomb?"
- hyperbolic spike.



From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 22:59:47 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:59:47 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Guns Germs and Steel (was: Old still true)
In-Reply-To: <1313596173.84013.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAOJFdbJF=LDQFJ+rs0O5oXCDiHWmsTFK822OL9_pY8LhJPpTBQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313596173.84013.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJrL=QaRp7SotnqwUYYktd+bwe+AcRhQ-6=EY+ZGs82Gg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/17 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> According to Jared Diamond that is exactly what happened. He notes that most major diseases can be traced back to herds of domesticated animals, and for reasons not clearly understood many more animals (and plants too incidentally) that were suitable for domestication were indigenous to the old world than were indigenous to the new. Even when a good animal for domestication was found in the Americas, such as the llama, the practice could not spread as extensively or as rapidly as it did in the old world due to the limitations of geography; the primary axis of Asia-Europe is east west while in the Americas it is north south. So the old world had vast amounts of land at the same longitude and the same climate that a domesticated species could rapidly move into, while in the Americas you'd have to go north or south and face the problem of a different climate. As a result of all this people in Asia-Europe had been exposed to more plagues and for a longer time than people in the Americas, so they had immunities the native Americans did not.

the east-west vs north-south impact is something I'd not considered.
Thanks for that.



From sjatkins at mac.com  Wed Aug 17 23:19:37 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:19:37 -0700
Subject: [ExI] U.S. cities try to adapt to climate change
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armi3NhecNE9jMuu_TtzGYTvyDVbLdK__HkGDxiB4aFOLsw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armi3NhecNE9jMuu_TtzGYTvyDVbLdK__HkGDxiB4aFOLsw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4C4C89.9000005@mac.com>

On 08/16/2011 12:41 PM, BillK wrote:
> U.S. cities try to adapt to climate change
> by Wendy Koch, USA TODAY       Aug 16, 2011
>
> Adapt to climate change? While some members of Congress debate its
> scientific validity, U.S. cities are going beyond efforts to mitigate
> climate change with lower greenhouse gas emissions. They're at the
> forefront of an emerging trend: adaptation.
>
> "It's a new field," says Brian Holland, director of climate programs
> at ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA. His association
> launched a Climate Resilient Communities program last year to help
> cities study effects of climate change and finance ways to adapt.
> Nearly 600 local governments, representing one-fourth of the U.S.
> population, have signed on.
>
> <http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/08/us-cities-adapt-climate-change/1>
>
> Financing such projects is a challenge now for local governments, but
> not all needed changes require extra cash, says David Bragdon,
> director of long-term planning and sustainability for New York City.
>
> "It's altering the way we're doing things," he says. "It's building
> something to fit the likely conditions of the future."
> --------------------

Hmm.  New government program offering cash grants for purpose X draws a 
lot of interest among cash-strapped communities.  News at 11.

- samantha



From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Aug 17 23:29:30 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:29:30 +0100
Subject: [ExI] U.S. cities try to adapt to climate change
In-Reply-To: <4E4C4C89.9000005@mac.com>
References: <CAL_armi3NhecNE9jMuu_TtzGYTvyDVbLdK__HkGDxiB4aFOLsw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4C4C89.9000005@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armi=KbBPFQ-td6U7PgdQintY4-Aszm9pZsjZbFqS+1tGbA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 12:19 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Hmm. ?New government program offering cash grants for purpose X draws a lot
> of interest among cash-strapped communities. ?News at 11.
>
>

Read the article.  No mention of government grants.

These cities are trying to protect themselves.


BillK



From sjatkins at mac.com  Wed Aug 17 23:41:24 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:41:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4C51A4.30505@mac.com>

On 08/17/2011 09:09 AM, Amon Zero wrote:
> I've just posted something new on my blog which might be of interest 
> to folks here:
>
> http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-new-century/
>

Amon,

You are still repeating several notions that I and others have made 
sound or at least credible arguments against.  This is disappointing.  
Short version:

1) Abolishing all involuntary suffering is a bogus goal as any negative 
feedback can be experienced as suffering or any less than preferred 
outcomes whatsoever.

2) No central committee equivalent, whether technocratic and 
meritocratic or not, can possibly respond better and as quickly to all 
conditions as localized talents of perhaps equal competency.  So this is 
a rehash of central state being better memes with insufficient 
justification.

3) No money means no fungible value tokens and thus no sophisticated 
traded of goods and services and no means to vote with said tokens for 
what uses of resources are more or less desirable.  This issue does not 
go away just because you have MNT and/or AGI.

4) There is nothing wrong with debt or other risk trading per se only 
with abusive forms and instruments.

5) Constraining business to the will of society is constraining the 
productive (producing more value than consumed in doing so) to the whims 
of a mythical ill-defined mob called "society".  It has nothing to do 
with a truly "new" century.

6) Free markets are not in the least what caused the current economic 
crisis.  Acting as if they are shows a singular lack of understanding 
and a dangerous one embedded in a supposed policy document.  It is 
government that much change, not capitalism / free markets.  The 
embedded screed against capitalism is uncalled for.

7) The notion that someone needs to be in charge is the largest root of 
all evil that you seem to embrace.

Before you form a meaningful movement toward a better future you need a 
much much clearer understanding of where we are, how things work, and 
most especially a reasonably coherent set of ethical and epistemological 
building blocks the rest is grounded upon.  What you list here is a 
hodgepodge of opinions and rather commonplace assumptions and 
prejudices.  It will not do.

- samantha






> All the Best,
> Amon
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 17 23:38:32 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:38:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbLXkaoySE0UnvKF3MAEJxXq_PrupkbKPs84knaKUvM14g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>	<1313599910.942.YahooMailNeo@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<00a601cc5d03$835a73d0$8a0f5b70$@att.net>
	<CAOJFdbLXkaoySE0UnvKF3MAEJxXq_PrupkbKPs84knaKUvM14g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001201cc5d36$c68dca20$53a95e60$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking

2011/8/17 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>> ...? But even I see string theory as an exclusive playground of the top
level physicists.? They left me behind soon after general relativity was
discovered in the early 1900s...

>...Come on spike, you may remember the early days of the space program, but
I seriously doubt you were current on physics' state of the art in the early
1900's.  :)


Whaaat, you don't believe I am 130?

{8^D

When one studies college sophomore physics, it is learning what Newton
discovered in the 1600s.  All you really need is calculus and differential
equations, you have the math you need.  Most physics and engineering
students never go past Newton really, all of it state of the art in the
1600s.  So most science and engineers are left behind around 1687.  The
chemists go into what was understood in the 1700s.  The later years of
engineering student may get some concepts that were 1800s, but if you take
modern physics, that first covers relativity, then radioactivity, which was
early 1900.  Quantum mechanics was 1930s-ish, along with expanding universe
radio spectrum cosmology, all state of the art in the 1930s and 40s.  

As far as understanding the theory is concerned, I don't really get anything
beyond about 1900, and really even that is a stretch: I may be able to use
the equations of general relativity for instance, but that inertial frame
dragging business, oy, how the hell can mass drag spacetime?  I don't grok,
even if I can spin the equations on my finger.  So theoretical physics left
me behind around 1900.  I don't get the math for multidimensional space-time
manifolds.  Quantum mechanics, string theory, forget it.

spike









From brentn at freeshell.org  Thu Aug 18 00:09:50 2011
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:09:50 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1D6A380-6BD3-493A-9F15-62A88BA9022A@freeshell.org>


On 17 Aug, 2011, at 13:24, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> 2011/8/17 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>> Dan, this has long been a concern of those outside string theory, but I look
>> at it this way.  String theory has few if any commercial applications.
>> There is *plenty* of physics going on in microdevices and other areas where
>> there are enormous economic incentives.  String theory is not competing with
>> that, and that is where the money is.  I don?t worry if a few physics
>> professors struggle over their 14 dimensional mathematics and eat up some
>> small and dwindling theoretical research budget supplied by governments.  I
>> cheer for them, hope they find interesting stuff.  I am interested in
>> theoretical physics myself.  I worry they may have taken a long and
>> fruitless path.  But I don?t lose any sleep over it.
> 
> I am not a theoretical physicist, so these are the opinions of a
> poorly informed amateur... but I am interested from that perspective.

OK, so I -am- a theoretical physicist, although one who has been doing experimental physics for his day job for the past few years. But, given that, let me weigh in with my view.

If one believes that string theory, QCD, and all the weird, wild mathematics behind gauge theories and many-body theory are the sum total of theoretical physics, I weep for your ignorance. :)  There are areas of theoretical physics that are being studied now that weren't even an option for me to study when I started in grad school over a decade ago. Soft matter physics immediately comes to mind, since that's the area I'm working in now. It wasn't even considered "real physics" until de Gennes got a Nobel for it, but now the Soft Matter and Polymer Physics section of APS is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing section.  These areas are very highly studied and funded (even the theoretical folks) - but, of course, in anti-intellectual America, not funded nearly well enough. There are other areas, including biophysics, where the rigorous discipline and mathematical formalisms that are characteristic of physics have been applied to problems that were formerly only studied by chemists, biologists, and scientists from other disciplines. The breakdown of that ivory tower wall is something I believe has been good for physics as a field of study and good for scientific endeavor in general.

B


--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org
<brentn at freeshell.org>








From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 00:09:51 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:09:51 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
In-Reply-To: <4E4C51A4.30505@mac.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4C51A4.30505@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyHwU-N0t4yzWQ+h8QaUvgxgujtxz2+y=jPEKnJTeTcwvQ@mail.gmail.com>

Samantha, was that post written by a liber-bot?  An argument is *not*
regurgitated contradiction...

On Aug 17, 2011 7:41 PM, "Samantha Atkins" <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

**

On 08/17/2011 09:09 AM, Amon Zero wrote:
>
> I've just posted something new on my blog which might b...
Amon,

You are still repeating several notions that I and others have made sound or
at least credible arguments against.  This is disappointing.  Short version:

1) Abolishing all involuntary suffering is a bogus goal as any negative
feedback can be experienced as suffering or any less than preferred outcomes
whatsoever.

2) No central committee equivalent, whether technocratic and meritocratic or
not, can possibly respond better and as quickly to all conditions as
localized talents of perhaps equal competency.  So this is a rehash of
central state being better memes with insufficient justification.

3) No money means no fungible value tokens and thus no sophisticated traded
of goods and services and no means to vote with said tokens for what uses of
resources are more or less desirable.  This issue does not go away just
because you have MNT and/or AGI.

4) There is nothing wrong with debt or other risk trading per se only with
abusive forms and instruments.

5) Constraining business to the will of society is constraining the
productive (producing more value than consumed in doing so) to the whims of
a mythical ill-defined mob called "society".  It has nothing to do with a
truly "new" century.

6) Free markets are not in the least what caused the current economic
crisis.  Acting as if they are shows a singular lack of understanding and a
dangerous one embedded in a supposed policy document.  It is government that
much change, not capitalism / free markets.  The embedded screed against
capitalism is uncalled for.

7) The notion that someone needs to be in charge is the largest root of all
evil that you seem to embrace.

Before you form a meaningful movement toward a better future you need a much
much clearer understanding of where we are, how things work, and most
especially a reasonably coherent set of ethical and epistemological building
blocks the rest is grounded upon.  What you list here is a hodgepodge of
opinions and rather commonplace assumptions and prejudices.  It will not do.


- samantha






 All the Best,
Amon


_______________________________________________
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
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Thu Aug 18 02:51:36 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:51:36 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201108180251.p7I2pLah027847@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Dan wrote:

>This is from another email forum, but I wanted to get some opinions 
>from folks here. Do you think Dennis's concern is valid? He seems to 
>believe string theory and all that is eating up and laying waste to the field.

He's not here, but Sheldon Glashow (Nobel Laureate, for
charmed quarks, and family friend) agrees with Dennis.
On the other hand, Einstein was convinced that "God does
not play dice with the universe." So who knows?

On similar grounds to Einstein, I'm skeptical it's the answer.
It just seems too complicated. With any luck, we'll all have a
few centuries to watch the research unfold, and can resume
the thread then.


-- David.



From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 03:19:58 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:19:58 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyHagOyDLmTOwx=VuYGiD-dXt6HYW-f=1ZsY7ty=6K-Xqg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313123050.20614.YahooMailClassic@web82905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4E4C4622.1070102@mac.com>
	<CAKrqSyHagOyDLmTOwx=VuYGiD-dXt6HYW-f=1ZsY7ty=6K-Xqg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyGE5J=VEYGQaRRtg1rH7rkxc=1Jcc2oa+HqfavFKdm6og@mail.gmail.com>

I agree, Samantha.  What I find even more troubling with the concept is that
it can't be theorized without severely reconsidering the notion of self.
Not only would "you" exist, but every you you have ever been, and every you
any arbitrary amount of youness units (younits?) away from you.  There would
be a me and a me that was almost me and a me that was half me and half you,
in fact the entire continuum's worth of half me half you and another layer
of that for every individual and every individual who never existed and
every type of thinking computer formed so differently from the human
brain...quite literally 'mind boggling'.

On Aug 17, 2011 6:52 PM, "Samantha Atkins" <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

**

On 08/11/2011 09:24 PM, john clark wrote:
>
> Back in 1993 Frank Tipler wrote an interesting book ca...
Well, even presuming infinite computation it does not follow that any
particular subject would get an infinite slice in order to experience
infinite subjective time.  Nor does it follow that you or I, recognizably
such, would resurrect even given this highly hypothetical infinite
computation due to an order of infinities issue.  For you to resurrect it
would be necessary for all the supporting conditions for you to exist, not
just the atoms in your body, to spontaneously come together in one locale in
this infinite computational maelstrom.    That would also have to be the
case for every other being that ever existed, ever will exist or ever could
exist in any possible configuration of a universe  since neither you nor a
universe like ours are in no wise special if the argument holds water.

Pretty thin hope for immortality and infinite personal vistas if you ask me.

- samantha


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Thu Aug 18 04:03:05 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:03:05 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <201108180251.p7I2pLah027847@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<201108180251.p7I2pLah027847@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <C095C44B-C2ED-4830-8085-AD892B581003@yahoo.com>

It's a deal!

Regards,

Dan

On Aug 17, 2011, at 22:51, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:

> Dan wrote:
> 
>> This is from another email forum, but I wanted to get some opinions from folks here. Do you think Dennis's concern is valid? He seems to believe string theory and all that is eating up and laying waste to the field.
> 
> He's not here, but Sheldon Glashow (Nobel Laureate, for charmed quarks, and family friend) agrees with Dennis. On the other hand, Einstein was convinced that "God does not play dice with the universe." So who knows?
> 
> On similar grounds to Einstein, I'm skeptical it's the answer. It just seems too complicated. With any luck, we'll all have a few centuries to watch the research unfold, and can resume the thread then.
> 
> -- David.



From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 12:55:20 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:55:20 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>

On 17 August 2011 21:56, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I feel like
> working too far ahead of the curve is counter productive, and it
> certainly isn't helpful to business or the betterment of mankind.

I suspect that, ultimately, few theoretical *and* technological
breakthroughs originate from from short-term rentability or concerns
for the betterment of mankind, rather than from cultural
"incandescence", something of which I see scant traces in our age.

In this respect, the increasingly evident impasse of contemporary
physics may just be the reflection of a deeper civilisational problem.
I do not care much that string theory may be untestable - nothing
wrong in having as well a philosophy about phenomena, we always did -
but in sociological terms it appears quite symptomatic of an era
dominated by byzantinism, obsession for technical virtuosism, academic
enforcement of orthodoxy, etc.

-- 
Stefano Vaj


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Thu Aug 18 13:50:39 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:50:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyGE5J=VEYGQaRRtg1rH7rkxc=1Jcc2oa+HqfavFKdm6og@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313675439.6428.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 17,? "Samantha Atkins" <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:



    > "Pretty thin hope for immortality and infinite personal vistas if you
    ask me."

    
Thin yes, but perhaps not infinitely thin.

On Wed, 8/17/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote
"I agree, Samantha.? What I find even more troubling with the concept is that it can't be theorized without severely reconsidering the notion of self.? Not only would "you" exist, but every you you have ever been, and every you any arbitrary amount of youness units (younits?) away from you.? There would be a me and a me that was almost me and a me that was half me and half you, in fact the entire continuum's worth of half me half you and another layer of that for every individual and every individual who never existed and every type of thinking computer formed so differently from the human brain...quite literally 'mind boggling'."

Troubling? I don't find it so but that is a matter of taste. Mind boggling? Yes certainly, that would boggle any mind. True? Maybe.

?John K Clark
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 14:19:41 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:19:41 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313675439.6428.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAKrqSyGE5J=VEYGQaRRtg1rH7rkxc=1Jcc2oa+HqfavFKdm6og@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313675439.6428.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyG1HrQ0t97xBCrAOp+GhYkC3Ud5DeOrrPiN8rBd8S135w@mail.gmail.com>

The trouble that I see is that it undermines the notion of your subjective
immortality.  The soup becomes aleph-aleph and then it is every bit of
possible mindedness.  More of a god than any one mind's forever.

On Aug 18, 2011 10:03 AM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Aug 17,  "Samantha Atkins" <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> "Pretty thin hope for immortality and inf...
Thin yes, but perhaps not infinitely thin.

On *Wed, 8/17/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>* wrote


>
> "I agree, Samantha.  What I find even more troubling with the concept is
that it can't be theor...
Troubling? I don't find it so but that is a matter of taste. Mind boggling?
Yes certainly, that would boggle any mind. True? Maybe.

 John K Clark

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Thu Aug 18 15:55:55 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 08:55:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyG1HrQ0t97xBCrAOp+GhYkC3Ud5DeOrrPiN8rBd8S135w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313682955.95101.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

?On Thu, 8/18/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
"The trouble that I see is that it undermines the notion of your subjective immortality. "?I don't see how. I don't see how the existence of every logically consistent variation of me in a parallel universe could effect (or even affect) my subjectivity right now in this universe. Hell even if the multiverse theory is true I may never subjectively know that it is true, so how could it have anything to do with my present subjectivity? I don't see how those other versions of me could cause this me any harm, nor do I see how I could harm them even if I wanted to, and I don't.
?John K Clark
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 16:16:52 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:16:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Alcor dumping "grandfathering"?
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5JuL+ZCL0Rv6TGnyw=0PHZU8wPgsmhXTMYSbcA4kDnNw@mail.gmail.com>

Sorry to put this here, but with the cryonics mailing list being shut
down, I don't know where else to put it.  I think there are still a
few signed up on this list.

Alcor seems to be in the middle making  a decisions to raise the
minimum suspension funding retroactively.  For the people who set up
insurance years ago, and are now too old to get more, they may have to
go elsewhere or give up the prospect of being suspended entirely.

While this isn't exactly being done secretly, there is very little coming out.

If any of you talk to board members, you might ask them what the intent is.

Keith


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Thu Aug 18 16:04:20 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:04:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] sure
In-Reply-To: <4E4C3AF8.1000806@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <1313683460.79219.YahooMailClassic@web82903.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Wed, 8/17/11, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
Shirley you're not saying these are confusing.
Words are often confusing, and don't call me Shirley.

?John K Clark

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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 16:19:15 2011
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:19:15 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <1313682955.95101.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <CAKrqSyG1HrQ0t97xBCrAOp+GhYkC3Ud5DeOrrPiN8rBd8S135w@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313682955.95101.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyHMZr3rAUZF3mY+Gaaga99SksWU6_jbRs7_Y1LgW9s7Tw@mail.gmail.com>

Oh.  I meant in the universe where you exist and *then* we invent
compusoup.  I am saying that if we create it in *this* world then we will
have to radically reconsider etc etc

On Aug 18, 2011 12:10 PM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

 On Thu, 8/18/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "The trouble that I see is th...

I don't see how. I don't see how the existence of every logically consistent
variation of me in a parallel universe could effect (or even affect) my
subjectivity right now in this universe. Hell even if the multiverse theory
is true I may never subjectively know that it is true, so how could it have
anything to do with my present subjectivity? I don't see how those other
versions of me could cause this me any harm, nor do I see how I could harm
them even if I wanted to, and I don't.


 John K Clark

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From gsantostasi at gmail.com  Thu Aug 18 16:49:04 2011
From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:49:04 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Alcor dumping "grandfathering"?
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5JuL+ZCL0Rv6TGnyw=0PHZU8wPgsmhXTMYSbcA4kDnNw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5JuL+ZCL0Rv6TGnyw=0PHZU8wPgsmhXTMYSbcA4kDnNw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL+RtPffcs4BRWziYae5XXnKX0ctbgXFqc_=EMn3xmFJDNHkrg@mail.gmail.com>

I don't like it at all.
Giovanni


On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>wrote:

> Sorry to put this here, but with the cryonics mailing list being shut
> down, I don't know where else to put it.  I think there are still a
> few signed up on this list.
>
> Alcor seems to be in the middle making  a decisions to raise the
> minimum suspension funding retroactively.  For the people who set up
> insurance years ago, and are now too old to get more, they may have to
> go elsewhere or give up the prospect of being suspended entirely.
>
> While this isn't exactly being done secretly, there is very little coming
> out.
>
> If any of you talk to board members, you might ask them what the intent is.
>
> Keith
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Aug 18 17:49:28 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:49:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] sure
In-Reply-To: <1313683460.79219.YahooMailClassic@web82903.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <4E4C3AF8.1000806@satx.rr.com>
	<1313683460.79219.YahooMailClassic@web82903.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <00c801cc5dcf$2d5a2e40$880e8ac0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of john clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] sure

 


On Wed, 8/17/11, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

 

 

>.Shirley you're not saying these are confusing.

Words are often confusing, and don't call me Shirley.

 John K Clark

 

 

At the risk of being considered a quarrelous querulous person, I must ask
why we need both words, or if we need both, why must they sound so much
alike?  Shirley there is some mistake.

 

spike

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From sjatkins at mac.com  Thu Aug 18 19:54:23 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:54:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The new Century
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyHwU-N0t4yzWQ+h8QaUvgxgujtxz2+y=jPEKnJTeTcwvQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAoBNdVabLNdxKNHDaaL4Kid-3vHK3-cb3vbLOC6G2WLk3qEEg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4C51A4.30505@mac.com>
	<CAKrqSyHwU-N0t4yzWQ+h8QaUvgxgujtxz2+y=jPEKnJTeTcwvQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4D6DEF.50503@mac.com>

On 08/17/2011 05:09 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:
>
> Samantha, was that post written by a liber-bot?  An argument is *not* 
> regurgitated contradiction...
>

Stuff it.  I said in the message this was the short form of arguments 
already made and not responded to.

> On Aug 17, 2011 7:41 PM, "Samantha Atkins" <sjatkins at mac.com 
> <mailto:sjatkins at mac.com>> wrote:
>
> On 08/17/2011 09:09 AM, Amon Zero wrote:
> >
> > I've just posted something new on my blog which might b...
>
> Amon,
>
> You are still repeating several notions that I and others have made 
> sound or at least credible arguments against.  This is disappointing.  
> Short version:
>
> 1) Abolishing all involuntary suffering is a bogus goal as any 
> negative feedback can be experienced as suffering or any less than 
> preferred outcomes whatsoever.
>
> 2) No central committee equivalent, whether technocratic and 
> meritocratic or not, can possibly respond better and as quickly to all 
> conditions as localized talents of perhaps equal competency.  So this 
> is a rehash of central state being better memes with insufficient 
> justification.
>
> 3) No money means no fungible value tokens and thus no sophisticated 
> traded of goods and services and no means to vote with said tokens for 
> what uses of resources are more or less desirable.  This issue does 
> not go away just because you have MNT and/or AGI.
>
> 4) There is nothing wrong with debt or other risk trading per se only 
> with abusive forms and instruments.
>
> 5) Constraining business to the will of society is constraining the 
> productive (producing more value than consumed in doing so) to the 
> whims of a mythical ill-defined mob called "society".  It has nothing 
> to do with a truly "new" century.
>
> 6) Free markets are not in the least what caused the current economic 
> crisis.  Acting as if they are shows a singular lack of understanding 
> and a dangerous one embedded in a supposed policy document.  It is 
> government that much change, not capitalism / free markets.  The 
> embedded screed against capitalism is uncalled for.
>
> 7) The notion that someone needs to be in charge is the largest root 
> of all evil that you seem to embrace.
>
> Before you form a meaningful movement toward a better future you need 
> a much much clearer understanding of where we are, how things work, 
> and most especially a reasonably coherent set of ethical and 
> epistemological building blocks the rest is grounded upon.  What you 
> list here is a hodgepodge of opinions and rather commonplace 
> assumptions and prejudices.  It will not do.
>
> - samantha
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> All the Best,
>> Amon
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>
>> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto: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 <mailto: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

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From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Fri Aug 19 03:17:04 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:17:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>

My the gods grant that main-stream sensibilities are never brought to 
bear on theoretical physics.

FutureMan


On 8/18/2011 5:55 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> On 17 August 2011 21:56, Kelly Anderson<kellycoinguy at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I feel like
>> working too far ahead of the curve is counter productive, and it
>> certainly isn't helpful to business or the betterment of mankind.
> I suspect that, ultimately, few theoretical *and* technological
> breakthroughs originate from from short-term rentability or concerns
> for the betterment of mankind, rather than from cultural
> "incandescence", something of which I see scant traces in our age.
>
> In this respect, the increasingly evident impasse of contemporary
> physics may just be the reflection of a deeper civilisational problem.
> I do not care much that string theory may be untestable - nothing
> wrong in having as well a philosophy about phenomena, we always did -
> but in sociological terms it appears quite symptomatic of an era
> dominated by byzantinism, obsession for technical virtuosism, academic
> enforcement of orthodoxy, etc.
>



From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 19 04:32:12 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:32:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
Message-ID: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>

 

 

Hey I heard Penn Jillette on a radio interview today.  He seems like a
really cool guy, could be one of us if he could get geeky enough.  He is
coming out with a book that I might buy:

 

http://books.simonandschuster.com/God-No!/Penn-Jillette/9781451610369

 

Here's Jillette's Wiki page:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Jillette

 

spike

 

 

From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 3:36 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: fun essay by penn gillette

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/jillette.atheist.libertarian/index.htm
l?hpt=hp_c2

 

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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 11:30:24 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:30:24 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyG1HrQ0t97xBCrAOp+GhYkC3Ud5DeOrrPiN8rBd8S135w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKrqSyGE5J=VEYGQaRRtg1rH7rkxc=1Jcc2oa+HqfavFKdm6og@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313675439.6428.YahooMailClassic@web82906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<CAKrqSyG1HrQ0t97xBCrAOp+GhYkC3Ud5DeOrrPiN8rBd8S135w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a7-MaVQ9ct+4N=bOvoXZjadmTvFeAumRXCanJf8ffdQrA@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/18 Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>

> The trouble that I see is that it undermines the notion of your subjective
> immortality.  The soup becomes aleph-aleph and then it is every bit of
> possible mindedness.  More of a god than any one mind's forever.
>

Not really my own idea of a god (see under Venus, Hermes, Shiva or
Wotan/Odin).

But the real issue is: what is immortality about? It is about indefinite
(that is, "as long as possible") survival. Now, we know that the concern of
an organism for its own survival is just an evolutionary artifact
originating from the "desire" of its genes to reproduce, nothing less
nothing more.

Whenever such issue does not really come into play, and the related instinct
is therefore spinning freely, "survival" can be defined arbitrarily on the
basis of the metaphors that one personally finds emotionally satisfactory:
buying into the idea of a christian-like concept of "soul", prolonging one's
physical life by gradual replacement of biological body organs, leaving
disciples or biographers behind, being stuffed and embalmed in a pyramid,
achieving "undying glory", surviving in portraits and records, being
recreated or resurrected or emulated in one form or another, in increasingly
accurate fashions, by any technological means, possibly after a
"suspension".

Personally, I am as programmed as anybody to strive for immortality, and I
have a very different perception of the kinds thereof being offered by each
of those avenues, but I really do not believe that very profound
philosophical case can be presented for their differences. It is more a
psychological and cultural than a physical or metaphysical issue.

For instance, as discussed many times I would not hesitate a split second to
walk through a destructive teleport system allowing me to avoid check in,
security and embarkment procedures in airports (and I suspect 99,8% of
current air travellers would quickly come to agree with me should such a
system suddenly become available).

On the other hand, I cannot say that I care much for my recreation in the
mind of an omniscient Omega computer, or simply by the eternal return of the
universe configuration providing for my existence once all other
configurations have been exhausted.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 13:05:17 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 06:05:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>

Spike, have you seen his "Bullshit" television program?

John
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 14:24:15 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:24:15 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Online grammar check
Message-ID: <CAL_armgjD=9iBZnL6mHdVQcFm9h8x_kxcdMVmG-zEZSgq4w3bg@mail.gmail.com>

I've found two free online grammar checkers that seem useful. Better
than MS Word anyway!

<http://spellcheckplus.com/>
Seems slightly better, but has a 2000 character limit.

<http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/>
Is also good.

The big advantage they both have is that they detect the difference
between affect and effect.
i.e. "Affect" means "to alter" or "influence." "Effect" means "to accomplish."

However computers are still unreliable at the very complex task of
checking English grammar. Like googling, you need an education first
to sort out what's right from wrong.    :)


BillK


From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Fri Aug 19 14:13:45 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:13:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Drug makes fat mice live longer
In-Reply-To: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <1313763225.75039.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

A drug has been found that extends the lifespan of fat mice by a whopping 44%, although that's still less than the lifespan of a normal thin mouse. It's not clear if the drug SRT-1720, a resveratrol analog (found in red wine), will make non-obese mice live longer; a study is underway to determine that but because thin mice live longer than fat mice there hasn't been enough time to complete it yet.?? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/science/19fat.html

?John K Clark
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Fri Aug 19 14:41:50 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:41:50 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Online grammar check
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgjD=9iBZnL6mHdVQcFm9h8x_kxcdMVmG-zEZSgq4w3bg@mail.g
	mail.com>
References: <CAL_armgjD=9iBZnL6mHdVQcFm9h8x_kxcdMVmG-zEZSgq4w3bg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201108191441.p7JEfFBw019847@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Bill K wrote:

>However computers are still unreliable at the very complex task of
>checking English grammar. Like googling, you need an education first
>to sort out what's right from wrong.    :)

Versus goggling and ogling, both of which provide educations in
what is right and wrong. But might get you sorted out, and not in the
Jamaican sense.


-- David.



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Fri Aug 19 14:40:45 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:40:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Online grammar check
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgjD=9iBZnL6mHdVQcFm9h8x_kxcdMVmG-zEZSgq4w3bg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313764845.9955.YahooMailClassic@web82908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 19, 2011, at 10:24 AM, BillK wrote:
?"Affect" means "to alter" or "influence." "
And alter and influence mean effect.
?"Effect" means "to accomplish."
The horribly gruesome death of his wife and children accomplished Mr. Smith and he went into a depression. 

?John K Clark

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 19 15:11:18 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:11:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>

 

 

On Behalf Of John Grigg
Subject: Re: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette

 

>.Spike, have you seen his "Bullshit" television program?

 

John

 

 

No.  I have insufficient patience for television now.  Not enough controls
on it.  All  TV shows need a scroll bar along the bottom for instance, to
make them analogous to YouTubes.  Since television generally doesn't have
that, I discontinued my cable service about three years ago.  My TV is now a
DVD player only.

Recently when visiting Shelly's parents, Isaac was puzzling over their
television, which he had never really seen.  He figured out the remote can
change the channel, but soon realized that there are only about 50 channels,
none of which carried anything that particularly interested him, nor that he
could control directly.  He lost interest after a few minutes and went back
to his internet enabled computer.  After that one session, he treated the TV
about like I treated my grandparents' radio in 1965:  "What?  No picture?
That sucks!"  Isaac's generation will mostly grow up completely unaware of
television.  It's dead, Jim.

spike

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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 15:33:25 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:33:25 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>

On 19 August 2011 05:17, G. Livick <glivick at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> My the gods grant that main-stream sensibilities are never brought to bear
> on theoretical physics.


Why, in 2011 we should have learned by now that science is no less a
cultural product than anything else... :-)

>

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 15:36:09 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:36:09 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Online grammar check
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgjD=9iBZnL6mHdVQcFm9h8x_kxcdMVmG-zEZSgq4w3bg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgjD=9iBZnL6mHdVQcFm9h8x_kxcdMVmG-zEZSgq4w3bg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a4bUuL8HnS7aQW_8=EogAfbRTX0Vx45sg8prZrvB39izA@mail.gmail.com>

On 19 August 2011 16:24, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> However computers are still unreliable at the very complex task of
> checking English grammar. Like googling, you need an education first
> to sort out what's right from wrong.    :)


I must say, in addition, that most such programmes are often in disagreement
with me, and with more authoritative sources such as Fowlers' King's
English, trying to force a very boring and limited style on everybody making
use of them.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Fri Aug 19 17:11:15 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:11:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Drug makes fat mice live longer
In-Reply-To: <1313763225.75039.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<1313763225.75039.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1313773875.45655.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Just what we need: long lived fat mice. :)
?
Regards,
?
Dan

From: john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 10:13 AM
Subject: [ExI] Drug makes fat mice live longer

?
A drug has been found that extends the lifespan of fat mice by a whopping 44%, although that's still less than the lifespan of a normal thin mouse. It's not clear if the drug SRT-1720, a resveratrol analog (found in red wine), will make non-obese mice live longer; a study is underway to determine that but because thin mice live longer than fat mice there hasn't been enough time to complete it yet.?? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/science/19fat.html

?John K Clark
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Fri Aug 19 17:13:18 2011
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:13:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313773998.40453.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I saw one skit, I believe, where he was taking on Truthers, but, to be sure, he seemed to select the?nuttiest examples of Truthers out there to lambast. This is similar to how Michael Moore seems to work by selecting nutters to support the view he's against.
?
Regards,
?
Dan

From: John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 9:05 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette


Spike, have you seen his "Bullshit" television?program?

John
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From natasha at natasha.cc  Fri Aug 19 17:35:23 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:35:23 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ Leadership Event - Sept 9th at 9:00 PM EST in
	Second Life
Message-ID: <AC354229A17A4E189427B75C2ECA9D44@DFC68LF1>


 
Humanity+ and its Board of Directors welcomes all its members to join us for
our Leadership Event in Second Life on September 15th at 9:00 PM EST.  
 
Guest speakers will cover some of the recent innovations in technology and
design in addressing the question: What can humanity do now to develop a
more innovative future?  As Howard Bloom suggests:  "A civilization that
looks up goes up.  A civilization that looks down goes down.  Right now we
are looking down. The H+ message can lift our eyes ..." 
 
The leadership event focuses its gaze on possibilities that foster a
necessary rational for more fluid, innovative thinking.
 
Come to the leadership event to find out what others are thinking and saying
about Humanity+.  If you are not a member and who like to attend, please
email me at natasha at natasha.cc 
 
We hope to see you there!
 
Natasha Vita-More
Chairman, Humanity+ <http://humanityplus.org/> 
 
 
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 18:05:19 2011
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:05:19 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <1313773998.40453.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<1313773998.40453.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2c73VM8zP7CHozQuCtqVZ_jfiX-LMctO1rdfyyX82-naw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/19 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

> I saw one skit, I believe, where he was taking on Truthers...
>

It's probably not fair to judge a series based on one "skit". Bullshit!
is/was entertaining but it's nonfiction. It's like a Mythbusters that
tackles serious issues. I guess I haven't seen the episode you saw, so I
can't comment on it. But I'd encourage folks to check it out if they have an
opportunity.

Here's the list of episodes:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit!_episodes

I think most of us would agree that their targets deserve more critical
attention.

-Dave
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 17:52:23 2011
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:52:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/19 spike <spike66 at att.net>

> No.  I have insufficient patience for television now.  Not enough controls
> on it.  All  TV shows need a scroll bar along the bottom for instance, to
> make them analogous to YouTubes.
>

That's what DVRs are for.


> Isaac?s generation will mostly grow up completely unaware of television.
> It?s dead, Jim.
>

 It's still a good source of content. Youtube is great, but it can't
currently fund a production like "Game of Thrones".

Speaking of mass-market entertainment, I happened to catch a movie called
"Limitless" about a guy who takes a new super nootropic drug. It was
entertaining and unpredictable--at least to my unenhanced and rather limited
intellect.

-Dave
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From sjatkins at mac.com  Fri Aug 19 19:40:34 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:40:34 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4EBC32.6010003@mac.com>

On 08/19/2011 08:11 AM, spike wrote:
>
> *On Behalf Of *John Grigg
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
>
> >...Spike, have you seen his "Bullshit" television program?
>
> John
>
> No.  I have insufficient patience for television now.  Not enough 
> controls on it.  All  TV shows need a scroll bar along the bottom for 
> instance, to make them analogous to YouTubes.  Since television 
> generally doesn't have that, I discontinued my cable service about 
> three years ago.  My TV is now a DVD player only.
>

Record it or get it on Hulu or Amazon or Apple TV and scroll to your 
heart's content.  What TV I watch I almost never watch in real time.  
For some of the services you lose the commercials too.

> Recently when visiting Shelly's parents, Isaac was puzzling over their 
> television, which he had never really seen.  He figured out the remote 
> can change the channel, but soon realized that there are only about 50 
> channels, none of which carried anything that particularly interested 
> him, nor that he could control directly.  He lost interest after a few 
> minutes and went back to his internet enabled computer.
>

I heard a cute apocryphal story of a 3 year old messing around behind 
the TV.  When his parents asked him what he was doing he said "I'm 
looking for the mouse."  :)

- samantha

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From sjatkins at mac.com  Fri Aug 19 19:45:25 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:45:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
	<CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4EBD55.6030109@mac.com>

On 08/19/2011 10:52 AM, Dave Sill wrote:
>
> Speaking of mass-market entertainment, I happened to catch a movie 
> called "Limitless" about a guy who takes a new super nootropic drug. 
> It was entertaining and unpredictable--at least to my unenhanced and 
> rather limited intellect.
>

I loved that movie.  Given such a drug with its dangers in the movie I 
would certainly take it on the grounds that the increase in ability 
would likely be sufficient to perfect the drug or otherwise avoid the 
dangers.    Of course the FDA and its kin would have a fit over such a 
drug.  Which is why I periodically mention we need the freedom or a 
strong enough underground of competent chemists and other specialists to 
move forward regardless of political process and governmental decisions.

- samantha



From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Fri Aug 19 19:47:13 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:47:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI]  Guns Germs and Steel
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJrL=QaRp7SotnqwUYYktd+bwe+AcRhQ-6=EY+ZGs82Gg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313783233.22449.YahooMailClassic@web82901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 17, 2011, at 4:00 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:

"Some of the most important agricultural plant products are from the new world. Potato, Corn, etc. But for animals, the old world certainly had the upper hand. Don't have enough time to go through the whole list, but plants seems much more balanced than the animals."

There are about 200,000 species of wild plants but only a few hundred have any potential for domestication. In its wild form corn (called teosinte) is just barely worth bothering with, it is far less productive than the old-world's wild wheat, it produced much less seed. And the cool highlands of Mexico would have been perfect for potatoes, and llamas too, but neither spread there because of that north-south geography; they had to get to Mexico from their home in the Andes, but to do that they would have had to go through the hot lowlands of central America in which those species do not thrive. As a result Mexico had no potatoes and no pack animal and no domesticated animal of any sort except the dog. Humans started domesticating plants in the new-world about 3500BC, but for these and other reasons that was at least 5 thousand years after they started doing so in Asia-Europe.

?John K Clark? 



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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 19 20:40:13 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:40:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
	<CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005901cc5eb0$32e03030$98a09090$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill
.

 

Isaac's generation will mostly grow up completely unaware of television.
It's dead, Jim.

 

 It's still a good source of content. Youtube is great, but it can't
currently fund a production like "Game of Thrones".-Dave

 

 

Ja, but I see the lack of controllability as an inherent show stopper for
the post y2k generation.  They just will not relate to it, very much
analogous to how you and I never took up with radio dramas.  The advanced
online gaming community provides plenty of content, with user input.  TV
suffers from ignoring user input.  I saw three good examples with my son,
age five, and his two cousins aged six and eight.  They watched for a few
minutes, but when the first commercial series came on, all three wandered
off and did not return.  The advertising industry must see the handwriting
on the wall here, and stop bothering to design advertisement for teens and
eventually for young adults.  They have left the building.

 

Here's something to explore however.  With the explosion of media sources,
we would no longer have universal cultural icons.  Find any American over
45, and they will all know exactly what you mean when you use the terms
Gilligan, Skipper, Mary Ann for instance.  We all knew who the Beatles were,
and Fleetwood Mac.  Now I noticed my son and his cousins all have separate
cultural icons, because there are so many of them.  We have now radio, MTV
and all its equivalents, the online gaming community, broadcast TV,
somewhere hidden in the mess is all the real world heroes such as the
scientific community for the geek crowd, traditional literature and the
writer community in general, Second Life and all its spawn, the sports world
with waaay more sports available now than there once was, plus a bunch of
others you hipsters know about that came along when I was completely
distracted by career and family responsibilities.  Television was once about
half of our consciousness.  Now it is perhaps 10% and shrinking rapidly.  We
may find we have no common characters as ever more media compete for
attention.  

 

spike

 

 

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From jrd1415 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 19:55:54 2011
From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:55:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] your new brain
Message-ID: <CAHUTwkO5ATEq6af5GayYFU9=+=wf=MtDzuu9ruAg7G2GNnbb4w@mail.gmail.com>

IBM Unveils Cognitive Computing Chips

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/08/ibm-unveils-cognitive-computing-chips.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29

Best, Jeff Davis

             "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                                                      Ray Charles


From jrd1415 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 19 22:39:07 2011
From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:39:07 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <4E4EBC32.6010003@mac.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
	<4E4EBC32.6010003@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CAHUTwkN3NJEPDQBe9WECzP6SWxVzQ=MmYMztgztMZFTa_G_8Jw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/19 Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com>:

> Record it or get it on Hulu or Amazon or Apple TV and scroll to your heart's
> content.

I don't understand this.  You can find everything you want for free,
through bittorrent. I get all my movies that way.  Avatar, V for
Vendetta, Black Swan, all of it.  TV programs especially, cleansed of
commercials.  Downloaded and watched Limitless the other night.

People wedded to old business models shriek "Thief, Pirate", I just
smile.  They need to get over it and revise their business model.  I'd
be willing to pay, but on my terms not theirs.  Till they come to
grips with that, they'll get nothing from me.  Deal with reality or go
the way of the dinosaurs.

Best, Jeff Davis

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at
you, then they fight you, then you win."

                      Mahatma Gandhi


From sen.otaku at googlemail.com  Sat Aug 20 01:05:58 2011
From: sen.otaku at googlemail.com (Sophia Rose)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:05:58 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>

Even if science is a cultural product, there are lots of subcultures within
all countries that have scientific research. What effect do you feel these
subcultures have on the pursuit of science in general, or Physics in
specific?

I know that it is a general trend in dominant culture to grab the limelight
for one's self (I think that is easily drawn from the Reality Star trend).
So we are saying that this is the motivation behind this race for String
Theory? The desire to be the next Einstein/Newton/Maxwell?

And if so, how is that different from past trends? What was the previous
motivation for scientific discoveries? Is it possible, or even desirable to
return to that?

2011/8/19 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
>
>
> Why, in 2011 we should have learned by now that science is no less a
> cultural product than anything else... :-)
>
>>
>
> --
> Stefano Vaj
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 20 01:34:57 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:34:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>

 

 

Stand tall, me lads and lasses of Extropia!

 

We are going to break out of the funk we have been in  for the last couple
years, and this is our crowbar: Stanford is trying an interesting experiment
whereby they are offering an interesting course completely online, no cost,
just sign up and study like you were back in college:

 

http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class
-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harv
est+Is+Bountiful
<http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-clas
s-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Har
vest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIG
N> &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN

 

You can take online quizzes and tests, measure your progress, all the stuff
we used to do so tragically many years ago.  Let's get with it, a bunch of
us take this, and liven the discussion here beyond the subtle shades of
meaning between twin words.

 

Who is with me?

 

spike

 

 

Ps Whoever it is putting together Singularity Hub, THANK YOU, and double
plus THANK YOU!  You guys are on it!  Your stuff is EXCELLENT!  Keith
Kleiner?  Aaron Saenz?  Why the heck are you guys not hanging out on
ExI-chat?  We will drop the wordplay!  For a while anyway.  {8^D  Anyone
here friends with Keith and Aaron?  Do invite them.  s

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From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Sat Aug 20 02:52:21 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:52:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4F2165.2040203@sbcglobal.net>


I suspect I already know all there is to know on this subject, but I'll 
log in just to see if anything has changed since my last major 
breakthrough :-).  It will be interesting to observe if this class takes 
us outside the world of sensor fusion and fuzzy algorithms.  Maybe a new 
feature will be introduced, something like human-like_abstraction.h.

Thanks for the referral, Spike!



On 8/19/2011 6:34 PM, spike wrote:
>
> Stand tall, me lads and lasses of Extropia!
>
> We are going to break out of the funk we have been in  for the last 
> couple years, and this is our crowbar: Stanford is trying an 
> interesting experiment whereby they are offering an interesting course 
> completely online, no cost, just sign up and study like you were back 
> in college:
>
> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN 
> <http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN>
>
> You can take online quizzes and tests, measure your progress, all the 
> stuff we used to do so tragically many years ago.  Let's get with it, 
> a bunch of us take this, and liven the discussion here beyond the 
> subtle shades of meaning between twin words.
>
> Who is with me?
>
> spike
>
> Ps Whoever it is putting together Singularity Hub, THANK YOU, and 
> double plus THANK YOU!  You guys are on it!  Your stuff is EXCELLENT!  
> Keith Kleiner?  Aaron Saenz?  Why the heck are you guys not hanging 
> out on ExI-chat?  We will drop the wordplay!  For a while anyway.  
> {8^D  Anyone here friends with Keith and Aaron?  Do invite them.  s
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From gsantostasi at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 03:16:18 2011
From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:16:18 -0500
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>

I already signed up !
Giovanni
PS
Can you help with homework ; P


2011/8/19 spike <spike66 at att.net>

> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Stand tall, me lads and lasses of Extropia!****
>
> ** **
>
> We are going to break out of the funk we have been in  for the last couple
> years, and this is our crowbar: Stanford is trying an interesting experiment
> whereby they are offering an interesting course completely online, no cost,
> just sign up and study like you were back in college:****
>
> ** **
>
>
> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> You can take online quizzes and tests, measure your progress, all the stuff
> we used to do so tragically many years ago.  Let?s get with it, a bunch of
> us take this, and liven the discussion here beyond the subtle shades of
> meaning between twin words.****
>
> ** **
>
> Who is with me?****
>
> ** **
>
> spike****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Ps Whoever it is putting together Singularity Hub, THANK YOU, and double
> plus THANK YOU!  You guys are on it!  Your stuff is EXCELLENT!  Keith
> Kleiner?  Aaron Saenz?  Why the heck are you guys not hanging out on
> ExI-chat?  We will drop the wordplay!  For a while anyway.  {8^D  Anyone
> here friends with Keith and Aaron?  Do invite them.  s****
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 20 03:14:41 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:14:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E4F2165.2040203@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<4E4F2165.2040203@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <010001cc5ee7$4e024650$ea06d2f0$@att.net>

.

Who is with me?

 

spike

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of G. Livick
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 7:52 PM
To: ExI chat list; L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D.
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

 


>.I suspect I already know all there is to know on this subject, but I'll
log in just to see if anything has changed since my last major breakthrough
:-).  It will be interesting to observe if this class takes us outside the
world of sensor fusion and fuzzy algorithms.  Maybe a new feature will be
introduced, something like human-like_abstraction.h.

>.Thanks for the referral, Spike!

 

 

Actually the AI is only part of what I find interesting.  If universities
start doing this, it shatters the entire traditional paradigm of learning
that is thousands of years old.  This goes beyond the Learning Company
products, which are quite good, but those are just traditional lectures
someone recorded and offered for sale.  This is good, but the Stanford AI
class goes beyond it.  They offer evaluation of quizzes and tests, some
limited interaction of sorts, a means to track your progress.  The
instructors are world class.  So now it makes it clear that if you pay the
substantial fee to enroll at Stanford, all you are actually buying are the
credentials.  The actual knowledge is being given away free, but you pay
dearly if you want an actual piece of paper that says you know the material.
Fascinating.

 

spike







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From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Sat Aug 20 04:28:49 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:28:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>

I'm working on signing up.

FutureMan

On 8/19/2011 8:16 PM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote:
> I already signed up !
> Giovanni
> PS
> Can you help with homework ; P
>
>
> 2011/8/19 spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net>>
>
>     Stand tall, me lads and lasses of Extropia!
>
>     We are going to break out of the funk we have been in  for the
>     last couple years, and this is our crowbar: Stanford is trying an
>     interesting experiment whereby they are offering an interesting
>     course completely online, no cost, just sign up and study like you
>     were back in college:
>
>     http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
>     <http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN>
>
>     You can take online quizzes and tests, measure your progress, all
>     the stuff we used to do so tragically many years ago.  Let's get
>     with it, a bunch of us take this, and liven the discussion here
>     beyond the subtle shades of meaning between twin words.
>
>     Who is with me?
>
>     spike
>
>     Ps Whoever it is putting together Singularity Hub, THANK YOU, and
>     double plus THANK YOU!  You guys are on it!  Your stuff is
>     EXCELLENT!  Keith Kleiner?  Aaron Saenz?  Why the heck are you
>     guys not hanging out on ExI-chat?  We will drop the wordplay!  For
>     a while anyway.  {8^D  Anyone here friends with Keith and Aaron? 
>     Do invite them.  s
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     extropy-chat mailing list
>     extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto: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

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From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Sat Aug 20 04:55:45 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:55:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <010001cc5ee7$4e024650$ea06d2f0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<4E4F2165.2040203@sbcglobal.net>
	<010001cc5ee7$4e024650$ea06d2f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E4F3E51.9070801@sbcglobal.net>

I am the 110701th student signed up.  This is no lightweight class, this 
is the real one.  The clips describing the class said to expect to 
dedicate around 10 hours per weekly session to study.

Sebastian Thrun, one of the organizers and instructors of this class, 
was the principle investigator who, with his student team, came in first 
place in the DARPA Grand Challenge (desert), and second place in the 
Urban Challenge.

See you in class, Spike!

FutureMan


On 8/19/2011 8:14 PM, spike wrote
>
> Who is with me?
>
> spike
>
> *From:*extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *G. Livick
> *Sent:* Friday, August 19, 2011 7:52 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list; L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D.
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>
>
> >...I suspect I already know all there is to know on this subject, but 
> I'll log in just to see if anything has changed since my last major 
> breakthrough :-).  It will be interesting to observe if this class 
> takes us outside the world of sensor fusion and fuzzy algorithms.  
> Maybe a new feature will be introduced, something like 
> human-like_abstraction.h.
>
> >...Thanks for the referral, Spike!
>
> Actually the AI is only part of what I find interesting.  If 
> universities start doing this, it shatters the entire traditional 
> paradigm of learning that is thousands of years old.  This goes beyond 
> the Learning Company products, which are quite good, but those are 
> just traditional lectures someone recorded and offered for sale.  This 
> is good, but the Stanford AI class goes beyond it.  They offer 
> evaluation of quizzes and tests, some limited interaction of sorts, a 
> means to track your progress.  The instructors are world class.  So 
> now it makes it clear that if you pay the substantial fee to enroll at 
> Stanford, all you are actually buying are the credentials.  The actual 
> knowledge is being given away free, but you pay dearly if you want an 
> actual piece of paper that says you know the material.  Fascinating.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 20 05:03:43 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:03:43 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>

.

I already signed up ! 

Giovanni

PS Can you help with homework ; P

 

 

No way Jose!  I will be lucky to understand it myself.  I hope we get enough
signed up here to have some rip roaring discussions on something that means
something.  Wouldn't it be cool if we could discuss homework and lectures?
Focus some attention?  We need it.

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of G. Livick
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 9:29 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

 

I'm working on signing up.

FutureMan  

Work no more.  Go here:

 

http://www.ai-class.com/

 

Enter your name and your email @, hit the sign up button.  The class starts
on 10 October.

 

The textbook is expensive, but I found a previous edition on Amazon for a
fifth the price of the current one.

 

This is a smart enough group, I want to see some in-depth discussions, and
perhaps some criticism of the concepts.  I am hoping this class is the
catalyst to get some fizz going on ExI-chat.

 

spike

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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 06:38:09 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:38:09 -0600
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <CAHUTwkN3NJEPDQBe9WECzP6SWxVzQ=MmYMztgztMZFTa_G_8Jw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
	<4E4EBC32.6010003@mac.com>
	<CAHUTwkN3NJEPDQBe9WECzP6SWxVzQ=MmYMztgztMZFTa_G_8Jw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwaqm_As8zNaFcS=gdwCyzJa+5oVSq6Am6cY4xeFq=LOSw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/8/19 Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com>:
>
>> Record it or get it on Hulu or Amazon or Apple TV and scroll to your heart's
>> content.
>
> I don't understand this. ?You can find everything you want for free,
> through bittorrent. I get all my movies that way. ?Avatar, V for
> Vendetta, Black Swan, all of it. ?TV programs especially, cleansed of
> commercials. ?Downloaded and watched Limitless the other night.
>
> People wedded to old business models shriek "Thief, Pirate", I just
> smile. ?They need to get over it and revise their business model. ?I'd
> be willing to pay, but on my terms not theirs. ?Till they come to
> grips with that, they'll get nothing from me. ?Deal with reality or go
> the way of the dinosaurs.

I am also a big bittorrent fan... but I found that when I opened a
business account with Qwest, that somehow the copyright holders were
able to report me to Qwest, who then threatened to turn off my
Internet if I didn't delete all copies. I don't know if this is a
business account only type of thing, but it made me a little nervous
that I would lose my ISP. I haven't had any problems with home
accounts. Does anyone know how this works?

I found a bittorrent anonymiser, but it stopped working after a couple
of weeks. Not sure what happened there either. Seems like the
anti-pirates are getting a bit more sophisticated in their techniques.
The days of threatening tens of thousands with jail time seems
thankfully to have stopped.

-Kelly



From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 07:51:32 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:51:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Marshall Brain on the astounding near future potential of
	computer managers
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy3dzmeg5AZBBniUW2pO0yMyoddmObwmNQYXrnr7umQPmg@mail.gmail.com>

I just discovered Marshall Brain and was astonished by his
predictions/scenario for "Manna" software that replaces human middle
managers.  I always supposed computers/robots would replace the teenage fast
food workers, but certainly not their human overseers.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

John
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 11:02:06 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:02:06 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Drug makes fat mice live longer
In-Reply-To: <1313773875.45655.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<1313763225.75039.YahooMailClassic@web82902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313773875.45655.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a7VA7KQA5eALVprNrPFPyieETOKPwbjw28pp441q_SSPw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/19 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

> Just what we need: long lived fat mice. :)
>

One can tell you have never tried the disappointment of having a mouse die
to you after a life of efforts to overfeed it... :-)

>
>
-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 12:13:10 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:13:10 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPoR7a4o8H9pP_PCNdDSjhdG6U5Jp8sFDvmSgcaibSRdT6evhg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/20 Sophia Rose <sen.otaku at googlemail.com>

> Even if science is a cultural product, there are lots of subcultures within
> all countries that have scientific research. What effect do you feel these
> subcultures have on the pursuit of science in general, or Physics in
> specific?
>
> I know that it is a general trend in dominant culture to grab the limelight
> for one's self (I think that is easily drawn from the Reality Star trend).
> So we are saying that this is the motivation behind this race for String
> Theory? The desire to be the next Einstein/Newton/Maxwell?


I do not claim to have a final word to say on the subject, but I suspect
that the contemporary international physics community has cultural traits of
its own, which in turn reflect to some extent those of the societies which
are (still?) predominantly represented in its ranks.

Now, it appears at least very debatable that such societies are currently
going through any kind of cultural Renaissance... :-)

Moreover, globalisation itself may lead to a loss of wealth and diversity -
just think of uniformisation of very different educational traditions - that
would not bode well even for the development of hard sciences. One need not
resort to postmodern or critical theory here, see what, eg, Oswald Spengler
or Stephen Wolfram have to say on how much mathematics itself appears to
reflect a civilisation's interests and biases or Lee Smolin's The Trouble
with Physics on the sociological reasons for string theory's current
dominance in the academia.

And if so, how is that different from past trends? What was the previous
> motivation for scientific discoveries? Is it possible, or even desirable to
> return to that?
>

Let us say that I am in principle wary of orthodoxies, of byzantinisms and
of putting all one's eggs in one basket, and more confident in breakthroughs
generated by grand visions and revolutionary approaches.

How do we produce all that? I do not have any magic recipe, but historical
experience suggests that such things usually take place in places and ages
less conservative than our existing context...
-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Aug 20 14:18:43 2011
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 07:18:43 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a4o8H9pP_PCNdDSjhdG6U5Jp8sFDvmSgcaibSRdT6evhg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a4o8H9pP_PCNdDSjhdG6U5Jp8sFDvmSgcaibSRdT6evhg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313849923.88521.YahooMailNeo@web112107.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Stefano Vaj wrote:

"Let us say that I am in principle wary of orthodoxies, of 
byzantinisms and of putting all one's eggs in one basket, 
and more confident in breakthroughs generated by grand 
visions and revolutionary approaches."
?
Minor piecemeal innovation is the province of orthodoxies,
significant breakthroughs occur when individuals or small
groups generate "grand visions and revolutionary approaches."
This history of this is clear but orthodoxies have the tools
to gather funding far out of proportion to their value.
?
Dennis May

From: Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 7:13 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking


2011/8/20 Sophia Rose <sen.otaku at googlemail.com>

Even if science is a cultural product, there are lots of subcultures within all countries that have scientific research. What effect do you feel these subcultures have on the?pursuit?of science in general, or Physics in specific? 
>
>I know that it is a general trend in dominant culture to grab the limelight for one's self (I think that is easily drawn from the Reality Star trend). So we are saying that this is the motivation behind this race for String Theory? The desire to be the next Einstein/Newton/Maxwell? 

I do not claim to have a final word to say on the subject, but I suspect that the contemporary international physics community has cultural traits of its own, which in turn reflect to some extent those of the societies which are (still?) predominantly represented in its ranks.? 

Now, it appears at least very debatable that such societies are currently going through any kind of cultural Renaissance... :-)

Moreover, globalisation itself may lead to a loss of wealth and diversity - just think of uniformisation of very different educational traditions - that would not bode well even for the development of hard sciences.?One need not resort to postmodern or critical theory here, see what, eg, Oswald Spengler or Stephen Wolfram have to say on how much mathematics itself appears to reflect a civilisation's interests and biases or Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics on the sociological reasons for string theory's current dominance in the academia. 

And if so, how is that different from past trends? What was the previous motivation for scientific discoveries? Is it possible, or even desirable to return to that? 

Let us say that I am in principle wary of orthodoxies, of byzantinisms and of putting all one's eggs in one basket, and more confident in breakthroughs generated by grand visions and revolutionary approaches. 

How do we produce all that? I do not have any magic recipe, but historical experience suggests that such things usually take place in places and ages less conservative than our existing context... -- 
Stefano Vaj

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 14:52:49 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 08:52:49 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <E1D6A380-6BD3-493A-9F15-62A88BA9022A@freeshell.org>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
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	<E1D6A380-6BD3-493A-9F15-62A88BA9022A@freeshell.org>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwa=XZ9D9_dDGcoahjRWx_DxGHKb4C5p4Yj+=A4Mf_zBcw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 6:09 PM, Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>
> On 17 Aug, 2011, at 13:24, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>
>> 2011/8/17 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>> I am not a theoretical physicist, so these are the opinions of a
>> poorly informed amateur... but I am interested from that perspective.
>
> OK, so I -am- a theoretical physicist, although one who has been doing experimental physics for his day job for the past few years. But, given that, let me weigh in with my view.
>
> If one believes that string theory, QCD, and all the weird, wild mathematics behind gauge theories
> and many-body theory are the sum total of theoretical physics, I weep for your ignorance. :)

I weep for my ignorance too... but I can only take physics to the
point that the mass media is willing to go... I'm not going to brush
up on my very rusty mathematics and go back to grad school at this
point :-)

>There are areas of theoretical physics that are being studied now that weren't even an option for me to study when I started in grad school over a decade ago. Soft matter physics immediately comes to mind, since that's the area I'm working in now. It wasn't even considered "real physics" until de Gennes got a Nobel for it, but now the Soft Matter and Polymer Physics section of APS is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing section. ?These areas are very highly studied and funded (even the theoretical folks) - but, of course, in anti-intellectual America, not funded nearly well enough. There are other areas, including biophysics, where the rigorous discipline and mathematical formalisms that are characteristic of physics have been applied to problems that were formerly only studied by chemists, biologists, and scientists from other disciplines. The breakdown of that ivory tower wall is something I believe has been good for physics as a field of study and good for scientific endeavor in general.
>

So Brent, why do you think the mass media never even talks about this
stuff? Don't us Monday morning physicists deserve to hear about this
cool stuff too? :-)  Is it just too hard to grok the basic concepts?
I've never even heard the phrases "Soft Matter" or "Polymer Physics".

I am glad to hear that there is a lot of good work going on, and I
suspected that there was. We of the great unwashed masses just don't
hear about it.

-Kelly



From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Aug 20 14:55:52 2011
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 07:55:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1313852152.96618.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Beginning in 1991 and continuing to this day I have noticed
that de Broglie-Bohm mechanics and related theories seem
to generate more interest in Hispanic countries than most
other countries.  A friend in graduate school was a student 
in Puerto Rico of one of de Broglie's students.  France
and Germany also seem to have some interest also related
to students and colleagues of de Broglie and later Vigier
but that seems proportional to their physics activity
generally.  I have seen virtually no interest in Asian
countries, lower than expected in the US and other English
speaking countries.  I have also seen a scattering of interest
in Islamic Africa and the Middle East- particularly Iran. 
Bohm did stint in Brazil which may have also contributed
to some of the Hispanic interest. 
I do not know the cultural significance of this observation
but I have seen it for 20 years - perhaps the stagnation of
string theory physics in the mainstream has not spread to 
all corners of academia? 
Dennis May


From: Sophia Rose <sen.otaku at googlemail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 8:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking


Even if science is a cultural product, there are lots of subcultures within all countries that have scientific research. What effect do you feel these subcultures have on the?pursuit?of science in general, or Physics in specific? 
I know that it is a general trend in dominant culture to grab the limelight for one's self (I think that is easily drawn from the Reality Star trend). So we are saying that this is the motivation behind this race for String Theory? The desire to be the next Einstein/Newton/Maxwell?

And if so, how is that different from past trends? What was the previous motivation for scientific discoveries? Is it possible, or even desirable to return to that?


2011/8/19 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>

>
>Why, in 2011 we should have learned by now that science is no less a cultural product than anything else... :-)? 
>?-- 
>Stefano Vaj
> 
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sat Aug 20 15:17:02 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 09:17:02 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
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	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/19 Sophia Rose <sen.otaku at googlemail.com>:
> Even if science is a cultural product, there are lots of subcultures within
> all countries that have scientific research. What effect do you feel these
> subcultures have on the?pursuit?of science in general, or Physics in
> specific?

I suspect that there is a great cultural difference between the folks
in CERN and Beijing. I don't know any specifics, but the Chinese mind
set is very different than the Western mind set, and I can't imagine
that this doesn't impact Physics and other sciences.

One example is that at least some Chinese scientists believe that the
impact of CO2 on global warming has been exaggerated by western
scientists.

One article stated: "Several Chinese scientists who have gone over the
IPCC report believe that the IPCC may have overstated the link between
global temperature and CO2 in the atmosphere."

I don't want to start another flame war on global warming, nor will I
comment on the validity or lack there of of these particular Chinese
scientists, I'm just pointing out that the different mind set impacts
science in a culturally specific way.

> I know that it is a general trend in dominant culture to grab the limelight
> for one's self (I think that is easily drawn from the Reality Star trend).
> So we are saying that this is the motivation behind this race for String
> Theory? The desire to be the next Einstein/Newton/Maxwell?

I think so. The Grand Unification Theory is put out there in the
public mind as the only important goal of Physics. I know that can't
be the case, but in the mass media it's the only thing they talk about
until something has been reduced to practice and is ready to sell.

> And if so, how is that different from past trends? What was the previous
> motivation for scientific discoveries? Is it possible, or even desirable to
> return to that?

Well, most scientists in the 17th century were independently wealthy
amateurs. The first paid scientists emerged around the time of the
industrial revolution (1820ish) and soon the day of the amateur was
over. Certainly by the time of Edison (1870ish), it was lights out for
the amateur scientist. The last good amateur scientists I can think of
were the Wright brothers. (I welcome counter examples, if you have
them.) Even the Wright brothers were chasing the all mighty dollar.

I suspect that most scientists today are partially motivated by
curiosity, but not to the point that it impelled DaVinci... there's
too much money in it for that kind of pure joy to be very common
today. On the other hand, money itself doesn't have to ruin science.
The pursuit of fame may ruin some scientists, but I hope that isn't a
huge trend.

There is also the impact of who is paying the bill, and for what
reasons. There are really good research departments at Microsoft, Bell
Labs, IBM, etc. But even in those pure research labs, they are
constrained to working on things that might benefit the company
eventually. Government and University research is probably the most
out there science, but they still have to chase grants and publish.
Chasing grants and publishing are both moderating influences that keep
science away from the darkest edges of knowledge.

Which of these trends are most damaging is anyone's guess.

-Kelly



From js_exi at gnolls.org  Sat Aug 20 17:02:00 2011
From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 10:02:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Drug makes fat mice live longer
In-Reply-To: <mailman.535.1313775353.618.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.535.1313775353.618.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <4E4FE888.3050607@gnolls.org>

> From: john clark
> A drug has been found that extends the lifespan of fat mice by a
> whopping 44%, although that's still less than the lifespan of a
> normal thin mouse.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/science/19fat.html

 From the article: "The drug, SRT-1720, protects the mice from the usual 
diseases of obesity by reducing the amount of fat in the liver and 
increasing sensitivity to insulin."

One can easily produce the same effects by slashing one's consumption of 
linoleic acid (found primarily in seed oils, e.g. "vegetable oil") and 
fructose (primary source: sugar and HFCS), the combination of which 
produces fatty liver very, very quickly for sound biochemical reasons.

One might note that the modern American diet is very high in both 
vegetable oil and fructose -- thanks in no small part to Ancel Keys' 
fraudulent demonization of saturated fat and cholesterol, and the CSPI's 
ceaseless public scare campaigns to replace all the healthy beef tallow 
in snack foods and fast-food deep fryers with toxic partially 
hydrogenated seed oils (or rancid, heavily oxidized non-hydrogenated 
seed oils).  Not that fast food has ever been healthy -- but we've 
managed to make it dramatically more unhealthy since the 1980s.

Back to the subject: it'll be much more interesting to see the effects 
on normal mice, and whether any of these theoretically 
sirtuin-activating compounds can produce real results.

JS
http://www.gnolls.org


From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Aug 20 17:30:11 2011
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:30:11 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.g
	mail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201108201729.p7KHTSPp019310@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

  Kelly wrote:

>One example is that at least some Chinese scientists believe that the
>impact of CO2 on global warming has been exaggerated by western
>scientists.
>
>One article stated: "Several Chinese scientists who have gone over the
>IPCC report believe that the IPCC may have overstated the link between
>global temperature and CO2 in the atmosphere."
>
>I don't want to start another flame war on global warming, nor will I
>comment on the validity or lack there of of these particular Chinese
>scientists, I'm just pointing out that the different mind set impacts
>science in a culturally specific way.

Another explanation for what's reported is that minimizing AGP is in the
perceived interests of the Chinese ruling class, since their industrialization
strategies might be harmed if they conceded its validity. In another era,
fear of offending TPTB definitely did affect the public stances of scientists
in communist countries, e.g., in the USSR.

In the USSR and the PRC, certain fields of research were declared
"bourgeois pseudoscience," and banned e.g., [from Wikipedia]

<< Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired
inheritance was formally outlawed in 1948, and for the next several years
opponents were purged from held positions, and many imprisoned. >>

I'm not clear how strongly scientific research is skewed in the PRC
nowadays, but the possibility exists that these scientists have made their
anti-AGP statements out of self-preservation, not from belief in them.

(This posting should not be taken to address either global warming per
se or whether skews are also seen in capitalist societies. I'm just
discussing your conclusion that the Chinese scientists believed what
they said.)


-- David.



From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 20 18:20:08 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 11:20:08 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a4o8H9pP_PCNdDSjhdG6U5Jp8sFDvmSgcaibSRdT6evhg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4DD5B0.9000507
	@sbcglobal.net>	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a4o8H9pP_PCNdDSjhdG6U5Jp8sFDvmSgcaibSRdT6evhg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01b201cc5f65$cb489910$61d9cb30$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj
.

 

>. I suspect that the contemporary international physics community has
cultural traits of its own, which in turn reflect to some extent those of
the societies which are (still?) predominantly represented in its ranks.
.Now, it appears at least very debatable that such societies are currently
going through any kind of cultural Renaissance... :-) Stefano Vaj

 

 

OK so this is a put-on, but I had a good laugh from it anyway:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/mackenziefegan

 

spike

 

 

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From brentn at freeshell.org  Sat Aug 20 18:34:28 2011
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:34:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail!
	.com> <4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <D161F335-6906-44C5-B0D8-C43D3782B770@freeshell.org>




On Aug 20, 2011, at 11:17, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> I suspect that most scientists today are partially motivated by
> curiosity, but not to the point that it impelled DaVinci... there's
> too much money in it for that kind of pure joy to be very common
> today. On the other hand, money itself doesn't have to ruin science.
> The pursuit of fame may ruin some scientists, but I hope that isn't a
> huge trend.
> 
> 

You have clearly never worked as a professional scientist in either industry or academia. :)

B

--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org


From brentn at freeshell.org  Sat Aug 20 19:38:48 2011
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 15:38:48 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwa=XZ9D9_dDGcoahjRWx_DxGHKb4C5p4Yj+=A4Mf_zBcw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E1D6A380-6BD3-493A-9F15-62A88BA9022A@freeshell.org>
	<CAPy8Rwa=XZ9D9_dDGcoahjRWx_DxGHKb4C5p4Yj+=A4Mf_zBcw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4BCFE69F-DE20-4577-9FE0-7134A7511297@freeshell.org>


On 20 Aug, 2011, at 10:52, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> 
> 
> I weep for my ignorance too... but I can only take physics to the
> point that the mass media is willing to go... I'm not going to brush
> up on my very rusty mathematics and go back to grad school at this
> point :-)

That's a tough position. I'm pretty confident that I'd have a hard time brushing back up on rusty math too, and I finished my grad school out. What you don't use decays with time, and its been over a decade since I've needed to put pen to paper to solve a QM scattering problem or something of that ilk.  :)

> 
> So Brent, why do you think the mass media never even talks about this
> stuff? Don't us Monday morning physicists deserve to hear about this
> cool stuff too? :-)  Is it just too hard to grok the basic concepts?
> I've never even heard the phrases "Soft Matter" or "Polymer Physics".

Yeah, I honestly don't know why these areas aren't considered 'popular' - there's some pretty clever work being done there. I honestly believe that you don't need to be particularly numerate in order to write a good popular book on these topics - its much more important to have an excellent facility at explaining things conceptually, but with a wicked accuracy and attention to detail.  So maybe you should write these books? :)  With de Gennes having passed away a few years back, I'd be willing to bet the market is ripe for a good biography of his work.

Primarily, soft matter physics is the study of order-disorder phenomena in condensed matter at levels of order between crystalline solids and the classical liquids.  de Gennes particularly studied the physics of liquid crystals and the isotropic-nematic transition. More broadly (and this gets into the nature of my current research), soft matter includes polymer dynamics - the behavior of macromolecules in dilute solutions and in melts and their crystallization from those melts, as well as  order-disorder phenomena in multicomponent systems, colloids, and gels.  

Practically speaking, this is how we clarify polypropylene that you use to store your food. (i.e. Ziploc food containers, Gladware food containers.)  Polypropylene on its own is pretty much opaque. By controlling the dynamics of its crystallization, however, we can make the polyproylene crystallites always smaller than 200 nm, so they won't scatter light in the visible bands. 

So, no, I don't think the physics here is particularly hard. The only advanced math I've seen anywhere in the literature here (i.e., beyond a run-of-the-mill partial differential equation) is a stochastic DE, and I felt that was probably unnecessary. My background is in condensed matter and I found it exceptionally accessible. If you wanted to check out a book or two from your library, the two I felt were the best were Gert Strobl's book, and Rubenstein and Colby's book.  (One is titled "Polymer Physics" and the other is "The Physics of Polymers."  And boy, I wish I could remember which is which without recourse to Amazon...)  You might be better off starting with Rubenstein. I recall Strobl being mathematically intense and weak on conceptualization.

> 
> I am glad to hear that there is a lot of good work going on, and I
> suspected that there was. We of the great unwashed masses just don't
> hear about it.

I was thinking about this a lot as a response to this thread. I suspect strongly now that there is a lot going on in physics that the atoms-and-particles set would not recognize (or acknowledge, if they did recognize) as physics. But ultimately, if your goal is to find the basis of measurement of a physical phenomenon in order to construct rigorous mathematical models of the behavior with a goal of understanding some underlying behavior, then you're doing physics, no matter what your degree or job title says. Physics is a science, and thus is a skillset and problem solving formalism, not a static body of knowledge.

B


--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org
<brentn at freeshell.org>








From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Aug 21 02:14:21 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:14:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQWJnxYGhP-A_k02K6zitT5_J6jhMf_xeGvhGi4xUU-oA@mail.gmail.com>

I have now heard about this through two of my circles.
I've signed up.

2011/8/19 Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>:
> I already signed up !
> Giovanni
> PS
> Can you help with homework ; P
>
> 2011/8/19 spike <spike66 at att.net>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Stand tall, me lads and lasses of Extropia!
>>
>>
>>
>> We are going to break out of the funk we have been in? for the last couple
>> years, and this is our crowbar: Stanford is trying an interesting experiment
>> whereby they are offering an interesting course completely online, no cost,
>> just sign up and study like you were back in college:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
>>
>>
>>
>> You can take online quizzes and tests, measure your progress, all the
>> stuff we used to do so tragically many years ago.? Let?s get with it, a
>> bunch of us take this, and liven the discussion here beyond the subtle
>> shades of meaning between twin words.
>>
>>
>>
>> Who is with me?
>>
>>
>>
>> spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ps Whoever it is putting together Singularity Hub, THANK YOU, and double
>> plus THANK YOU!? You guys are on it!? Your stuff is EXCELLENT!? Keith
>> Kleiner?? Aaron Saenz?? Why the heck are you guys not hanging out on
>> ExI-chat?? We will drop the wordplay!? For a while anyway.? {8^D? Anyone
>> here friends with Keith and Aaron?? Do invite them.? s
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 alito at organicrobot.com  Sun Aug 21 08:54:45 2011
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:54:45 +1000
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <010001cc5ee7$4e024650$ea06d2f0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<4E4F2165.2040203@sbcglobal.net>
	<010001cc5ee7$4e024650$ea06d2f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E50C7D5.9070901@organicrobot.com>

Btw, the more mathematically-inclined among you might enjoy the related
subject being offered better: http://ml-class.org/

On 08/20/11 13:14, spike wrote:
> ?
> 
> Who is with me?
> 
>  
> 
> spike
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> *From:*extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *G. Livick
> *Sent:* Friday, August 19, 2011 7:52 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list; L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D.
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
> 
>  
> 
> 
>>?I suspect I already know all there is to know on this subject, but I'll
> log in just to see if anything has changed since my last major
> breakthrough :-).  It will be interesting to observe if this class takes
> us outside the world of sensor fusion and fuzzy algorithms.  Maybe a new
> feature will be introduced, something like human-like_abstraction.h.
> 
>>?Thanks for the referral, Spike!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Actually the AI is only part of what I find interesting.  If
> universities start doing this, it shatters the entire traditional
> paradigm of learning that is thousands of years old.  This goes beyond
> the Learning Company products, which are quite good, but those are just
> traditional lectures someone recorded and offered for sale.  This is
> good, but the Stanford AI class goes beyond it.  They offer evaluation
> of quizzes and tests, some limited interaction of sorts, a means to
> track your progress.  The instructors are world class.  So now it makes
> it clear that if you pay the substantial fee to enroll at Stanford, all
> you are actually buying are the credentials.  The actual knowledge is
> being given away free, but you pay dearly if you want an actual piece of
> paper that says you know the material.  Fascinating.
> 
>  
> 
> spike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From sjatkins at mac.com  Sun Aug 21 19:27:18 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:27:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
Message-ID: <91212EF8-2BA2-447B-9745-907825B79A23@mac.com>


On Aug 19, 2011, at 6:34 PM, spike wrote:

>  
>  
> Stand tall, me lads and lasses of Extropia!
>  
> We are going to break out of the funk we have been in  for the last couple years, and this is our crowbar: Stanford is trying an interesting experiment whereby they are offering an interesting course completely online, no cost, just sign up and study like you were back in college:
>  
> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5feb6d8d6b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
>  
> You can take online quizzes and tests, measure your progress, all the stuff we used to do so tragically many years ago.  Let?s get with it, a bunch of us take this, and liven the discussion here beyond the subtle shades of meaning between twin words.
>  
> Who is with me?

Already signed up.  I read through most of the material some time back but it sounds like and interesting educational experience.

-s

>  
> spike
>  
>  
> Ps Whoever it is putting together Singularity Hub, THANK YOU, and double plus THANK YOU!  You guys are on it!  Your stuff is EXCELLENT!  Keith Kleiner?  Aaron Saenz?  Why the heck are you guys not hanging out on ExI-chat?  We will drop the wordplay!  For a while anyway.  {8^D  Anyone here friends with Keith and Aaron?  Do invite them.  s
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Aug 21 22:13:00 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:13:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>



>...But you had to love the unbridled optimism the early computer scientists
had about how soon they would be doing intelligent stuff...
:-)

We had plenty of unbridled optimism, that I can calmly assure you.  In
college, one of our favorite mental exercises was to try to determine what
tasks computers could never accomplish.  We couldn't think of much they
could never do.

>...So when did you encounter your first computer? I ran into something like
a PDP-11 as a boy scout in around 1979...

In 1979, I was programming something EXACTLY like a PDP-11, making tools to
help my mother's accounting business.  It was a DEC 11-750.

>> Callow youth!  Back when I took pattern recognition, patterns hadn't yet
been invented...

I asked my Pattern Recognition classmate, hey, do you see any pattern here?
He said, No of course not, thou silly person, the earth is without form and
void.

Nothing much happened in pattern recognition until that whole Let there be
light incident.  Within a few days, humans began to see patterns everywhere.
You can read about it here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=KJV

spike



From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 02:54:44 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:24:44 +0930
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>

I'm signed up, an extro study group for this would be *awesome*.

btw, have a look at Google+ as an adjunct to this; the Hangouts
feature would be brilliant. Hangouts is where you can have up to 10
people in a group video chat at once, really easy to kick off. That'd
be amazing for a study group.

(And, btw, you can now kick off Hangouts from youtube vids, and all
watch a vid together. Serious potential in the study space there!)

On 22 August 2011 07:43, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>>...But you had to love the unbridled optimism the early computer scientists
> had about how soon they would be doing intelligent stuff...
> :-)
>
> We had plenty of unbridled optimism, that I can calmly assure you. ?In
> college, one of our favorite mental exercises was to try to determine what
> tasks computers could never accomplish. ?We couldn't think of much they
> could never do.
>
>>...So when did you encounter your first computer? I ran into something like
> a PDP-11 as a boy scout in around 1979...
>
> In 1979, I was programming something EXACTLY like a PDP-11, making tools to
> help my mother's accounting business. ?It was a DEC 11-750.
>
>>> Callow youth! ?Back when I took pattern recognition, patterns hadn't yet
> been invented...
>
> I asked my Pattern Recognition classmate, hey, do you see any pattern here?
> He said, No of course not, thou silly person, the earth is without form and
> void.
>
> Nothing much happened in pattern recognition until that whole Let there be
> light incident. ?Within a few days, humans began to see patterns everywhere.
> You can read about it here:
>
> http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=KJV
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 22 04:52:34 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:52:34 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00bb01cc6087$500a3740$f01ea5c0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Emlyn
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

>...I'm signed up, an extro study group for this would be *awesome*...

Thanks Emlyn, I was hoping someone would say something like that.  You
summed it up nicely.

>...btw, have a look at Google+ as an adjunct to this; the Hangouts feature
would be brilliant. Hangouts is where you can have up to 10 people in a
group video chat at once, really easy to kick off. That'd be amazing for a
study group... Emlyn

Hmm, I am open to suggestion on that kind of format, but until someone gets
that going, do let us discuss the heck out of this topic here in this format
in this forum.  It fits nicely with the vision of the Extropian Principles:

http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm

This evening I called an old friend and former college roommate about this
class and now he signed on and is all fired upwardly.  He is the one I used
to debate on what computers can eventually be made to do.  He grew up to be
an actual programmer, does avionics and makes buttloads of money.  He and I
still talk about topics we were on so tragically many years ago,
proto-extropian topics, things we talked about in college, just before the
Let there be light business.

Emlyn, or others, do suggest ways to do the Stanford AI discussion.  Do we
need to have a separate group or will the rest of you bear with us?  What I
suggest is that we keep all that discussion on this list but be mindful of
subject line discipline and have somewhere in the subject line Stanford AI.
Then those not interested in the topic can set their email filters to drop
those messages into the bit bucket, but the content will go into the
ExI-archives.  Sound like a plan?

I am looking forward to the class starting and the discussion here.  Perhaps
we can even discuss homework here?  Any objections from non-AI fans,
assuming we maintain subject line discipline?  Counter suggestions?

spike






From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 22 05:01:57 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:01:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>


Have we any Lisp hipsters here?

I have been getting back up to speed on my Python coding, but I never did
study Lisp, and it looks confusing.  I know we have a bunch of code jockeys
and gurus of various scripting languages, but who here knows from Lisp?  I
know Microsloth VBA and have written a lot of code in that, but it is nearly
useless for AI and isn't object oriented: it doesn't allow user-defined
functions.  Who are our professional coders?  Samantha?  Others?

spike







From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 05:28:05 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:28:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSrew4fWp3HKtU-VTJfObo6h_zsrbLc8aEZKYGeeVat+Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 10:01 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?

I've messed with Lisp.  It's still on my resume.  I've never had a use
for it since college...until now.


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 22 05:27:49 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:27:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bb01cc6087$500a3740$f01ea5c0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bb01cc6087$500a3740$f01ea5c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <00bd01cc608c$3cc3bad0$b64b3070$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of spike

>...What I suggest is that we keep all that discussion on this list but be
mindful of subject line discipline and have somewhere in the subject line
Stanford AI.
Then those not interested in the topic can set their email filters to drop
those messages into the bit bucket, but the content will go into the
ExI-archives.  Sound like a plan?  spike



Regarding over-posting guidelines, I would propose that any messages about
the Stanford AI class be temproarily immune from the ordinary 5 posts a day
guidelines for over-posting for the duration of the class, 10 October thru
the middle of December 2011.  Recall we had a temporary open season on a
cryonics topic a few months ago which I thought would be of general interest
to the Extro-chat crowd.  That worked great, we had good subject line
discipline, everyone stayed on topic for the one open season topic, and I
received not one single complaint the whole time, both times we did it.  So
if no one objects or counter-suggests, I would propose if anyone posts
several messages about the Stanford AI class or homework or anything
directly related to that, and the subject line has something in it which
includes "Stanford ai" to allow the others to filter it, then those messages
do not count against the normal five a day guideline.  If ExI-chat gets too
busy and people complain, we can rethink it, and perhaps start a separate
subgroup.  Otherwise temporary open season on Stanford AI?

Would that work for non-AI-ers here?  Counter suggestions?

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 22 05:45:48 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:45:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSrew4fWp3HKtU-VTJfObo6h_zsrbLc8aEZKYGeeVat+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNSrew4fWp3HKtU-VTJfObo6h_zsrbLc8aEZKYGeeVat+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00c401cc608e$bef03ea0$3cd0bbe0$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 10:01 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> ...Have we any Lisp hipsters here?

>...I've messed with Lisp.  It's still on my resume.  I've never had a use
for it since college...until now.
_______________________________________________


Good thanks, Adrian are you willing to advise or explain to the Stanford AI
group if called upon?  Or failing that, do you have a good online reference
site or link you could suggest?

First question, what's with all those parentheses?  Are those really
necessary?  {8^D

So far, no one has objected to an open season on Stanford AI posts.  Does
anyone here need help setting up a spam filter?  In Microsloth Outlook you
can go directly under the tools menu and go into the Create Rules function,
and fix that to automatically send to the trash any topic without trashing
the other stuff that particular poster might post.  Good chance the other
mail programs have something analogous to de-clutter your inbox if you
aren't interested in AI.  Natasha, does that sound reasonable to have an
open season for specifically Stanford AI discussions here?  Sure beats
arguing over subtle meanings of twin words, ja?

Idea: during the open season, some may filter any message in which the
subject line contains both AI and Stanford.  So if you have a post which is
about either AI or Stanford but isn't about the Thrun class and you don't
want half the list dumping, just spell out in the subject line artificial
intelligence or intentionally misspell Stannford.

spike






From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 06:10:28 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 23:10:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00c401cc608e$bef03ea0$3cd0bbe0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNSrew4fWp3HKtU-VTJfObo6h_zsrbLc8aEZKYGeeVat+Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<00c401cc608e$bef03ea0$3cd0bbe0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTV2BxrZSababxAws_y14hsamP1ZojuFp5A8vKXy62DPg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 10:45 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Good thanks, Adrian are you willing to advise or explain to the Stanford AI
> group if called upon? ?Or failing that, do you have a good online reference
> site or link you could suggest?

I've signed up for the class.  I'd have to check some notes to brush up on it
myself.  The first place I'd point people to is those same notes.

> First question, what's with all those parentheses? ?Are those really
> necessary? ?{8^D

While any given example might or might not have unnecessary ones, most
of them are.  For example, where C-style languages might have "f(x)', LISP
uses "(f x)".  Similarly, instead of "a + b", you have "(+ a b)".

Skim http://www.cs.sfu.ca/CC/310/pwfong/Lisp/1/tutorial1.html for some
further basics.



From giulio at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 06:37:02 2011
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:37:02 +0200
Subject: [ExI] VIDEO - Suzanne Gildert on Hack the Multiverse!, OpenQwaq,
	August 21 2011
Message-ID: <CAKTCJycibpG1KvDiCt1bY1Kz0K6PBkgKiOYdtrGJ4S_XQXvCqw@mail.gmail.com>

VIDEO - Suzanne Gildert on Hack the Multiverse!, OpenQwaq, August 21 2011
http://telexlr8.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/suzanne-gildert-on-hack-the-multiverse-openqwaq-august-21-2011/


From sjatkins at mac.com  Mon Aug 22 09:13:36 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:13:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3BEB4BE8-C7C2-4CD3-94DE-79FFDA9C5BE7@mac.com>


On Aug 21, 2011, at 10:01 PM, spike wrote:

> 
> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?

Yes, though does one ever finish mastering lisp?  It is more art than most languages and environments.

Practical Common Lisp is online for free as is the wonderful On Lisp.  The first is a better beginner to intermediate guide.  

> 
> I have been getting back up to speed on my Python coding, but I never did
> study Lisp, and it looks confusing.  

Python, while not lisp, is capable of some pretty neat things.  Have you worked with inner functions, list comprehensions, or generators by any chance?   Passed functions to other functions (higher order functions)?   

> I know we have a bunch of code jockeys
> and gurus of various scripting languages, but who here knows from Lisp?  I
> know Microsloth VBA and have written a lot of code in that, but it is nearly
> useless for AI and isn't object oriented: it doesn't allow user-defined
> functions.  Who are our professional coders?  Samantha?  Others?

Sure.  Coding for bread for over three decades, mostly not in as interesting languages as lisp.    From what I have seen of AIMA code it doesn't used so many advanced features.  Most of its algorithms are available for free code in Python as well as in Lisp.  I doubt it delves deeply into lisp lore. 

- samantha



From sjatkins at mac.com  Mon Aug 22 09:21:23 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:21:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>


On Aug 19, 2011, at 10:03 PM, spike wrote:

> 
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of G. Livick
> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 9:29 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>  
> I'm working on signing up.
> 
> FutureMan  
> 
> Work no more.  Go here:
>  
> http://www.ai-class.com/
>  
> Enter your name and your email @, hit the sign up button.  The class starts on 10 October.
>  
> The textbook is expensive, but I found a previous edition on Amazon for a fifth the price of the current one.

You are not doing yourself any favors using the cheaper previous version as that is not what the class will use.  The new one is much better anyway.


>  
> This is a smart enough group, I want to see some in-depth discussions, and perhaps some criticism of the concepts.  I am hoping this class is the catalyst to get some fizz going on ExI-chat.

Criticism of the concepts and especially techniques of narrow AI (which is what this is) before you have learned them does not seem worthwhile.  If they are covering as much as stated many of us will be scrambling to upgrade rusty skill sets. 

- samantha

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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 12:07:49 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:07:49 +0100
Subject: [ExI] The lights are going out
Message-ID: <CAL_armhP8vwhW1hOGCbph9WSFGkQsyGSsQe5nM4heZoo7QO8xA@mail.gmail.com>

Galaxies are running out of gas
A new study has shown why the lights are going out in the Universe.
August 22, 2011

The Universe forms fewer stars than it used to, and a CSIRO study has
now shown why - the galaxies are running out of gas.
<http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-galaxies-gas.html>

Quote:
"The drop-off in both gas availability and star formation seems to
have started around the time that Dark Energy took control of the
Universe," Dr Braun said.

Up until that time, gravity dominated the Universe, so the gas was
naturally pulled in to galaxies, but then the effect of Dark Energy
took over and the Universe started expanding faster and faster.

This accelerating expansion will have made it increasingly difficult
for galaxies to capture the additional gas they need to fuel future
generations of star formation, Dr Braun speculates.
------------


So the far future looks dark.


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 22 14:32:09 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:32:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
Message-ID: <011801cc60d8$46d81330$d4883990$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins
.

 

.
.

 

 

>>.This is a smart enough group, I want to see some in-depth discussions,
and perhaps some criticism of the concepts.  I am hoping this class is the
catalyst to get some fizz going on ExI-chat. spike

 

>.Criticism of the concepts and especially techniques of narrow AI (which is
what this is) before you have learned them does not seem worthwhile.  If
they are covering as much as stated many of us will be scrambling to upgrade
rusty skill sets.  - Samantha

 

Ja, that is a lot of how I am hoping to use this class.  In general it feels
to me like the very broad field of AI is deeply divided into fractions that
do not talk to each other.  Even if you focus down on AGI, it immediately
divides itself into the singularity crowd, the game learning crowd, the
neural net old timers, friendly AI sorts such as Eliezer, and plenty of
others.  If you have ever been to Eliezer's events, you find plenty of
people with very similar interests who do not share views on basics and
don't seem to creating much synergy.

 

spike

 

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From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Aug 22 15:36:38 2011
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:36:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] H+ Leadership Event - September 15th in Second Life!
Message-ID: <17C324F867404E23B852C3FD8FEA11D7@DFC68LF1>


Humanity+ next event is being held in Second life!
Date:  September 15, 2011
Time:  9:00 PM EST
Teleport to SL:  Terasem Island Coordinates - 121:155:30
 
Join us for the H+ Leadership @ Second Life event. Guest speakers will cover
some of the recent innovations in technology and design in addressing the
question: What can humanity do now to develop a more innovative future?  As
Howard Bloom suggests:  "A civilization that looks up goes up.  A
civilization that looks down goes down.  Right now we are looking down. The
H+ message can lift our eyes ..." 
 
The leadership event focuses its gaze on possibilities that foster a
necessary rational for more fluid, innovative thinking.
 
Come to the leadership event to find out what others are thinking and saying
about Humanity+.  If you are not a member and who like to join Humanity+ go
to  <http://humanityplus.org/join/join-hplus/>
http://humanityplus.org/join/join-hplus/  If you have any questions about
the leadership event, please email us at info at humanityplus.org
 
We hope to see you there!
 
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From sjatkins at mac.com  Mon Aug 22 17:21:15 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:21:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <011801cc60d8$46d81330$d4883990$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<011801cc60d8$46d81330$d4883990$@att.net>
Message-ID: <C5BFDB90-DF65-4782-92F9-A90FFB027615@mac.com>


On Aug 22, 2011, at 7:32 AM, spike wrote:

>  
>  
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins
> ?
>  
> ?
> ?
>  
>  
> >>?This is a smart enough group, I want to see some in-depth discussions, and perhaps some criticism of the concepts.  I am hoping this class is the catalyst to get some fizz going on ExI-chat? spike
>  
> >?Criticism of the concepts and especially techniques of narrow AI (which is what this is) before you have learned them does not seem worthwhile.  If they are covering as much as stated many of us will be scrambling to upgrade rusty skill sets.  ? Samantha
>  
> Ja, that is a lot of how I am hoping to use this class.  In general it feels to me like the very broad field of AI is deeply divided into fractions that do not talk to each other.  Even if you focus down on AGI, it immediately divides itself into the singularity crowd, the game learning crowd, the neural net old timers, friendly AI sorts such as Eliezer, and plenty of others.  If you have ever been to Eliezer?s events, you find plenty of people with very similar interests who do not share views on basics and don?t seem to creating much synergy.

I have not seen quite so much seeming division in the narrow AI field and likely will not in this course form a rather unified highly rated text.  Reading the papers of the AGI conference also dose not give as much feel of division as mailing lists and impromptu discussions seem to.  Of course there are wide divisions in approach to AGI but that is bound to happen with any goal we don't have a really thorough generally accepted idea how to achieve.    This course is more about AI techniques as they have been proven of some value to date.

- s




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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 22 18:08:44 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:08:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] derivative discussion: ai in first person shooter games? was
	RE: ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <019901cc60f6$885fc1e0$991f45a0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins
.

 

I have not seen quite so much seeming division in the narrow AI field and
likely will not in this course form a rather unified highly rated text.
Reading the papers of the AGI conference also dose not give as much feel of
division as mailing lists and impromptu discussions seem to.  Of course
there are wide divisions in approach to AGI but that is bound to happen with
any goal we don't have a really thorough generally accepted idea how to
achieve.    This course is more about AI techniques as they have been proven
of some value to date.  - s

 

 

Good cool thanks.  

 

Do we have any hipsters here on how first person shooter video games work?
If I am playing WW2 Fighter Planes for instance, how do the software Nazis
know what to do?  Is that an enormous lookup table, derived from watching
humans play?  I can't imagine the computer is somehow deriving some of the
clever strategies I have seen.  For instance, if you go against a Nazi Me262
in a piston and prop fighter, the jet is faster but less maneuverable,
especially at lower speeds.  The 262 has its guns in the nose whereas the
P52 has guns in the wings, so the Me can shoot straighter.  So the winning
strategy for the Nazi is to outrun the Yank, get way ahead, turn pi radians
and come charging like a jousting knight, both with guns blazing.  The Nazi
can actually win most of those, with the fuselage mounted guns.  

 

How does a computer go thru that line of reasoning?  Does it?  Surely it
learned the strategy from human play and is using a huge lookup table?  It
must be a big table indeed, because you can play that game a bunch of times
and not see the exact same scenario.  I am pretty sure it couldn't be an
example of AI.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From sparge at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 20:29:45 2011
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:29:45 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <005901cc5eb0$32e03030$98a09090$@att.net>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
	<CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>
	<005901cc5eb0$32e03030$98a09090$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2c2Y_eXS15_TS+xS5DYfWWAngDLZ4j8MiHQbEpHwOgbYQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/19 spike <spike66 at att.net>

> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:
> extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Dave Sill
> *?*****
>
>  ****
>
> Isaac?s generation will mostly grow up completely unaware of television.
> It?s dead, Jim.****
>
> ** **
>
>  It's still a good source of content. Youtube is great, but it can't
> currently fund a production like "Game of Thrones"?-Dave****
>
> **
>
> Ja, but I see the lack of controllability as an inherent show stopper for
> the post y2k generation.  They just will not relate to it, very much
> analogous to how you and I never took up with radio dramas.
>

I think you overestimate the post y2k generation's desire for being able to
control the story line. A great story doesn't require the listener's ability
to influence it. Hamlet, for example, wouldn't be improved by having a
handful of alternative endings that the reader/participant could select.
It's not even necessarily improved by being rendered as a play or movie vs.
being read. And games aren't automatically more entertaining than stories.

I never took up with radio dramas because the medium was dead, having been
supplanted by TV.


>   The advanced online gaming community provides plenty of content, with
> user input.
>

Gaming can be great, but it's not the same thing as video entertainment.

-Dave
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug 22 22:30:47 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:30:47 -0600
Subject: [ExI] fun essay by penn jillette
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2c2Y_eXS15_TS+xS5DYfWWAngDLZ4j8MiHQbEpHwOgbYQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002201cc5e28$f7da3f80$e78ebe80$@att.net>
	<CAGSKFy3QegDGYQ6m_siOXz+yeH-kL3fxea=ye3tUNBVV8cBRew@mail.gmail.com>
	<009601cc5e82$4017e910$c047bb30$@att.net>
	<CAM5aL2cbq4oEZOMFYagpa8kjEOMEMMbK5su7TQB30EyPz1q1XA@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAM5aL2c2Y_eXS15_TS+xS5DYfWWAngDLZ4j8MiHQbEpHwOgbYQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYz1q608tQTV61s_LCg4v4m_XFSZy0Gq9Z7CAJKrotznQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/22 Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com>:
> I think you overestimate the post y2k generation's desire for being able to
> control the story line. A great story doesn't require the listener's ability
> to influence it. Hamlet, for example, wouldn't be improved by having a
> handful of alternative endings that the reader/participant could select.
> It's not even necessarily improved by being rendered as a play or movie vs.
> being read. And games aren't automatically more entertaining than stories.
> I never took up with radio dramas because the medium was dead, having been
> supplanted by TV.

One of the richest experiences I've ever had was listening to the
entire Gunsmoke series of radio dramas. I did this about four years
ago. The quality of story telling was so far superior to that of
today's television was stark. It's one of the few things I've ever
paid for on the Internet. I'm so glad I did.

-Kelly


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Tue Aug 23 17:49:32 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:49:32 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
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	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
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	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbJdd=RoLoszhXvNKz9Szm8uubZwvgbrZi+wKtZo-fJbA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 11:01 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?
>
> I have been getting back up to speed on my Python coding, but I never did
> study Lisp, and it looks confusing. ?I know we have a bunch of code jockeys
> and gurus of various scripting languages, but who here knows from Lisp? ?I
> know Microsloth VBA and have written a lot of code in that, but it is nearly
> useless for AI and isn't object oriented: it doesn't allow user-defined
> functions. ?Who are our professional coders? ?Samantha? ?Others?

I'm a professional programmer. I haven't used LISP in a long time, but
I remember it. I "got it", but at the same time I found it so
cumbersome to work in that I never thought it was much good for any of
the projects I was interested in. It is very good for natural language
processing, and for code that writes code... which is very
interesting, but confusing as hell! :-)

So LISP is a nice thing to know... and it is very simple to learn...
basically it goes like this

(Operator Operand Operand ...) with 1 or more operands, that
themselves can be this root structure.

Most LISPs have a way to create new Operators too (functions and
procedures) so you don't have to have the whole program in one list.

The tricky part is figuring out how to make useful stuff from such
simple pieces... but it isn't all that bad. I somehow doubt that the
AI class at Stanford will do much with LISP... although I understand
that at least for a while, it was the first programming language
taught everyone at MIT. Weird choice, but MIT is a weird place.
Stanford too, but I suspect a different kind of weird place. We'll
see!

-Kelly



From sjatkins at mac.com  Tue Aug 23 19:13:10 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:13:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwbJdd=RoLoszhXvNKz9Szm8uubZwvgbrZi+wKtZo-fJbA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbJdd=RoLoszhXvNKz9Szm8uubZwvgbrZi+wKtZo-fJbA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E53FBC6.9040104@mac.com>

On 08/23/2011 10:49 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 11:01 PM, spike<spike66 at att.net>  wrote:
>> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?
>>
>> I have been getting back up to speed on my Python coding, but I never did
>> study Lisp, and it looks confusing.  I know we have a bunch of code jockeys
>> and gurus of various scripting languages, but who here knows from Lisp?  I
>> know Microsloth VBA and have written a lot of code in that, but it is nearly
>> useless for AI and isn't object oriented: it doesn't allow user-defined
>> functions.  Who are our professional coders?  Samantha?  Others?
> I'm a professional programmer. I haven't used LISP in a long time, but
> I remember it. I "got it", but at the same time I found it so
> cumbersome to work in that I never thought it was much good for any of
> the projects I was interested in. It is very good for natural language
> processing, and for code that writes code... which is very
> interesting, but confusing as hell! :-)

Then you didn't get it.  :)  Especially you didn't fully get macros or 
you would have tuned the language to exactly what you wanted and needed.

> So LISP is a nice thing to know... and it is very simple to learn...
> basically it goes like this
>
> (Operator Operand Operand ...) with 1 or more operands, that
> themselves can be this root structure.

That is about like describing only the function call of any language.  
It doesn't tell you anything about why lisp is different.
Check out:
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html



> Most LISPs have a way to create new Operators too (functions and
> procedures) so you don't have to have the whole program in one list.
>

All lisps have this.  All functions and macros, except for a tiny number 
of special operators, are user level equivalent. Any lisp without both 
first class functions and macros is not lisp.

- samantha



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 23 23:36:05 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:36:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
Message-ID: <000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>

 

Cool my Norvig textbook arrived today.

 

Object oriented coding hipsters please: if I have a spreadsheet that can be
called from a macro within that sheet, how is that any different from a user
defined function?  I recognize that the macro cannot be separated from the
spreadsheet, so in that sense it isn't portable code.  But if you have VBA
macro code which calculates a value, pastes it into a particular sheet in
which you have created a model in that sheet, then does a calculate, then
copies a different cell in that sheet, then that sheet within the workbook
would fit the definition of either an object or as a user defined function?
So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
object oriented language, ja? 

 

spike

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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 23 23:55:00 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:55:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/23 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
> So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
> object oriented language, ja?

Not really, IMO.  It is possible to use the concept of objects
in non-OO languages, and I believe what you describe is an
example of such.


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 24 00:27:13 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:27:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

2011/8/23 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>> So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
object oriented language, ja?

>...Not really, IMO.  It is possible to use the concept of objects in non-OO
languages, and I believe what you describe is an example of such.

OK cool.  I like the spreadsheet programming environment in some ways,
because it lets you see everything that is going on.  If you think of each
individual sheet as an interchangeable module,  the language can even be
considered modular and top-down.  A sheet or a column of cells fits at least
the strict definition of a user defined function and a sheet, column or even
perhaps a single cell fits at least the strict definition of a user defined
function.

I am pushing this notion for a reason.  The engineering environment in which
I work has enormous resources already in excel sheets.  An example would be
an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has evolved over the
years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic index, latitude, longitude,
altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure, a bunch of other minor
factors, and it works really well, but the catch is, it's a spreadsheet.
Porting all that to any other language would be a nightmare.  That
atmosphere model looks to me like an object.  Pressure as a function of
yakkity yak and bla bla would be a user defined function.

spike




From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Aug 23 22:31:51 2011
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:31:51 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Paging Dr. Asimov!
Message-ID: <4E542A57.6070709@satx.rr.com>

This is just so cooool! Unwrapping your robot in free fall:

<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/08/robot-nasa-international-space-station.html>


From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 00:56:54 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:56:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
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On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 5:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> I am pushing this notion for a reason. ?The engineering environment in which
> I work has enormous resources already in excel sheets. ?An example would be
> an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has evolved over the
> years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic index, latitude, longitude,
> altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure, a bunch of other minor
> factors, and it works really well, but the catch is, it's a spreadsheet.
> Porting all that to any other language would be a nightmare.

WARNING!  WARNING!

You are attempting to invoke code reuse, of something that was
never designed to be reusable.

This is an easy to understand notion.  On a small scale, it is
even good.  However, if you wind up trying to do more than
simple projects this way, you will soon find that the overhead
greatly exceeds the cost of just biting the bullet and porting this
into something with simple interfaces.  Maybe have the sheets
running on a server somewhere, with ODBC access set up.

If that sounds like waaay more effort than it's worth - consider
how much you'd be using of that.  Consider, for instance, if
all of that was available to any other - authenticated - Web
browser on a page that wanted to include those functions to
calculate and display the likelihood of hurricane passage in a
given area, to tell some mayor who knows what zip code he's
in whether he should be ordering an evacuation, and if so in
which direction to tell people to flee.  Would it be easier to
ship each mayor that set of Excel sheets, or would it be
easier to set up Web access to those sheets' functions?



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 24 01:52:20 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:52:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] portability of spreadsheet models,
	was RE:  ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <003401cc6200$76f45d70$64dd1850$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 5:57 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 5:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
...
>> example would be an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has
evolved over the years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic 
>> index, latitude, longitude, altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure,
a bunch of other minor factors, and it works really well, but the catch is,
it's a spreadsheet...


>...WARNING!  WARNING!

>...You are attempting to invoke code reuse, of something that was never
designed to be reusable...

It has been reused many times, but in a limited sense.  I have used it to
estimate ascent trajectories of rockets going up through the atmosphere.
Agreed it couldn't be used for predicting hurricane paths.  An example is
when you launch from a particular site, you can enter the local parameters,
then shortly after launch, as you climb you head south, assuming you are
going out of Vandenberg.  Since your latitude is changing, the atmospheric
column is changing as well.  So you can calculate a few hundred milliseconds
ascent, recalculate your latitude, hand that back to the model, have it
recalculate the air column, then do a few hundred more milliseconds, rinse
and repeat.

It is possible that I am working hard to use spreadsheets for this kind of
application, since I know how to do it in a spreadsheet, but not very easily
in Fortran.  Fortran!  See there, I told you I am an old guy.  But I will
give you an insider secret.  Many years ago I was given Lockheed's
atmospheric model in return for entering a whole bunch of data into a
spreadsheet.  Our model was in the form of reams of Fortran code, so I
reverse engineered it into Excel, and put together a product that was one
hell of a lot easier to use for the iterative kinds of calculations I
described above.

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 24 02:15:06 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:15:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] portability of spreadsheet models,
	was RE:  ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <003401cc6200$76f45d70$64dd1850$@att.net>
References: <003401cc6200$76f45d70$64dd1850$@att.net>
Message-ID: <003801cc6203$a4d6db70$ee849250$@att.net>


[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
...


>>...WARNING!  WARNING!

>>...You are attempting to invoke code reuse, of something that was never
designed to be reusable...

>...It has been reused many times, but in a limited sense.  I have used it
to estimate ascent trajectories of rockets going up through the atmosphere.
Agreed it couldn't be used for predicting hurricane paths... spike



Furthermore, there is a good reason for all this biz.  When you get into the
specific class of payloads in which the payload is dense, very small
envelope, high number of individual payloads and expendable, where the
design driver is minimization of cost per payload, then solid rocket
boosters have some compelling advantages.  They have a much lower specific
thrust than the liquids, which means the payload mass fraction is often way
less than 1%.  So if you can really sharpen the old pencil and engineer a kg
out of a radome or nose tip, you can get nearly an extra kg of payload.  

But wait, there's more.

With solids, there is a huge savings in launch infrastructure costs, but it
often forces four stages, which drives the need for at least two aft placed
aerodynamic surfaces.  This is a killer in solids because solids already
have a big problem with the CG being too far aft.  So you often need to
ballast the nose, and ooooh that hurts, so if you can sharpen the pencil
enough to engineer a kg out of an aft aero surface, you can remove some
ballast forward and get more than a kg extra payload.  Now you can see why
we go to extraordinary efforts to know with great precision the air density
at every point in the launch profile: to get some weight out of the second
and third stage fins.

spike



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 13:30:58 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:30:58 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E53FBC6.9040104@mac.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
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	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
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	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbWMZ4edjDwMPRBPBjDH-D+EEdNRp5HKUr-_-WufynQxA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> Then you didn't get it. ?:) ?Especially you didn't fully get macros or you
> would have tuned the language to exactly what you wanted and needed.

Macros and functions don't make LISP all that much easier for those
who don't think in a LISP-like way. Yes, I did get far enough along to
use all that. I programmed in Common LISP on an HP workstation for
around 6 months. I still am not a big fan, not that it's a bad
language, we just had a personality conflict. :-)

>> So LISP is a nice thing to know... and it is very simple to learn...
>> basically it goes like this
>>
>> (Operator Operand Operand ...) with 1 or more operands, that
>> themselves can be this root structure.
>
> That is about like describing only the function call of any language. ?It
> doesn't tell you anything about why lisp is different.
> Check out:
> http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html
> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html

The first and most obvious difference between LISP and other languages
is that it is a prefix language. All by itself, that makes it strange
to most of us. Yes, there are many wonderful things about LISP, and
you can do some things in LISP better than any other language. Doing
all of your day to day programming in LISP is a little like doing all
your woodworking with a draw knife. Yeah, you can do it, maybe, but
it's going to be painful to turn a table leg that way... LISP is a
specialty tool that can be used as a general purpose programming
language, but why would you do that?

>> Most LISPs have a way to create new Operators too (functions and
>> procedures) so you don't have to have the whole program in one list.
>
> All lisps have this. ?All functions and macros, except for a tiny number of
> special operators, are user level equivalent. Any lisp without both first
> class functions and macros is not lisp.

You are right.

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 13:35:56 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:35:56 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYpBTzFu05URbWMQoKdLGRc5ZgGU1e=9XZuXhiP5Z2bcQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/23 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
> Cool my Norvig textbook arrived today.
>
> Object oriented coding hipsters please: if I have a spreadsheet that can be
> called from a macro within that sheet, how is that any different from a user
> defined function?? I recognize that the macro cannot be separated from the
> spreadsheet, so in that sense it isn?t portable code.? But if you have VBA
> macro code which calculates a value, pastes it into a particular sheet in
> which you have created a model in that sheet, then does a calculate, then
> copies a different cell in that sheet, then that sheet within the workbook
> would fit the definition of either an object or as a user defined function?
> So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
> object oriented language, ja?

Programming Excel extensions can be done in a number of ways, some of
which are object oriented and some of which are not. You can separate
VBA functions into separate files, but that doesn't make them object
oriented. It does make them reusable. You can also write extensions in
C# and other .Net languages, which are object oriented. Eventually,
you have to access them from the spreadsheet, but you can do some
pretty amazing things in the Excel environment. I wrote a Real Time
Data server that fetched values off of the Internet and inserted them
into cells. It was object oriented, and it was pretty fun and cool.
There is so much to understand about Excel that I doubt there are very
many people who fully understand all you can do. I certainly don't.

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 13:41:04 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:41:04 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 6:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>
> 2011/8/23 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>>> So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
> object oriented language, ja?
>
>>...Not really, IMO. ?It is possible to use the concept of objects in non-OO
> languages, and I believe what you describe is an example of such.
>
> OK cool. ?I like the spreadsheet programming environment in some ways,
> because it lets you see everything that is going on. ?If you think of each
> individual sheet as an interchangeable module, ?the language can even be
> considered modular and top-down. ?A sheet or a column of cells fits at least
> the strict definition of a user defined function and a sheet, column or even
> perhaps a single cell fits at least the strict definition of a user defined
> function.
>
> I am pushing this notion for a reason. ?The engineering environment in which
> I work has enormous resources already in excel sheets. ?An example would be
> an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has evolved over the
> years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic index, latitude, longitude,
> altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure, a bunch of other minor
> factors, and it works really well, but the catch is, it's a spreadsheet.
> Porting all that to any other language would be a nightmare. ?That
> atmosphere model looks to me like an object. ?Pressure as a function of
> yakkity yak and bla bla would be a user defined function.

What we really need for spreadsheets to more fully reach their full
potential are:
1) Hosted in the cloud (ala Google Spreadsheets)
2) Ability to reference values from other spreadsheets with live
updates (Hyper-references)
3) Ability to access data from anywhere inside the spreadsheet. (HTTP,
web services, etc.)
4) Ability to send notices from Excel to other environments. (email,
sms, web services, etc.)

Give me that and I'll be all over programming in Excel.

-Kelly



From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 13:39:46 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:39:46 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
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	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
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Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+=Kp7byhreo9MvLFJikk=QKAQ8hYTvUnGscii8fTK9kg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 8:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> 2011/8/23 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>>> So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
> object oriented language, ja?
>
>>...Not really, IMO. ?It is possible to use the concept of objects in non-OO
> languages, and I believe what you describe is an example of such.
>
> OK cool. ?I like the spreadsheet programming environment in some ways,
> because it lets you see everything that is going on. ?If you think of each
> individual sheet as an interchangeable module, ?the language can even be
> considered modular and top-down. ?A sheet or a column of cells fits at least
> the strict definition of a user defined function and a sheet, column or even
> perhaps a single cell fits at least the strict definition of a user defined
> function.

The spreadsheet is certainly a powerful user interface, especially in
the hands of someone who actually understands and thinks in that
model.  A problem, from a programming perspective, is that the UI
(view) and the data model and the code (controller(s)) are tangled up
in each other.  Adrian mentions using a web page as the UI and the new
controller code to marshal the web interface back and forth with your
spreadsheet would probably be more of a nightmare than engineering a
cleaner model.  If you want more information on this concept, look for
the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern.  It's the same
principle that tells web designers to keep the HTML, javascript, and
CSS well-separated.  The result of properly implementing this
principle is a certain elegance that makes easier practically
everything you do in the maintenance phase of the life cycle.

Excel's vba macros already treat workbooks/sheets/cells as objects.
You are already taking advantage of a cell object's "change" event,
which triggers a surprisingly complex cascade of (re)calculations.  I
think this native feature of the cell object is what makes the
spreadsheet so powerful for your application.  You are able to express
the relationship of cells in several dimensions (a sheet is 2D,
multiple sheets gives you 3D and multiple workbooks could easily
express 4D spaces if anything can easily express high-dimension
spaces)  There is so much CPU on your desktop today that you don't
even care how much inherent waste is in the cell object for all the
text/background color, number formatting, border information, etc.
Since those calculations would take you hours (days?) to do manually
you are happy to have them take only minutes - but implemented without
all the overhead you'd probably see results in seconds.  If you were
to scale your utility to hundreds of simultaneous users, it would
become worthwhile (or absolutely required) to implement those
calculations/relationships in a more succinct & efficient way.

> I am pushing this notion for a reason. ?The engineering environment in which
> I work has enormous resources already in excel sheets. ?An example would be
> an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has evolved over the
> years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic index, latitude, longitude,
> altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure, a bunch of other minor
> factors, and it works really well, but the catch is, it's a spreadsheet.
> Porting all that to any other language would be a nightmare. ?That
> atmosphere model looks to me like an object. ?Pressure as a function of
> yakkity yak and bla bla would be a user defined function.

Perhaps the whole model is an object.  Maybe that would be useful
metaphor for something like a genetic algorithm that has inputs to the
model as DNA and each genome instances the model and "runs" it.  In
that case you'd literally be instancing hundreds or thousands of
models per generation and you'd probably want to run a few hundred
generations.  Depending on what outcome you are looking for and how
you build the fitness evaluation, that already sounds like enough
computation to turn your computer into a effective foot warmer.

Don't let years of hype around OOP convince you it's the ideal
metaphor for code.  Humans deal with objects in the real world and we
have evolution to thank for preparing us for this environment.  It's
"natural" then to think of problems using the object mentality.  If
the only tool you have is a hammer then all your problems look like
nails.  OOP may not always the best approach.



From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 13:50:41 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:50:41 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwYpBTzFu05URbWMQoKdLGRc5ZgGU1e=9XZuXhiP5Z2bcQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
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	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwYpBTzFu05URbWMQoKdLGRc5ZgGU1e=9XZuXhiP5Z2bcQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLwf47_=FXrV8N0urRA44d-23Fx+P2K8jBieZEKyPx=tw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> pretty amazing things in the Excel environment. I wrote a Real Time
> Data server that fetched values off of the Internet and inserted them
> into cells. It was object oriented, and it was pretty fun and cool.
> There is so much to understand about Excel that I doubt there are very
> many people who fully understand all you can do. I certainly don't.

I started working on an adventure game in Excel 5.  I was using
multiple sheets for terrain, characters/monsters, user-centered
close-up.  The terrain sheet was initially set to black on black and
zoomed to <10% so thousands of cells were in the viewport, as the 9x9
user-view showed each of the terrain cells they'd change to black on
white, revealing a simple automap.  I started working on moving the
NPC's.  I was using keyboard events to drive turns, so all action in
the game was predicated upon player action, so it turned into quite a
challenge.  Somewhere along the way I lost that workbook, so I can't
even share the unfinished product.  :(


From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Aug 24 15:22:17 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:22:17 +0100
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> What we really need for spreadsheets to more fully reach their full
> potential are:
> 1) Hosted in the cloud (ala Google Spreadsheets)
> 2) Ability to reference values from other spreadsheets with live
> updates (Hyper-references)
> 3) Ability to access data from anywhere inside the spreadsheet. (HTTP,
> web services, etc.)
> 4) Ability to send notices from Excel to other environments. (email,
> sms, web services, etc.)
>
> Give me that and I'll be all over programming in Excel.
>
>


Yes, very nice, except for the elephant in the room.

Generally it is estimated that programming in spreadsheets has about
the same error rate as normal programming. i.e. pretty high. But where
a program breaks, a spreadsheet still offers you neat rows and columns
of figures. So most spreadsheets don't get a thorough debugging.

<http://www.strategy-at-risk.com/2009/03/03/the-risk-of-spreadsheet-errors/>

Quote:
Audits done shows that nearly 90% of the spreadsheets contained
serious errors. Code inspection experiments also shows that even
experienced users have a hard time finding errors, succeeding in only
finding 54% on average.

Powell et alii settled for six error types:

   1. Hard-coding in a formula ? one or more numbers appear in
formulas         75%
   2. Reference error ? a formula contains one or more incorrect
references to other cells 11%
   3. Logic error ? a formula is used incorrectly, leading to an
incorrect result    8%
   4. Copy/Paste error ? a formula is wrong due to inaccurate use of copy/paste
   5. Omission error ? a formula is wrong because one or more of its
input cells is blank
   6. Data input error ? an incorrect data input is used
-------------------


BillK



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 24 16:29:21 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:29:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:

>> What we really need for spreadsheets to more fully reach their full
potential are:...
>> Give me that and I'll be all over programming in Excel.


>...Yes, very nice, except for the elephant in the room...
[debugging]...BillK


I was thinking of a different elephant.  Anything written in Excel is in
some sense owned or controlled by the BILL.  It is analogous to building
your dream house on someone else's land.  I have done some really cool
things in Excel, such as the atmosphere model, some iterative numerical
analysis stuff, a model of a bouncing tetrahedron (with graphics!  {8^D), a
sudoku solver, plenty of useful stuff in a programming environment that puts
out solutions in a form useful to the many other excel users in any big
company.  

That last point is important.  We have a lot of Matlab users, a lot of
Labview users, C++ jockeys, all of these being powerful tools for a controls
engineer, indispensible.  But most engineers never use either Matlab or
Labview, and plenty couldn't write a line of code in any language that came
along after Fortran went out of fashion.  On the other hand, every person
who can fog a mirror in a big company such as Lockheeed, down to and
including the guys who empty trash cans and possibly even upper management,
use excel regularly.  So for that possibly bad reason, Excel allows
collaborations where each specialty can create a worksheet.  If you know how
to write a specification for a sheet and know how to integrate other
people's work, you can do some truly amazing stunts in that environment.
But it still belongs to the BILL in some important sense, the one with a G,
not a K.

spike




From max at maxmore.com  Wed Aug 24 18:56:45 2011
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 11:56:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] New Cryonics magazine; Alcor's 107th patient
Message-ID: <CAJX-7wWa1E=gy0HonLo9EtYZvEF+oZnC7=24m-rNinopY0omWA@mail.gmail.com>

It seems to be slow day for the list, so I'm posting two Alcor-related
announcements.

The new issue of Cryonics magazine is out, and includes an article on
intermediate temperature storage (ITS) and one by Michael Rose on new
immortalist strategies:

http://www.alcor.org/magazine/2011/08/16/cryonics-3rd-quarter-2011/

There's also a summary of Alcor's latest case, our 107th patient:

http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=2160

--Max

-- 
Max More
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480/905-1906 ext 113
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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 04:57:31 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:57:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Boing Boing video comedy about America's bleak future
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy2BsbXaWxGmyVxbX0fszbbLg+R2D7pqjTn9XzcCyEjwAw@mail.gmail.com>

Funny, but disturbing at the same time...

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/24/sf-mockumentary-ghosts-with-shit-jobs-china-looks-at-westerners-with-awful-jobs.html

John


From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 04:49:27 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:49:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics magazine article by Dr. Michael Rose about stopping
	aging
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy2=LW6pzFNZXSAD8rH-zG=uxy=0yjRz1UUJx8S-0OK+6A@mail.gmail.com>

"A New Choice for Immortals," by Dr. Michael Rose.  I found this to be
fascinating!

http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/Cryonics2011-3.pdf

John  : )


From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 09:36:54 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:06:54 +0930
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPDEDD-LN7H9751hSjAhu64wsmQFXtgtWPtcLJbyt4bGBw@mail.gmail.com>

On 24 August 2011 23:11, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 6:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>>
>> 2011/8/23 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>>>> So in that loose sense, a spreadsheet with macros could be considered an
>> object oriented language, ja?
>>
>>>...Not really, IMO. ?It is possible to use the concept of objects in non-OO
>> languages, and I believe what you describe is an example of such.
>>
>> OK cool. ?I like the spreadsheet programming environment in some ways,
>> because it lets you see everything that is going on. ?If you think of each
>> individual sheet as an interchangeable module, ?the language can even be
>> considered modular and top-down. ?A sheet or a column of cells fits at least
>> the strict definition of a user defined function and a sheet, column or even
>> perhaps a single cell fits at least the strict definition of a user defined
>> function.
>>
>> I am pushing this notion for a reason. ?The engineering environment in which
>> I work has enormous resources already in excel sheets. ?An example would be
>> an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has evolved over the
>> years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic index, latitude, longitude,
>> altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure, a bunch of other minor
>> factors, and it works really well, but the catch is, it's a spreadsheet.
>> Porting all that to any other language would be a nightmare. ?That
>> atmosphere model looks to me like an object. ?Pressure as a function of
>> yakkity yak and bla bla would be a user defined function.
>
> What we really need for spreadsheets to more fully reach their full
> potential are:
> 1) Hosted in the cloud (ala Google Spreadsheets)
> 2) Ability to reference values from other spreadsheets with live
> updates (Hyper-references)
> 3) Ability to access data from anywhere inside the spreadsheet. (HTTP,
> web services, etc.)
> 4) Ability to send notices from Excel to other environments. (email,
> sms, web services, etc.)

Have you checked out the extent of what you can do in Google
Spreadsheets? I think it ticks all those boxes. Particularly you want
Google Apps Script.

http://code.google.com/googleapps/appsscript/

>
> Give me that and I'll be all over programming in Excel.
>
> -Kelly

Noooooooo!

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 09:50:40 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:20:40 +0930
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>

On 24 August 2011 10:26, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 5:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> I am pushing this notion for a reason. ?The engineering environment in which
>> I work has enormous resources already in excel sheets. ?An example would be
>> an extremely sophisticated atmosphere model, which has evolved over the
>> years, and takes into account F10.7, geomagnetic index, latitude, longitude,
>> altitude, time of day, temperature, pressure, a bunch of other minor
>> factors, and it works really well, but the catch is, it's a spreadsheet.
>> Porting all that to any other language would be a nightmare.
>
> WARNING! ?WARNING!
>
> You are attempting to invoke code reuse, of something that was
> never designed to be reusable.
>
> This is an easy to understand notion. ?On a small scale, it is
> even good. ?However, if you wind up trying to do more than
> simple projects this way, you will soon find that the overhead
> greatly exceeds the cost of just biting the bullet and porting this
> into something with simple interfaces. ?Maybe have the sheets
> running on a server somewhere, with ODBC access set up.
>
> If that sounds like waaay more effort than it's worth - consider
> how much you'd be using of that. ?Consider, for instance, if
> all of that was available to any other - authenticated - Web
> browser on a page that wanted to include those functions to
> calculate and display the likelihood of hurricane passage in a
> given area, to tell some mayor who knows what zip code he's
> in whether he should be ordering an evacuation, and if so in
> which direction to tell people to flee. ?Would it be easier to
> ship each mayor that set of Excel sheets, or would it be
> easier to set up Web access to those sheets' functions?
>

As someone who has had to support giant messes of spreadsheets built
by engineers in my professional life (in the past, thank the FSM), let
me make this observation:

No.

Spreadsheets are fine for temporary/initial/interim solutions, but
long term, they promote crazy spaghetti code, write-only code. It's
un-analyzable, un-maintainable.

Also, code really shouldn't be considered valuable in the way Spike is
suggesting above. Either you understand what the spreadsheets are
doing, and so can do a better implementation of version 2, in a better
environment (anything really). Or, you don't understand what the
spreadsheets are doing (and I suspect there's a lot of that here), and
therefore you can't say that they actually work. If they fail silently
(as Bill K has intimated), and they are impenetrable, then you really
need to assume they are broken. So, again, you need an analysis and a
rewrite.

If you are talking about sharing stuff around a big org, then script
in proprietary files (that you probably email around) is maybe the
worst way you can do it. Instead, if it's critical stuff, why not look
at implementing the same calculations in a web app that everyone can
access? You can always just do the most important stuff first (that
probably doesn't change much), and expose the results in all sorts of
good ways, including CSV outputs and maybe a db view or something like
that which ODBC can talk to, so people can still incorporate the
results into spreadsheets.

I'm sorry if I sound intolerant, but I've got serious battlescars from
dealing with this kind of shit.

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From msd001 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 12:24:09 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:24:09 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLvDYfpTjzewt3nae64f5VkawBqH3Op_2SdqKrZjCuL8g@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 5:50 AM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm sorry if I sound intolerant, but I've got serious battlescars from
> dealing with this kind of shit.

Don't be sorry.  If you (we) are still invested in doing a good job
you must have some sense of stewardship of both the data and the code
that manipulates it.  When everything turns feral your only option is
to put it down.  I think we need more guardians of sanity protecting
the future from chaos.


From msd001 at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 13:12:58 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:12:58 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Twin words
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+2R+BrfsYCzas5VK6MChSgRONqzp4L0hPxOC2K8uB_-g@mail.gmail.com>

After the whole effect/affect thread, spike proposed we find and list
what he called "twin words" that sound similar or are spelled
similarly with similar but different meaning.  It's been on my mind
like a background task.  I feel like this search is the verbal
equivalent of Mersenne Primes.

querulous / quarrelous  (i like these for being uncommon words)
insure/ensure (still used incorrectly despite being common enough words)
moot / mute (also frequently mangled in usage)
waft / whiffed (great relationship between these)
haft / heft (the handle has weight)
internment / interment (you could be freed, the other is permanent
aside from the Zombie Apocalypse)
inter / enter (going into:  the ground or more generally)
marque  / mark (is the "brand" derivative of the "indicator"? )
maze / maize ( only applicable as a twin word because labyrinth are
often made in corn fields before the harvest )

I feel like if one thinks too long on the similar-sound aspect of the
twin word search, the tendency is to find homophones and attempt to
bend their definitions closer to each other:

ale / ail
scents / sense

...or completely go off the road and into territory more applicable to poetry:

wanton / wonton   ( A coworker suggested we end all the wonton
destruction; hilarity ensued )
raise / raze / rays  ( We use rays to raze the old before we raise a
new building )
bean / been ( colloquial pronunciation might force these into an
almost-rhyme in some poems )


I might keep a list as I think of more.  Maybe if I have another
page-worth I'll post again.


From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 14:39:12 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:39:12 +0100
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbLvDYfpTjzewt3nae64f5VkawBqH3Op_2SdqKrZjCuL8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbLvDYfpTjzewt3nae64f5VkawBqH3Op_2SdqKrZjCuL8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armj1EuxDN3TriC9VbXNzc6-h7dT01FVQ+n12bjgevcbvwg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Mike Dougherty  wrote:
> Don't be sorry. ?If you (we) are still invested in doing a good job
> you must have some sense of stewardship of both the data and the code
> that manipulates it. ?When everything turns feral your only option is
> to put it down. ?I think we need more guardians of sanity protecting
> the future from chaos.
>


It's boring, but developing spreadsheets rarely goes through a version
and change control system with a systematic testing program and
backing out of failed versions.

Usually because the user says 'It's just a spreadsheet'. But if you
are attempting to write a proper program in a spreadsheet, then it is
important enough to do proper IT development processes.


BillK



From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Aug 25 15:46:13 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:46:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSN4R5dP+so8cXqXhqkO8G05JjKw4pm+d-6cYxd4XO=5A@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:50 AM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Spreadsheets are fine for temporary/initial/interim solutions, but
> long term, they promote crazy spaghetti code, write-only code. It's
> un-analyzable, un-maintainable.

Agreed.  Problem is, if you have a decade-plus of code in spreadsheets,
it can be really hard (nearly impossible) to make the case to management
that it's time to spend a lot of not-immediately-productive time porting it
to something better - especially if, as in Spike's case, they are
personally invested in the spreadsheets.


From spike66 at att.net  Thu Aug 25 19:52:48 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:52:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Twin words
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdb+2R+BrfsYCzas5VK6MChSgRONqzp4L0hPxOC2K8uB_-g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAOJFdb+2R+BrfsYCzas5VK6MChSgRONqzp4L0hPxOC2K8uB_-g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00c001cc6360$91dd9550$b598bff0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: [ExI] Twin words

>...After the whole effect/affect thread, spike proposed we find and list
what he called "twin words" that sound similar or are spelled similarly with
similar but different meaning.  It's been on my mind like a background task.
I feel like this search is the verbal equivalent of Mersenne Primes...

Excellent analogy.

>...querulous / quarrelous  (i like these for being uncommon words)
insure/ensure (still used incorrectly despite being common enough words)
moot / mute (also frequently mangled in usage) waft / whiffed (great
relationship between these) haft / heft (the handle has weight) internment /
interment (you could be freed, the other is permanent aside from the Zombie
Apocalypse) inter / enter (going into:  the ground or more generally) marque
/ mark (is the "brand" derivative of the "indicator"? ) maze / maize ( only
applicable as a twin word because labyrinth are often made in corn fields
before the harvest )... Mike

Mike is definitely the twin word champion.  The only one even in the class
of these example is the egregious immigration/emigration.  They sound alike,
but simultaneously are either synonyms or antonyms, since both mean moving,
but one is in and the other out.  Should be immigrant and negimmigrant.
Same with stalagmite and stalactite.  Unacceptable.

spike





From spike66 at att.net  Thu Aug 25 20:21:33 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:21:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSN4R5dP+so8cXqXhqkO8G05JjKw4pm+d-6cYxd4XO=5A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>	<CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSN4R5dP+so8cXqXhqkO8G05JjKw4pm+d-6cYxd4XO=5A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00ca01cc6364$95670d60$c0352820$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:50 AM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Spreadsheets are fine for temporary/initial/interim solutions, but 
>> long term, they promote crazy spaghetti code, write-only code. It's 
>> un-analyzable, un-maintainable.

>...Agreed.  Problem is, if you have a decade-plus of code in spreadsheets,
it can be really hard (nearly impossible) to make the case to management
that it's time to spend a lot of not-immediately-productive time porting it
to something better - especially if, as in Spike's case, they are personally
invested in the spreadsheets.
_______________________________________________


This all brings back pleasant memories from my misspent early career.  We
had a pile of Fortran code which calculates rocket ascent trajectories,
which I ported over to a spreadsheet because I found it easier to set up
iterative studies, and also so I could run it at home.  That Fortran code is
dead now, but the spreadsheet lives on.  

An early example from 1991 is this: assuming away the atmosphere, is the
optimal rocket ascent a gravity turn?

If you know what is a gravity turn, skip to the next paragraph.  A gravity
turn is where you have a rocket set to blast into orbit from the surface of
a planet which rotates west to east as the earth does.  It is tilted east as
a slight angle from vertical, perhaps a milliradian, so that in the first
time increment it rises but also tilts slightly more east, then the next
increment slightly more, such that just as it attains orbit velocity it is
flying horizontal.

Answer: on an airless planet, the gravity turn is the optimal ascent.
Closed form solutions are possible.

OK, now assume an earthlike atmosphere, but perfectly still, no wind.  Is a
gravity turn still optimal?  Answer: no.  
Can you prove it in closed form?  Answer: no, not on my best day in my
fondest dream.
Can you show it with a spreadsheet?  Answer: if I am sufficiently clever,
yes.  
Spike, are you sufficiently clever, and feeling enormous satisfaction with
this whole discussion?  Answer: definitely.  {8^D

So interested was I in that question, I took the thing home and had my Apple
Mac2 grind on it for several days.  Fun little project.  That actually
predated Excel macros.

I still have that atmosphere model.  Keith, that is the sheet I used to
discover that minor error in your friend Herr Doktor's Neptune paper from
1970, remind me his name?

 spike



From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 00:09:02 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:39:02 +0930
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00ca01cc6364$95670d60$c0352820$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQ4-mTiRkuqPGC7Spk2-BN8FsstWQ1rA9TG4Yj5x77ypg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPDweESyP0zjWQ6WfSTWRrcvVyFUE525bbTmTSRXRj8MVg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSN4R5dP+so8cXqXhqkO8G05JjKw4pm+d-6cYxd4XO=5A@mail.gmail.com>
	<00ca01cc6364$95670d60$c0352820$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPDFXWr2CkcwcOfLKoPq038Z8pjm4_UXRKa1ZdGamgAosg@mail.gmail.com>

On 26 August 2011 05:51, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>
> On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:50 AM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Spreadsheets are fine for temporary/initial/interim solutions, but
>>> long term, they promote crazy spaghetti code, write-only code. It's
>>> un-analyzable, un-maintainable.
>
>>...Agreed. ?Problem is, if you have a decade-plus of code in spreadsheets,
> it can be really hard (nearly impossible) to make the case to management
> that it's time to spend a lot of not-immediately-productive time porting it
> to something better - especially if, as in Spike's case, they are personally
> invested in the spreadsheets.
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> This all brings back pleasant memories from my misspent early career. ?We
> had a pile of Fortran code which calculates rocket ascent trajectories,
> which I ported over to a spreadsheet because I found it easier to set up
> iterative studies, and also so I could run it at home. ?That Fortran code is
> dead now, but the spreadsheet lives on.
>
> An early example from 1991 is this: assuming away the atmosphere, is the
> optimal rocket ascent a gravity turn?
>
> If you know what is a gravity turn, skip to the next paragraph. ?A gravity
> turn is where you have a rocket set to blast into orbit from the surface of
> a planet which rotates west to east as the earth does. ?It is tilted east as
> a slight angle from vertical, perhaps a milliradian, so that in the first
> time increment it rises but also tilts slightly more east, then the next
> increment slightly more, such that just as it attains orbit velocity it is
> flying horizontal.
>
> Answer: on an airless planet, the gravity turn is the optimal ascent.
> Closed form solutions are possible.
>
> OK, now assume an earthlike atmosphere, but perfectly still, no wind. ?Is a
> gravity turn still optimal? ?Answer: no.
> Can you prove it in closed form? ?Answer: no, not on my best day in my
> fondest dream.
> Can you show it with a spreadsheet? ?Answer: if I am sufficiently clever,
> yes.
> Spike, are you sufficiently clever, and feeling enormous satisfaction with
> this whole discussion? ?Answer: definitely. ?{8^D
>
> So interested was I in that question, I took the thing home and had my Apple
> Mac2 grind on it for several days. ?Fun little project. ?That actually
> predated Excel macros.
>
> I still have that atmosphere model. ?Keith, that is the sheet I used to
> discover that minor error in your friend Herr Doktor's Neptune paper from
> 1970, remind me his name?
>
> ?spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>

Spike, have you checked out Google Doc's spreadsheets? Less features
than Excel, for sure, but the scripting language can touch everything
on the web (think: real time feeds from live data "out there") and
they appear to be a lot safer and easier in a multiuser context. I
think you'd like them.

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 01:00:27 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:00:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] web spreadsheets, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <001201cc638b$8bcc5590$a36500b0$@att.net>



...
>
>> I still have that atmosphere model. ?Keith, that is the sheet I used 
>> to discover that minor error in your friend Herr Doktor's Neptune 
>> paper from 1970, remind me his name? ?spike
>
> _______________________________________________




>...Spike, have you checked out Google Doc's spreadsheets? Less features
than Excel, for sure, but the scripting language can touch everything on the
web (think: real time feeds from live data "out there") and they appear to
be a lot safer and easier in a multiuser context. I think you'd like them.

--
Emlyn


Thanks!  I will check that outwardly.

spike




From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 03:32:57 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:02:57 +0930
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSrew4fWp3HKtU-VTJfObo6h_zsrbLc8aEZKYGeeVat+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNSrew4fWp3HKtU-VTJfObo6h_zsrbLc8aEZKYGeeVat+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPD4PJ3qL=vRAMD6ORgx6dmSKerWDBffp4fQZ=MoAup8dw@mail.gmail.com>

On 22 August 2011 14:58, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 10:01 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?
>
> I've messed with Lisp. ?It's still on my resume. ?I've never had a use
> for it since college...until now.

If anyone's looking for some lisp reading, Paul Graham's "On Lisp"
(which I haven't read, but intend to) seems to be one of those great
classics of the computing field. You can buy it for $150 used on
Amazon, or you can just download it free from Paul Graham's web site,
here: http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 03:48:02 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:48:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Emlyn
...

 

>.If anyone's looking for some lisp reading, Paul Graham's "On Lisp"(which I
haven't read, but intend to) seems to be one of those great classics of the
computing field. You can buy it for $150 used on Amazon, or you can just
download it free from Paul Graham's web site, here: 

 

 <http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html>
http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html

--

Emlyn

 

 

Friends, it is exactly this kind of thing that keeps my hopes high that we
are indeed standing on the threshold of a dream.  It was recent enough to be
fresh in our collective memory that knowledge was so very expensive.  Now so
much of it is free, we cannot even collect the gifts in the severely limited
time we have on this old planet.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 04:11:38 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:41:38 +0930
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPCOV9X1kq7FWviSCjxw=Hve5sxhUZAbXSy58CQhZBeFNg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/26 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>>... On Behalf Of Emlyn
> ...
>
>
>
>>?If anyone's looking for some lisp reading, Paul Graham's "On Lisp"(which I
>> haven't read, but intend to) seems to be one of those great classics of the
>> computing field. You can buy it for $150 used on Amazon, or you can just
>> download it free from Paul Graham's web site, here:
>
>
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html
>
> --
>
> Emlyn
>
>
>
>
>
> Friends, it is exactly this kind of thing that keeps my hopes high that we
> are indeed standing on the threshold of a dream.? It was recent enough to be
> fresh in our collective memory that knowledge was so very expensive.? Now so
> much of it is free, we cannot even collect the gifts in the severely limited
> time we have on this old planet.
>
>
>
> spike

I totally agree Spike. We are now, for all practical purposes, in a
world of abundant (non-scarce) information. The problem now is, how do
you get it into your head? We stand in front of the ocean with a
drinking straw.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this problem, here's my
thoughts in detail:

http://point7.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/deep-learning-2-0/
http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/follow-up-to-deep-learning-2-0/

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 04:49:16 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 21:49:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPCOV9X1kq7FWviSCjxw=Hve5sxhUZAbXSy58CQhZBeFNg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPCOV9X1kq7FWviSCjxw=Hve5sxhUZAbXSy58CQhZBeFNg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRb-S+tgT+=TDy0=c+j0UgfXyozc+TR+wYMDb46n2frMw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://point7.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/deep-learning-2-0/
> http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/follow-up-to-deep-learning-2-0/

This sounds similar to http://www.wikihow.com/ .  I would be interested
to get your thoughts on comparing your post to what they're going for.


From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 05:21:01 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:51:01 +0930
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRb-S+tgT+=TDy0=c+j0UgfXyozc+TR+wYMDb46n2frMw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPCOV9X1kq7FWviSCjxw=Hve5sxhUZAbXSy58CQhZBeFNg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNRb-S+tgT+=TDy0=c+j0UgfXyozc+TR+wYMDb46n2frMw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPAVaC_y1NaQWv3Ejx_x1cCaMoOMVB8LnKiNbKCc8_azhQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 26 August 2011 14:19, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://point7.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/deep-learning-2-0/
>> http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/follow-up-to-deep-learning-2-0/
>
> This sounds similar to http://www.wikihow.com/ . ?I would be interested
> to get your thoughts on comparing your post to what they're going for.

Interesting. wikiHows are similar to google's Knols, no?

These guys are close to the basics of what I'm thinking; they have
related wikiHows. But I think you need dependencies "required" rather
than the weaker "related". With "required", you can plot a path from
what you know to what you want to know; given a set of things you know
(Knows), and a Knows/Learns dependency graph, you can find the set of
shortest paths through the graph from the thing you want to know, back
to things you do know, then list all the "learns" encountered along
those paths in order, and lay it out as a list of things to learn.

wikiHow and Gnols were both just the "Learns" under my nomenclature,
each leading to one "Know" (described by the title). Collapsing
"Learns" and "Knows" together is simpler, but I think you then can't
capture more complex relationships between ways of learning things
(notably, one "learn" might give you multiple "knows", and multiple
"learns" could get you to the same "know".

Did you read the stuff about this bootstrapping based on being a tool
for autodidacts to organise their own learning? I'm really interested
in feedback on this, I think it's a crucial part; it's got to be
useful.

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 05:46:16 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:46:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] wikihow.com, was, RE:  free lisp textbook, was:
Message-ID: <005c01cc63b3$7985f620$6c91e260$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was: RE: ai class at stanford

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://point7.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/deep-learning-2-0/
>> http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/follow-up-to-deep-learning-2-0/

>...This sounds similar to http://www.wikihow.com/ .  I would be interested
to get your thoughts on comparing your post to what they're going for.
_______________________________________________

Thanks Adrian, I had never heard of wikihow.com, but it is just what I have
been looking for.  As a community service to a very small community, I have
been thinking of writing an article on how to make proactive repairs to a
Suzuki cavalcade to avoid a possibly fatal rear wheel lockup.  We know of at
least five fatalities and a lot of injuries from that.  I created an
account, in order to explain how to remove the secondary gear case, replace
the faulty part in such a way that it will never fail, then put it all back
together.

Question please: what if I write the article, then some silly prole fails to
follow the instructions right, and makes some mistake that causes a fatal
rear wheel lockup?

spike


Unrelated note: you may notice I have been paying particular attention to
subject line discipline, in light of our declaring a temporary open season
on "ai class at stanford."  One of the consequences of allowing an open
season on that subject is to recommend as soon as you see the topic no
longer is about that particular topic or the homework, the text or the
lectures, do change the subject line forthwith.  Reasoning: I want to let
anyone here not interested in the AI class at Stanford filter that
discussion without missing out on a bunch of stuff posted here not directly
related.  No one has complained about our open season on "ai class at
stanford" and at least one person posted offlist to agree it was a good
idea, since it is a topic of general interest to transhumanists.
 




From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 06:25:32 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:25:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] wikihow.com, was, RE: free lisp textbook, was:
In-Reply-To: <005c01cc63b3$7985f620$6c91e260$@att.net>
References: <005c01cc63b3$7985f620$6c91e260$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRA73bB6Wvx26kz6Lc7BMZShY5y8RMGfb5+4X8odzduEA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:46 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Question please: what if I write the article, then some silly prole fails to
> follow the instructions right, and makes some mistake that causes a fatal
> rear wheel lockup?

Caveat emptor, just like it's always been.  Your advice is worth what they
paid for it.

In particular, you have no liability for them doing something other than what
you said.  If they followed the instructions wrong - well, if they had no
instructions, might they not have screwed it up the same anyway?  Having
the information out there will probably do more good than harm, and that's
all you can judge the worth of some actions by.


From msd001 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 14:22:42 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:22:42 -0400
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825141632.htm

If the relative rarity of this configuration is evidence of
engineering, what might be its purpose?

If not, it's still cool.


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 15:10:05 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:10:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet

>...http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825141632.htm

>...If the relative rarity of this configuration is evidence of engineering,
what might be its purpose?

>...If not, it's still cool.


The relative rarity of this configuration is not evidence of engineering.
On the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume that anything that can be
engineered should be common.

A diamond star is one with original mass in a narrow range below the
CHandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar masses, above which a white dwarf must
eventually become a black hole, and also have angular momentum in the right
range.  As the hydrogen and helium sequences end, the next fusions create
heavier elements.  One of these is carbon.  If the white dwarf is just the
right size, the core begins to fuse carbon and contract, causing the
rotation rate to go way up.  The fusion doesn't proceed to iron because
there isn't enough mass to create sufficient pressure at the core.  There is
sufficient pressure to create diamond from carbon however.  So if a star
initially has just the right range of mass and just the right range of
angular momentum, then as it leaves the main sequence it eventually forms a
rapidly spinning ball of diamond.

Aint nature cool?

{8-]

spike



From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 15:38:33 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:38:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 8:10 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
> Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
>
>>...http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825141632.htm

The article only suggests there's evidence for crystalline carbon.  Why
couldn't it be graphite?

>>...If the relative rarity of this configuration is evidence of engineering,
> what might be its purpose?
>
>>...If not, it's still cool.
>
> The relative rarity of this configuration is not evidence of engineering.
> On the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume that anything that can be
> engineered should be common.

Assuming intelligent life is common.


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 15:57:17 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:57:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>


... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] diamond planet


> Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
>
>>...http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825141632.htm

>...The article only suggests there's evidence for crystalline carbon.  Why
couldn't it be graphite?

The kinds of pressure found in stars forms diamond.  It is more dense than
graphite.

>>>...If the relative rarity of this configuration is evidence of
engineering,
>
>>... The relative rarity of this configuration is not evidence of
engineering.  On the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume that anything
that can 
> be engineered should be common.

>...Assuming intelligent life is common...

Intelligence on this one example of a planet is now on the verge of
colonizing the entire galaxy.  We could have that task started in the next
thousand years and finished within a few million.  If we are the only ones
here, that would in some ways actually make it easier.

spike






From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 16:17:40 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:17:40 +0100
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>
	<005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhvrvj2ZMTJ02S+jRVx1AqbGZWLSOLr8nZ8=TmqXVyMbQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:57 PM, spike wrote:
> Intelligence on this one example of a planet is now on the verge of
> colonizing the entire galaxy. ?We could have that task started in the next
> thousand years and finished within a few million. ?If we are the only ones
> here, that would in some ways actually make it easier.
>
>


You mean we can carry the War on Terror throughout the galaxy?
The profits will be ginormous!


BillK



From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 15:32:24 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:32:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Dr Koelle and spreadsheets was ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 5:00 AM,  "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

snip

> So interested was I in that question, I took the thing home and had my Apple
> Mac2 grind on it for several days. ?Fun little project. ?That actually
> predated Excel macros.
>
> I still have that atmosphere model. ?Keith, that is the sheet I used to
> discover that minor error in your friend Herr Doktor's Neptune paper from
> 1970, remind me his name?

Hermann Koelle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz-Hermann_Koelle

Unfortunately he died (at 85) early this year.

I can no longer find his papers on the net and they don't seem to have
been captured by the Internet Archive.

Keith



From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 16:48:52 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:48:52 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Dr Koelle and spreadsheets was ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiaKRED2uDoqbNNyp93m2HF3c3y3syEFt_TfeB7uZP1wQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Keith Henson  wrote:
> Hermann Koelle
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz-Hermann_Koelle
>
> Unfortunately he died (at 85) early this year.
>
> I can no longer find his papers on the net and they don't seem to have
> been captured by the Internet Archive.
>
>


Some papers here, as PDF files
<http://server02.fb12.tu-berlin.de/ILR/koelle/>



BillK


From scerir at alice.it  Fri Aug 26 17:10:49 2011
From: scerir at alice.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:10:49 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com><1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com><1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com><1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <908707F491D642F48F2766B77182D291@PCserafino>

Dennis May (fwd by Dan):
I do have a horse in the race and it is certainly true that I view string theory as 
interesting
mathematics with little value in physics - certainly not enough value to justify it having
taken over virtually all of theoretical physics everywhere in the world. The 
popularizations
that are still published are virtually all in lock step with perhaps one partially 
interesting book
every 5 years or so about all you can hope for.


# Ed Witten in these lecture pointed out many good (but also bad) reasons
to follow the string theory approach.
http://www.iop.org/resources/videos/lectures/page_44292.html

But I can agree. All that sometimes seems boring and useless.

Not by chance new principles sometimes appear in the literature,
like this "principle of mediocrity" :-)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4990
But the paper by Vilenkin seems good food for thought.




From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 16:39:54 2011
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:39:54 -0300
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5B68E183153848E38C923CEFA67AE614@Notebook>

<Mike Dougherty>
 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825141632.htm
 If the relative rarity of this configuration is evidence of engineering, 
what might be its purpose?
 If not, it's still cool.
</Mike Dougherty>


It makes me wonder. If somehow some advanced alien civ reached us they would 
probably laugh about the thing we give so much monetary value to. "What? 
Diamonds are that expensive for you?" "My bathroom floor is made of it."



From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 18:01:21 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:01:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhvrvj2ZMTJ02S+jRVx1AqbGZWLSOLr8nZ8=TmqXVyMbQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>	<CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>	<005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>
	<CAL_armhvrvj2ZMTJ02S+jRVx1AqbGZWLSOLr8nZ8=TmqXVyMbQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007701cc641a$2abae340$8030a9c0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] diamond planet

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:57 PM, spike wrote:
> Intelligence on this one example of a planet is now on the verge of 
> colonizing the entire galaxy. ?We could have that task started in the 
> next thousand years and finished within a few million. ?If we are the 
> only ones here, that would in some ways actually make it easier.
>
>


>...You mean we can carry the War on Terror throughout the galaxy?
The profits will be ginormous!  BillK


Oooh that kind of talk gets me turned on.  Just thinking of all that
potential profit makes my butt hurt. 

It's a good hurt.

spike




From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 19:55:47 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:55:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <007701cc641a$2abae340$8030a9c0$@att.net>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>
	<005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>
	<CAL_armhvrvj2ZMTJ02S+jRVx1AqbGZWLSOLr8nZ8=TmqXVyMbQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<007701cc641a$2abae340$8030a9c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy3uiA=hKwtB-UaXw5mJhon8p3e6ssc_+1EskQ1e=wv5nQ@mail.gmail.com>

Spike wrote:
Intelligence on this one example of a planet is now on the verge of
colonizing the entire galaxy.  We could have that task started in the next
thousand years and finished within a few million.  If we are the only ones
here, that would in some ways actually make it easier.
>>>


I remember an observation by Isaac Asimov, that within a mere five
thousand years, humanity could overpopulate the galaxy!  But this
would necessitate a FTL drive.

John

On 8/26/11, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of BillK
> Subject: Re: [ExI] diamond planet
>
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:57 PM, spike wrote:
>> Intelligence on this one example of a planet is now on the verge of
>> colonizing the entire galaxy. ?We could have that task started in the
>> next thousand years and finished within a few million. ?If we are the
>> only ones here, that would in some ways actually make it easier.
>>
>>
>
>
>>...You mean we can carry the War on Terror throughout the galaxy?
> The profits will be ginormous!  BillK
>
>
> Oooh that kind of talk gets me turned on.  Just thinking of all that
> potential profit makes my butt hurt.
>
> It's a good hurt.
>
> spike
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 20:23:22 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:23:22 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <201108201729.p7KHTSPp019310@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>
	<201108201729.p7KHTSPp019310@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYd5-j3suktwgVo+PDdRMpV=Xr3XjAqoEjCYBa=8Kud7A@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:30 AM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> ?Kelly wrote:
> Another explanation for what's reported is that minimizing AGP is in the
> perceived interests of the Chinese ruling class, since their
> industrialization
> strategies might be harmed if they conceded its validity. In another era,
> fear of offending TPTB definitely did affect the public stances of
> scientists
> in communist countries, e.g., in the USSR.

Exactly. So, if the government in China can change the outcome of
research done there, why would we assume that our government doesn't
do the same here? I believe that it does, specifically by choosing who
gets grants and who doesn't.

> In the USSR and the PRC, certain fields of research were declared
> "bourgeois pseudoscience," and banned e.g., [from Wikipedia]
>
> << Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired
> inheritance was formally outlawed in 1948, and for the next several years
> opponents were purged from held positions, and many imprisoned. >>

That could have an outcome on research. On the other hand, it appears
to me that the USSR spent way more than we did investigating ESP,
UFOs, remote viewing and other things that we quickly labelled as
pseudo science.

> I'm not clear how strongly scientific research is skewed in the PRC
> nowadays, but the possibility exists that these scientists have made their
> anti-AGP statements out of self-preservation, not from belief in them.

Of course that is possible. Perhaps even probable. But who is to say
that US scientists are not acting from similar motives.

> (This posting should not be taken to address either global warming per
> se or whether skews are also seen in capitalist societies. I'm just
> discussing your conclusion that the Chinese scientists believed what
> they said.)

Good, let's keep it that way. :-)

Culture and zeitgeist has just as much impact on the skewing of
scientific results (at least the ones that get published in peer
reviewed publications) as totalitarian regimes.

To bring up another hot potato, as an example only, nobody would dare
publish a scientific paper today that was viewed as being somehow
anti-gay, even if it were good science. Those kinds of papers would
only get published by the 700 club or similar organizations, where
they lose their potency as "science". So a theoretically good paper
that found some anti-gay correlation would never be viewed as
"science" by the general populace, even if it were well researched and
even ultimately true. Everyone accepts without significant scientific
proof, however, that gay people are more creative, especially if they
are left handed or appear on HGTV... ;-)

-Kelly



From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 20:28:45 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:28:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that could
 change the world
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>

A fascinating io9 article...

http://io9.com/5831904/21-scientific-research-projects-starting-this-fall-that-could-change-the-world

John  : )


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 20:33:52 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:33:52 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <4BCFE69F-DE20-4577-9FE0-7134A7511297@freeshell.org>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E1D6A380-6BD3-493A-9F15-62A88BA9022A@freeshell.org>
	<CAPy8Rwa=XZ9D9_dDGcoahjRWx_DxGHKb4C5p4Yj+=A4Mf_zBcw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4BCFE69F-DE20-4577-9FE0-7134A7511297@freeshell.org>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZ+mSrJAtVLFrCNLqP2p8k4GcLkQdZDcr9x1=z_zB3pUQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
> On 20 Aug, 2011, at 10:52, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> So Brent, why do you think the mass media never even talks about this
>> stuff? Don't us Monday morning physicists deserve to hear about this
>> cool stuff too? :-) ?Is it just too hard to grok the basic concepts?
>> I've never even heard the phrases "Soft Matter" or "Polymer Physics".
>
> Yeah, I honestly don't know why these areas aren't considered 'popular' - there's some pretty clever work being done there. I honestly believe that you don't need to be particularly numerate in order to write a good popular book on these topics - its much more important to have an excellent facility at explaining things conceptually, but with a wicked accuracy and attention to detail. ?So maybe you should write these books? :) ?With de Gennes having passed away a few years back, I'd be willing to bet the market is ripe for a good biography of his work.
>

You would have to be a pretty dang good writer...

> Primarily, soft matter physics is the study of order-disorder phenomena in condensed matter at levels of order between crystalline solids and the classical liquids. ?de Gennes particularly studied the physics of liquid crystals and the isotropic-nematic transition. More broadly (and this gets into the nature of my current research), soft matter includes polymer dynamics - the behavior of macromolecules in dilute solutions and in melts and their crystallization from those melts, as well as ?order-disorder phenomena in multicomponent systems, colloids, and gels.
>

I understood about two thirds of that... :-)   Not sure what
order-disorder phenomena is specifically... for example...

The Wikipedia article on Soft Matter was also not particularly
illuminating, which is sad. If you wanted to brush that article up and
dumb it down for the rest of us, that would sure be appreciated by
this dumb Monday morning physicist. :-)

> Practically speaking, this is how we clarify polypropylene that you use to store your food. (i.e. Ziploc food containers, Gladware food containers.) ?Polypropylene on its own is pretty much opaque. By controlling the dynamics of its crystallization, however, we can make the polyproylene crystallites always smaller than 200 nm, so they won't scatter light in the visible bands.
>

See, that's interesting... but which came first the glad bag, or the
physics explaining why it was clear?

> So, no, I don't think the physics here is particularly hard. The only advanced math I've seen anywhere in the literature here (i.e., beyond a run-of-the-mill partial differential equation) is a stochastic DE, and I felt that was probably unnecessary. My background is in condensed matter and I found it exceptionally accessible. If you wanted to check out a book or two from your library, the two I felt were the best were Gert Strobl's book, and Rubenstein and Colby's book. ?(One is titled "Polymer Physics" and the other is "The Physics of Polymers." ?And boy, I wish I could remember which is which without recourse to Amazon...) ?You might be better off starting with Rubenstein. I recall Strobl being mathematically intense and weak on conceptualization.
>

I think I'm already going in enough directions that I can avoid that
level of depth in this area... LOL!

>> I am glad to hear that there is a lot of good work going on, and I
>> suspected that there was. We of the great unwashed masses just don't
>> hear about it.
>
> I was thinking about this a lot as a response to this thread. I suspect strongly now that there is a lot going on in physics that the atoms-and-particles set would not recognize (or acknowledge, if they did recognize) as physics. But ultimately, if your goal is to find the basis of measurement of a physical phenomenon in order to construct rigorous mathematical models of the behavior with a goal of understanding some underlying behavior, then you're doing physics, no matter what your degree or job title says. Physics is a science, and thus is a skillset and problem solving formalism, not a static body of knowledge.
>

Why not contact NOVA and do a show about it? In the end, everything is
physics, including chemistry, microbiology, laying out silicon, a
bunch of stuff is there just above raw physics. This is probably
another one of those areas that lies just barely above physics...
Perhaps it's like artificial intelligence in computer science, once
it's understood to a certain point it gets a new name :-)

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 20:48:55 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:48:55 -0600
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that
 could change the world
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:28 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:
> A fascinating io9 article...
>
> http://io9.com/5831904/21-scientific-research-projects-starting-this-fall-that-could-change-the-world

This is indeed a fascinating list... I noticed, predictably, that the
private initiatives were doing things that were more immediate and
smaller scale, while the governmental initiatives were attacking the
larger more theoretical or long term issues. Of all the government
programs, the interface between humans and computers at 18.5 million
seemed like the most interesting (and amongst the smallest government
programs)...

The Gates foundation particularly seems to be doing interesting work.

-Kelly


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 20:40:49 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:40:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Dr Koelle and spreadsheets was ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009a01cc6430$70d448b0$527cda10$@att.net>


>> I still have that atmosphere model.  Keith, that is the sheet I used 
> to discover that minor error in your friend Herr Doktor's Neptune 
> paper from 1970, remind me his name?

>Hermann Koelle

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz-Hermann_Koelle

>Unfortunately he died (at 85) early this year.

>I can no longer find his papers on the net and they don't seem to have been
captured by the Internet Archive.

>Keith




Hi Keith, DOH!  Sorry to hear about Dr. Koelle.  I might have a copy of that
Neptune paper somewheres.  I really studied that thing carefully, so it is
pretty likely I kept it in my papers, likely in PDF.  If I find a copy, is
there any authority we need to contact before we put it into the public
domain?  Does his estate own it?  He was delighted that proles were still
reading that paper 30 some years down the road.

spike





From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Aug 26 21:19:16 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:19:16 +0200
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <007701cc641a$2abae340$8030a9c0$@att.net>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>
	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>
	<005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>
	<CAL_armhvrvj2ZMTJ02S+jRVx1AqbGZWLSOLr8nZ8=TmqXVyMbQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<007701cc641a$2abae340$8030a9c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <20110826211916.GK22933@leitl.org>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:01:21AM -0700, spike wrote:

> Oooh that kind of talk gets me turned on.  Just thinking of all that
> potential profit makes my butt hurt. 
> 
> It's a good hurt.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/butthurt

Ow, ow. Owwoww. Ow.


From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 21:47:37 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:47:37 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Dr Koelle and spreadsheets was ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <009a01cc6430$70d448b0$527cda10$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<009a01cc6430$70d448b0$527cda10$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhvuZFZqBKBSH6z01SgOjuw8Ypba=a+E9W==G0tKSg4aw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 9:40 PM, spike wrote:
> Hi Keith, DOH! ?Sorry to hear about Dr. Koelle. ?I might have a copy of that
> Neptune paper somewheres. ?I really studied that thing carefully, so it is
> pretty likely I kept it in my papers, likely in PDF. ?If I find a copy, is
> there any authority we need to contact before we put it into the public
> domain? ?Does his estate own it? ?He was delighted that proles were still
> reading that paper 30 some years down the road.
>
>


I think it is already on the net. The third PDF file here:
<http://server02.fb12.tu-berlin.de/ILR/koelle/>


BillK



From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Fri Aug 26 21:39:32 2011
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:39:32 -0600
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that
 could change the world
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onsY0p0VD4cyFMNzLXXq7uJLgVDGPD5-MwChGY7T1Qj2sQ@mail.gmail.com>

Things like this are totally frustrating to me, as other than some
special 'hydrogell' that can promote natural nerve repair, most big
science projects are completely ignoring the brain / consciousness.

It seems so obvious to me, that we are on the verge of the greatest
scientific discover of all time, something that could solve most all
other problems, from death and disease to space travel... in one fell
swoop.  We surely already have the technical ability to do what we
need to do, the only thing standing in our way is people's abhorrence
of thinking about phenomenal consciousness in a rigorously educated
and scientific way, or worse thinking the phenomenal isn't anything or
not important at all.

Am I the only one that feels this way about how most everyone has
their priorities completely screwed up, and that such will damn so
many more of us to eternal hell in the grave?

Brent Allsop




On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:28 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A fascinating io9 article...
>>
>> http://io9.com/5831904/21-scientific-research-projects-starting-this-fall-that-could-change-the-world
>
> This is indeed a fascinating list... I noticed, predictably, that the
> private initiatives were doing things that were more immediate and
> smaller scale, while the governmental initiatives were attacking the
> larger more theoretical or long term issues. Of all the government
> programs, the interface between humans and computers at 18.5 million
> seemed like the most interesting (and amongst the smallest government
> programs)...
>
> The Gates foundation particularly seems to be doing interesting work.
>
> -Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 21:58:55 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:58:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] diamond planet
In-Reply-To: <20110826211916.GK22933@leitl.org>
References: <CAOJFdbKP1_qNtGCpLCDhoqr2p1=CC8+Rrd8ZJfdnemnDBw9hFg@mail.gmail.com>	<004501cc6402$3d50f610$b7f2e230$@att.net>	<CALAdGNTWwJ4uQ7YMM+FjQapM3Z-E2pS2JBJE53vOXK+bKSp8KA@mail.gmail.com>	<005501cc6408$d4f62980$7ee27c80$@att.net>	<CAL_armhvrvj2ZMTJ02S+jRVx1AqbGZWLSOLr8nZ8=TmqXVyMbQ@mail.gmail.com>	<007701cc641a$2abae340$8030a9c0$@att.net>
	<20110826211916.GK22933@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <00cf01cc643b$59d45f00$0d7d1d00$@att.net>


... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl
Subject: Re: [ExI] diamond planet

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:01:21AM -0700, spike wrote:

>> Oooh that kind of talk gets me turned on.  Just thinking of all that
potential profit makes my butt hurt.

>> It's a good hurt.

>http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/butthurt

>Ow, ow. Owwoww. Ow.

The saying was borrowed by me from a ranking Lockheed technical director.
We were working together on THAAD in the early 90s, the bad old days when we
couldn't hit nuthin for nuthin.  It was a crazy difficult controls problem.
He was commenting about all the foreign markets that would instantly take
notice if we could get THAAD to hit a target.  Out of the blue, he said
"Ooooh my, the profit we would make.  Just thinking of all that money makes
by butt hurt."

Of course I thought it a hilarious comment for a director level guy to
utter.  Usually at that level those guys are prim and proper.  I immediately
adopted the saying.

He was right.  Now THAAD will smack anything it is fired at, and yes we are
lining up huge foreign markets for it, and yes Lockheed is making buttloads
of money on it.

spike



From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Aug 26 22:13:49 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:13:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that
 could change the world
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onsY0p0VD4cyFMNzLXXq7uJLgVDGPD5-MwChGY7T1Qj2sQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAK7-onsY0p0VD4cyFMNzLXXq7uJLgVDGPD5-MwChGY7T1Qj2sQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNT8xGem_Lm8HeOe=gvzVwo7=H2ti2emmVumtDdzf9sRNg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Brent Allsop
<brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
> Things like this are totally frustrating to me, as other than some
> special 'hydrogell' that can promote natural nerve repair, most big
> science projects are completely ignoring the brain / consciousness.

Read further.  Check the entry on the NSF Engineering Center for
Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Aug 26 22:03:28 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:03:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Dr Koelle and spreadsheets was ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhvuZFZqBKBSH6z01SgOjuw8Ypba=a+E9W==G0tKSg4aw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB6iHXhQRiL1bn3usXspi_hfMUiLviz=HsQR7nPvMX_Z6Q@mail.gmail.com>	<009a01cc6430$70d448b0$527cda10$@att.net>
	<CAL_armhvuZFZqBKBSH6z01SgOjuw8Ypba=a+E9W==G0tKSg4aw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00d001cc643b$fd5891f0$f809b5d0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] Dr Koelle and spreadsheets was ai class at stanford

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 9:40 PM, spike wrote:
> Hi Keith, DOH! ?Sorry to hear about Dr. Koelle. ?I might have a copy 
> of that Neptune paper somewhere...He 
> was delighted that proles were still reading that paper 30 some years down
the road.
>
>


>...I think it is already on the net. The third PDF file here:
<http://server02.fb12.tu-berlin.de/ILR/koelle/>
>BillK


Thanks BillK.  This is one of the Neptune papers I reviewed, but there is
one paper of Dr. Koelle that had actual ascent trajectories.  I found two
lines which contained what looked like transcription errors.  I'll look
around, see if I still have that.

spike




From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Fri Aug 26 23:21:19 2011
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:21:19 -0600
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that
 could change the world
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNT8xGem_Lm8HeOe=gvzVwo7=H2ti2emmVumtDdzf9sRNg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAK7-onsY0p0VD4cyFMNzLXXq7uJLgVDGPD5-MwChGY7T1Qj2sQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNT8xGem_Lm8HeOe=gvzVwo7=H2ti2emmVumtDdzf9sRNg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onukW=JAx0cTvV41xrqn00_WwQQ8Vi3N434ahbV3VEdEjA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Adrian,

Oh, OK, I didn't see that.  Thanks!  I guess that's at least a start.

But still, big woop, $18 million.  What can you do with that, fund a
handful of researchers on small projects?  We spend way more than 10
times that on one rocket launch.  That's less than a drop in the
bucket compared to the many "big" science projects humanity is now so
enamored over.

Why are transhumanists, in general, so unwilling to put out any effort
to try to change any of this?  It doesn't even seem like they are
willing to do anything like sign a what is your top priority petition
like this one:  http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/90/3 .

Brent Allsop

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Brent Allsop
> <brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
>> Things like this are totally frustrating to me, as other than some
>> special 'hydrogell' that can promote natural nerve repair, most big
>> science projects are completely ignoring the brain / consciousness.
>
> Read further. ?Check the entry on the NSF Engineering Center for
> Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Aug 27 01:14:54 2011
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:14:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <908707F491D642F48F2766B77182D291@PCserafino>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com><1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com><1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com><1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<908707F491D642F48F2766B77182D291@PCserafino>
Message-ID: <1314407694.60744.YahooMailNeo@web112105.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

The Witten lecture is fairly long.? Any specifics
on what would be a good reason to follow string
theory?? I've never heard a good one yet.
?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110803102844.htm
?
Various inflation bubble theories are all the rage right
now.? Rage #27 likely to last for a few years until rage
#28 is the new rage.
?
A sample of the discussion of an alternative.
?
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/70
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/199
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/1975
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/2915
?
Dennis May
?
?

Dennis

From: scerir <scerir at alice.it>
To: Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 12:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking

Dennis May (fwd by Dan):
I do have a horse in the race and it is certainly true that I view string theory as interesting
mathematics with little value in physics - certainly not enough value to justify it having
taken over virtually all of theoretical physics everywhere in the world. The popularizations
that are still published are virtually all in lock step with perhaps one partially interesting book
every 5 years or so about all you can hope for.


# Ed Witten in these lecture pointed out many good (but also bad) reasons
to follow the string theory approach.
http://www.iop.org/resources/videos/lectures/page_44292.html

But I can agree. All that sometimes seems boring and useless.

Not by chance new principles sometimes appear in the literature,
like this "principle of mediocrity" :-)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4990
But the paper by Vilenkin seems good food for thought.


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 27 01:20:38 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:20:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] steinbeck on hurricane donna
Message-ID: <001701cc6457$88232a00$98697e00$@att.net>

51 years ago, Hurricane Donna hit New York.  Steinbeck wrote about it in
Travels With Charley, but there was another writer, whose name I have
forgotten, who wrote about that storm.  He was living in upstate New York
out in the boonies somewhere.  The story he wrote was completely hilarious.
The idea was he had radio contact the whole time, but the station was in New
York City.  So when the radio people are going nuts because Donna is right
on top of them, this writer's house was feeling only a light breeze.  As the
storm passes over the city, and as the news radio people calm down, the wind
is picking up wildly.  Right when the radio is telling him everything is OK,
the storm peaks in its violence.  I remember that as such an entertaining
story, but now I don't know who wrote it or how to google it.

 

spike

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From veronesepk at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 03:13:28 2011
From: veronesepk at gmail.com (Keith Veronese)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:13:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time
Message-ID: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>

Hi all,

Very tardy introduction - Long time lurker, second time poster. The list has
been a blast and gave me some intellectual fodder during grad school
(chemistry), before abadoning academia (for the most part) soon after
graduation. I do some science writing and other writing,  particularly on
science/pop culture/futurism.

Formalities out of the way,

Keith Veronese, Ph.D.
veronesepk at gmail.com
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From veronesepk at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 02:50:23 2011
From: veronesepk at gmail.com (Keith Veronese)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:50:23 -0500
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that
 could change the world
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onukW=JAx0cTvV41xrqn00_WwQQ8Vi3N434ahbV3VEdEjA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAK7-onsY0p0VD4cyFMNzLXXq7uJLgVDGPD5-MwChGY7T1Qj2sQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNT8xGem_Lm8HeOe=gvzVwo7=H2ti2emmVumtDdzf9sRNg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAK7-onukW=JAx0cTvV41xrqn00_WwQQ8Vi3N434ahbV3VEdEjA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+yghmuc6ytkKEqFCHyArGK7Md-cveJxjraDY_H0qFOWwNOO=w@mail.gmail.com>

I agree, transhuman projects need more funding, but the establishment of the
NSF Engineering Center for
Sensorimotor Neural Engineering does lend it some credibility and bring it
away from the fringes. It's a first big step - it's going to take a
phenomenal amount of corporate and government funding, but this is one way
for the movement to build in the time being.


- Keith Veronese, Ph.D.

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>wrote:

> Hi Adrian,
>
> Oh, OK, I didn't see that.  Thanks!  I guess that's at least a start.
>
> But still, big woop, $18 million.  What can you do with that, fund a
> handful of researchers on small projects?  We spend way more than 10
> times that on one rocket launch.  That's less than a drop in the
> bucket compared to the many "big" science projects humanity is now so
> enamored over.
>
> Why are transhumanists, in general, so unwilling to put out any effort
> to try to change any of this?  It doesn't even seem like they are
> willing to do anything like sign a what is your top priority petition
> like this one:  http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/90/3 .
>
> Brent Allsop
>
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Brent Allsop
> > <brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
> >> Things like this are totally frustrating to me, as other than some
> >> special 'hydrogell' that can promote natural nerve repair, most big
> >> science projects are completely ignoring the brain / consciousness.
> >
> > Read further.  Check the entry on the NSF Engineering Center for
> > Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 27 03:20:41 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:20:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time
In-Reply-To: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001001cc6468$4d5dc8b0$e8195a10$@att.net>

Welcome Keith, glad to have you on board.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Veronese
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 8:13 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time

 

Hi all, 

Very tardy introduction - Long time lurker, second time poster. The list has
been a blast and gave me some intellectual fodder during grad school
(chemistry), before abadoning academia (for the most part) soon after
graduation. I do some science writing and other writing,  particularly on
science/pop culture/futurism. 

Formalities out of the way, 

Keith Veronese, Ph.D.
veronesepk at gmail.com 

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From scerir at alice.it  Sat Aug 27 07:04:22 2011
From: scerir at alice.it (scerir)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 09:04:22 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1314407694.60744.YahooMailNeo@web112105.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com><1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com><1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com><1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com><908707F491D642F48F2766B77182D291@PCserafino>
	<1314407694.60744.YahooMailNeo@web112105.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <D417526B4A4E4D06B410691D6A276244@PCserafino>


Dennis May:


The Witten lecture is fairly long. Any specifics
on what would be a good reason to follow string
theory? I've never heard a good one yet.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110803102844.htm


#  String theory is not a theory. It is not a well-defined set of equations,
with real predictive solutions. Rather - as Wilczek pointed out - it is,
at present time, a collection of interesting ideas. 


Various inflation bubble theories are all the rage right
now. Rage #27 likely to last for a few years until rage
#28 is the new rage.

A sample of the discussion of an alternative.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/70
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/199
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/1975
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Physics_Frontier/message/2915

#  This reminds me of Lev Landau, who said: 
"Cosmologists are often wrong, but never in doubt."



From scerir at alice.it  Sat Aug 27 09:09:22 2011
From: scerir at alice.it (scerir)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:09:22 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <1313852152.96618.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <1313852152.96618.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <72BDB58590ED4040858E3886885FFF84@PCserafino>

Dennis May:

Beginning in 1991 and continuing to this day I have noticed
that de Broglie-Bohm mechanics and related theories seem
to generate more interest in Hispanic countries than most
other countries.  [...]

# It is true. And I'd say that also in Italy there are wellknown
followers of Bohmian mechanics. Here is a paper trying to
explain something ...
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0508184

PS:

Of course the de Broglie - Bohm theory seems to
assert the existence of "empty" waves. There are
experiments which seem to show that such waves
do not exist.

Check 'empty waves' in these interesting books:
-The Wave-Particle Duality, editor Franco Selleri,
Plenum, London/NewYork, (1992).
-The Wave-Particle Dualism, eds. S. Diner, D. Fargue,
G. Lochak, F. Selleri, Reidel, Dordrecht (1984).

As for the experiments ....

L. J. Wang, X. Y. Zou, and L. Mandel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 1111 - 1114 (1991),

X. Y. Zou, T. Grayson, L. J. Wang, and L. Mandel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 3667 - 3669 (1992).

and also ....

J.R. Croca, A. Garuccio, M. Ferrero-Melgar, G.L. Lepore; An Experiment to
test the Reality of de Broglie Waves; Found of Phys. Lett. 10, 441-447,
(1997)

A. Garuccio De Broglie's Waves in Space and Time;  invited lecture in
"Waves and Particles in Space and Time", ed. Garuccio and van der Merwe,
Plenum, p. 37(1994)

J.R. Croca, A. Garuccio, R. Moreira, V.L. Lepore;  Commments on
"Experimental Test of de Broglie Guided-Wave Theory for Photons"; Phys. Rev
Lett., 68, 3813 (1992)

J.R.Croca, A. Garuccio, V.L.Lepore, R.N.Moreira; Quantum-Optical Predictions
for an Experiment on the de Broglie Waves Detection; Foundations of Physics
Letters  3 , 557-564 (1990)

J. Croca A. Garuccio, F. Selleri; On a possile Way to detect de Broglie's
Wave; Found. Phys. Lett., 1, 101 (1988)

A. Garuccio, V.A. Rapisarda, J.P. Vigier; New Experimental Set-up for the
Detection of de Broglie Waves ; Physics Letters 90A, 17 (1982).

A. Garuccio, K.A. Popper, J.P. Vigier;  Possible Direct Physical Detection
of de Broglie's Waves; Physics Letters  86A , 397 (1981)




From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 10:10:07 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:40:07 +0930
Subject: [ExI] Calling all Autodidacts
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPC553p7AhCemEPxfzx-Bd+-RThPBBt5Q8hPJ_MQaHJ1VQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi all,

Here's a post I just wrote on my blog. I'm looking for autodidacts to
answer some questions about how they do their thing, and maybe chat
about it a bit. Exi-chat is a good place to find 'em :-)

=======

Calling All Autodidacts
http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/calling-all-autodidacts/
Emlyn O'Regan, 27 August 2011.

I?ve been writing here and there about supporting deep learning on the
web, something that?s not been adequately addressed anywhere to date.

My previous posts:

http://point7.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/deep-learning-2-0/
http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/follow-up-to-deep-learning-2-0/

Today I?m thinking about this part of my second post:

?I realised that this is not an idea that makes sense to teachers, who
like carefully curated courses that teach whole areas at once, to
students who just accept what they are being taught. Rather, this is a
system for autodidacts, which should be constructed by autodidacts.
For learners, by learners.?

and this part

?So it begins as a personal learning tool, the autodidact?s friend,
and builds out into a crowdsourced deep learning knowledge base. This
also satisfies the vision ?for learners by learners?.

So, what do autodidacts need? What a tricky question! I would consider
myself in this group, but that doesn?t mean I know all about it. Is
there even a profile of an autodidact? How similar are we? What kinds
of dimensions do we vary along?

One guess: Specificity. Some autodidacts will be extremely general,
carving their way through any and all knowledge as their muse takes
them. Others will be specific, confined perhaps to a single discipline
or two. A lot of software people are in this camp, totally
autodidactic within the IT / compsci realms, but much less so outside
of that. This will in fact be a continuum; people will fall somewhere
on the specific <-> general line.

How about process? Do we all use the same one? I tend to be driven by
a project focus, usually containing a question. ?How can I understand
the class of techniques used in aural digital signal processing,
specifically related to the human voice, so that I can make construct
my own novel implementations?? or ?Why is the internet oriented toward
shallow learning? or ?what parts of our culture, that we take for
granted, are actually supremely weird, and how did they come to be
that way??.

As I think more about this, I realise that my process is mostly
unexamined; I?m not really sure how I decide to proceed. I could
improve on that. But on reflection, some techniques are:

* I try to ?feel? my way through material. There?s a sense of flowing,
like water finding the lowest path. When there?s too much I don?t
understand, the flow is obstructed. When I feel that happening, I back
up and see if there?s a route around the block. It?s expensive to have
to go back through dependencies, learning about something more basic
before you can then progress through advanced material. But that?s
still better than not realising you need to do this, leading to loss
of traction, and often a loss of motivation; that?s a way you can
derail yourself, and end up failing.
* Sometimes I don?t even know the name for the things I?m trying to
learn. For instance, it took me ages (half a year at least?) to learn
the term ?digital signal processing?, and that was a giant block to my
inital progress on the Esteso Voce. What I do when I?m so ignorant
that I don?t even know which field contains the specialists who could
point me in the right direction, is to ask around. To that end, I tend
to cultivate networks of ridiculously intelligent and well educated
people, who know lots of stuff and like to talk about it. Social
Networking has been brilliant for this, but prior to that I used the
extropian chat list (an intellectual powerhouse). And of course I have
friends in rl, too, who I lean on, but you can?t beat the weight of
numbers in online fora.
* I try to read a lot of varied stuff. Sort of priming the pump? You
can?t have interesting ideas without raw material to work on.
* I don?t horde materials, although I know a lot of people do. Rather,
I try to collect ways of refinding information that I?ve seen before.
Books that I can get on pdfs I tend to upload into Google Docs so I
don?t lose them. Probably my best current resource is Google Web
History (https://www.google.com/history/ + the chrome extension
?Google Web History Updater?) which lets me search only on what I?ve
seen before, like a commonplace book but everything goes in, without
me needing to think about it or take any action.
* I write. Writing helps me get my ideas in order, and keeps a log of
complex thoughts that I?ve had, so I don?t have to go through the
process again. Rereading my blog often gives me ideas, and sends me
spinning further down whatever path I had been travelling. So even if
no one else ever reads anything here, the blog is incredibly useful.


I can?t think of much more along those lines at the moment.

Another useful question might be, do I fail, and why?

I fail a lot. Many big questions are just so hard to penetrate without
a background in the right disciplines (whatever they may be, sometimes
I can?t even find that out). The less pre-existing relevant background
I have, the more likely failure seems to be. Also, if I try to forge
ahead through areas I don?t actually understand, it usually ends in
failure, as I?ve noted above. If I can identify background knowledge I
need, but it?s too onerous to get the bits I need (often true of
specialised academic areas, where they structure the knowledge like a
fortress to keep out the infidels), that can be failure.

I think I also fail when the things I have to learn have too many
unknowns, and the dependencies are too complex. I tend to approach
these things a bit at a time; make a bit of progress, drop it for
months, come back and try a bit more. If the endeavour is too complex,
it can be too hard to do it piecemeal.

Sometimes I fail to penetrate a particular field because I come at it
with incompatible cultural assumptions. Even related disciplines can
be very far apart culturally. Digital signal processing has been
tough, not least because I think like a software developer, but they,
even though doing everything in software, think like electronic
engineers, hardware people, and to some extent mathematicians. Those
ways of thinking are wildly divergent, so it can be very difficult to
understand the texts.

* The Questions

So that?s me. But I need more input. If you consider yourself an
autodidact, whether specific or general or inbetween, I?d love to hear
about your experiences and approach. Some specific questions:

1. Where do you lie on the specific / general continuum? If there are
areas you are more comfortable with, what are they? How much
difference do you find between your well known areas (perhaps where
you have a degree?) and those you don?t know?
2. What?s your motivation / how do you initiate? I think my motivator
is questions in service of a project. Is that true for you? If not,
what?s your thing?
3. When you know your target, what kind of process do you use to get
there? Are you aware of it, or is it largely intuitive?
4. How do you solve the ?I don?t know what I don?t know? problem?
5. Do you record your progress? What sort of tools do you use?
6. Do you talk to other people much, or confine yourself to written materials?
7. Do you use esoteric knowledge sources, like academic journals, or
is it mostly Google? Books? Blogs? Wikipedia? Anything else?
8. Do you incorporate structured learning materials? MIT
OpenCourseWare? Actual enrolment in courses of study? Or do you find
structured courses and materials intolerable?
9. Are there tools you use to help? Mindmapping? Diary/Commonplace
Book? Notebooks? Webpages? Blogs? ? Where does this fail you, what
would be better?
10. When do you fail, and why?

I?m awaiting your reponses with baited breath (should have brushed my
teeth). Just comment wherever you see this, or if in doubt then
comment on my blog. Please feel free to ignore some or all question,
suggest and/or answer your questions, or just say whatever. Thanks!

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Aug 27 13:43:32 2011
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:43:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <72BDB58590ED4040858E3886885FFF84@PCserafino>
References: <1313852152.96618.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<72BDB58590ED4040858E3886885FFF84@PCserafino>
Message-ID: <1314452612.42003.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Scerir wrote:
?
"Of course the de Broglie - Bohm theory seems to
assert the existence of "empty" waves."
?
I have an alternative view of the "empty" waves of
de Broglie - Bohm theory.? In my theory they are
not waves but the accumulated interactions of
Gregory S. Duane's "Hyperchaotic Synchronization".
As a particle travels it imprints its own synchronization
on other bodies then interacts with the results of that
synchronization as it continues to travel.? This gives
the appearance of a "guiding wave" but in fact it is only
the particle?interacting with an environment it has helped
to create.? This was?a primary assumption of my model
a little over 10 years before Duane documented the
substance of how that would work for entanglement.
?
Duane, G.S., 2001: Violation of Bell?s inequality in synchronized hyperchaos, Found. Phys. Lett., 14, 341-353.
?
Duane, G.S., 2005: Quantum nonlocality from synchronized chaos, Int. J. Theor.
Phys., ?44, 1917-1932.
?
Dennis
?

From: scerir <scerir at alice.it>
To: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 4:09 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking

Dennis May:

Beginning in 1991 and continuing to this day I have noticed
that de Broglie-Bohm mechanics and related theories seem
to generate more interest in Hispanic countries than most
other countries.? [...]

# It is true. And I'd say that also in Italy there are wellknown
followers of Bohmian mechanics. Here is a paper trying to
explain something ...
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0508184

PS:

Of course the de Broglie - Bohm theory seems to
assert the existence of "empty" waves. There are
experiments which seem to show that such waves
do not exist.

Check 'empty waves' in these interesting books:
-The Wave-Particle Duality, editor Franco Selleri,
Plenum, London/NewYork, (1992).
-The Wave-Particle Dualism, eds. S. Diner, D. Fargue,
G. Lochak, F. Selleri, Reidel, Dordrecht (1984).

As for the experiments ....

L. J. Wang, X. Y. Zou, and L. Mandel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 1111 - 1114 (1991),

X. Y. Zou, T. Grayson, L. J. Wang, and L. Mandel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 3667 - 3669 (1992).

and also ....

J.R. Croca, A. Garuccio, M. Ferrero-Melgar, G.L. Lepore; An Experiment to
test the Reality of de Broglie Waves; Found of Phys. Lett. 10, 441-447,
(1997)

A. Garuccio De Broglie's Waves in Space and Time;? invited lecture in
"Waves and Particles in Space and Time", ed. Garuccio and van der Merwe,
Plenum, p. 37(1994)

J.R. Croca, A. Garuccio, R. Moreira, V.L. Lepore;? Commments on
"Experimental Test of de Broglie Guided-Wave Theory for Photons"; Phys. Rev
Lett., 68, 3813 (1992)

J.R.Croca, A. Garuccio, V.L.Lepore, R.N.Moreira; Quantum-Optical Predictions
for an Experiment on the de Broglie Waves Detection; Foundations of Physics
Letters? 3 , 557-564 (1990)

J. Croca A. Garuccio, F. Selleri; On a possile Way to detect de Broglie's
Wave; Found. Phys. Lett., 1, 101 (1988)

A. Garuccio, V.A. Rapisarda, J.P. Vigier; New Experimental Set-up for the
Detection of de Broglie Waves ; Physics Letters 90A, 17 (1982).

A. Garuccio, K.A. Popper, J.P. Vigier;? Possible Direct Physical Detection
of de Broglie's Waves; Physics Letters? 86A , 397 (1981)
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From jonkc at bellsouth.net  Sat Aug 27 15:22:58 2011
From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (john clark)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:22:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <D417526B4A4E4D06B410691D6A276244@PCserafino>
Message-ID: <1314458578.84091.YahooMailClassic@web82907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Aug 17, 2011, at 1:24 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:

">There seems to be no physical justification for adding all these dimensions"

There is certainly mathematical justification for adding extra dimensions, but is that reason enough? And did the extra ones really need to be that fantastically small?

">It lacks (from the layman's point of view) the beauty that is so common in the rest of physics and is therefore suspect."

I think the problem is that String Theory has beauty but it has nothing else, this may be a test to see if John Keats was right when he said:

?"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,?that is all??? ?
? Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

The trouble with String Theory is it can't seem to make a prediction that anyone has a hope of testing for. However Richard Feynman said this was wrong, he said String Theory had in fact made a prediction and that prediction was wrong; it predicted the world would exist in 10 spacial dimensions. The theories' proponents could only save the idea by adding fudge factors about all those extra dimensions curling up into a ball so incredibly small that nobody could ever detect them. There was no mathematical reason they couldn't be infinitely large, but they had to be made not only finite but super small just to save the appearances.

It should be noted however that in the last years of his life Feynman backed off on his criticism of String Theory and admitted that it might have some value after all.

?John K Clark????? 


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From veronesepk at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 16:31:55 2011
From: veronesepk at gmail.com (Keith Veronese)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:31:55 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time
In-Reply-To: <001001cc6468$4d5dc8b0$e8195a10$@att.net>
References: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
	<001001cc6468$4d5dc8b0$e8195a10$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CA+yghmt7XvciLM6YTvQxDDTpYuq9F95V-zTBEph=xoiotdUsqw@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks Spike! - Keith

2011/8/26 spike <spike66 at att.net>

> Welcome Keith, glad to have you on board.****
>
> ** **
>
> spike****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:
> extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Keith Veronese
> *Sent:* Friday, August 26, 2011 8:13 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list
> *Subject:* [ExI] Intro Time****
>
> ** **
>
> Hi all,
>
> Very tardy introduction - Long time lurker, second time poster. The list
> has been a blast and gave me some intellectual fodder during grad school
> (chemistry), before abadoning academia (for the most part) soon after
> graduation. I do some science writing and other writing,  particularly on
> science/pop culture/futurism.
>
> Formalities out of the way,
>
> Keith Veronese, Ph.D.
> veronesepk at gmail.com ****
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From eugen at leitl.org  Sat Aug 27 17:40:39 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:40:39 +0200
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <20110827174039.GC22933@leitl.org>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 08:48:02PM -0700, spike wrote:

> Friends, it is exactly this kind of thing that keeps my hopes high that we
> are indeed standing on the threshold of a dream.  It was recent enough to be
> fresh in our collective memory that knowledge was so very expensive.  Now so
> much of it is free, we cannot even collect the gifts in the severely limited
> time we have on this old planet.

Nevermind that about 0.1% of total population are even interested in 
checking out the goods.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 18:18:33 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:18:33 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Calling all Autodidacts
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPC553p7AhCemEPxfzx-Bd+-RThPBBt5Q8hPJ_MQaHJ1VQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAMp1VPC553p7AhCemEPxfzx-Bd+-RThPBBt5Q8hPJ_MQaHJ1VQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYEty47yCmTqnoTAmBxKmeAozEe-e2sRY2AUrxxFaRTiA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 4:10 AM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,

Obviously, you do some of your own self learning at 4:00 AM.. :-)

> Here's a post I just wrote on my blog. I'm looking for autodidacts to
> answer some questions about how they do their thing, and maybe chat
> about it a bit. Exi-chat is a good place to find 'em :-)

Clearly. Very few other places talk about as wide a range of topics as
we attack here.

> Calling All Autodidacts
> http://point7.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/calling-all-autodidacts/
> Emlyn O'Regan, 27 August 2011.
>
> So, what do autodidacts need?

The right information, presented in the right modality for quick
absorption, for the right price, at the right time.

> What a tricky question!

Not at all, though the answers may be different for different learners.

> I would consider
> myself in this group, but that doesn?t mean I know all about it. Is
> there even a profile of an autodidact? How similar are we? What kinds
> of dimensions do we vary along?

I would suppose that the typical autodidact comes in two flavors.
Those who learn for the joy or curiosity of it all, and those who
learn to further some specific goal (How do I DO something). And we
jump from one modality to the other as we learn for work, or learn for
our own enjoyment in our off time. (OK, some people enjoy work
sometimes... so it's not a perfect division)

When learning for joy, I think it's more willy nilly. That is, if you
accidentally learn something on the way to the forum, that's OK. If
you're learning to accomplish something, then it is important not to
be distracted by the squirrels and shiny things.

> One guess: Specificity. Some autodidacts will be extremely general,
> carving their way through any and all knowledge as their muse takes
> them. Others will be specific, confined perhaps to a single discipline
> or two. A lot of software people are in this camp, totally
> autodidactic within the IT / compsci realms, but much less so outside
> of that. This will in fact be a continuum; people will fall somewhere
> on the specific <-> general line.

If you aren't autodidactic in computer science, then you aren't in
computer science. It's how it's always worked. The only other choice
is to reinvent EVERYTHING, which is both difficult and inefficient.
You have to be Richard Stallman to succeed. :-)

> How about process? Do we all use the same one? I tend to be driven by
> a project focus, usually containing a question. ?How can I understand
> the class of techniques used in aural digital signal processing,
> specifically related to the human voice, so that I can make construct
> my own novel implementations?? or ?Why is the internet oriented toward
> shallow learning? or ?what parts of our culture, that we take for
> granted, are actually supremely weird, and how did they come to be
> that way??.

Yes, that is a good process when you're aimed at a specific goal, but
sometimes I let myself go to a random Wikipedia page and just let go,
learning whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. As a child, I read
several different encyclopedias, all the way through. I even collected
encyclopedias... I still love article published in the 1929 Funk and
Wagonel's year book about Saccharine... how it was going to change the
world... which I read at the time of the great saccharine scare of the
early 80s. The Internet is SOOOooo much better for this kind of thing.

> As I think more about this, I realise that my process is mostly
> unexamined; I?m not really sure how I decide to proceed. I could
> improve on that.

Paraphrasing Socrates: The unexamined life isn't worth living... :-)

> But on reflection, some techniques are:
>
> * I try to ?feel? my way through material. There?s a sense of flowing,
> like water finding the lowest path. When there?s too much I don?t
> understand, the flow is obstructed. When I feel that happening, I back
> up and see if there?s a route around the block. It?s expensive to have
> to go back through dependencies, learning about something more basic
> before you can then progress through advanced material. But that?s
> still better than not realising you need to do this, leading to loss
> of traction, and often a loss of motivation; that?s a way you can
> derail yourself, and end up failing.

Perhaps you are describing what some people call "flow" here...
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

> * Sometimes I don?t even know the name for the things I?m trying to
> learn. For instance, it took me ages (half a year at least?) to learn
> the term ?digital signal processing?, and that was a giant block to my
> inital progress on the Esteso Voce. What I do when I?m so ignorant
> that I don?t even know which field contains the specialists who could
> point me in the right direction, is to ask around. To that end, I tend
> to cultivate networks of ridiculously intelligent and well educated
> people, who know lots of stuff and like to talk about it. Social
> Networking has been brilliant for this, but prior to that I used the
> extropian chat list (an intellectual powerhouse). And of course I have
> friends in rl, too, who I lean on, but you can?t beat the weight of
> numbers in online fora.

I have encountered issues like this in my recent venture into the
world of Kinect... I couldn't figure out for months, for example, how
one would publish an XBox application. It's still fuzzy... :-)

> * I try to read a lot of varied stuff. Sort of priming the pump? You
> can?t have interesting ideas without raw material to work on.

Me too. I start with TED as the best source of raw material. I'm a
visual learner, so this is good for me, might not be so much for Spike
and other readers.

> * I don?t horde materials, although I know a lot of people do. Rather,
> I try to collect ways of refinding information that I?ve seen before.
> Books that I can get on pdfs I tend to upload into Google Docs so I
> don?t lose them. Probably my best current resource is Google Web
> History (https://www.google.com/history/ + the chrome extension
> ?Google Web History Updater?) which lets me search only on what I?ve
> seen before, like a commonplace book but everything goes in, without
> me needing to think about it or take any action.

I have a lot of books, but they aren't currently organized enough for
me to use them properly. I have other files, but again, the lack of
organization gets in the way, and with the Internet available, why
bother to? I would like to scan them all in some day though, so I
haven't thrown it all out.

> * I write. Writing helps me get my ideas in order, and keeps a log of
> complex thoughts that I?ve had, so I don?t have to go through the
> process again. Rereading my blog often gives me ideas, and sends me
> spinning further down whatever path I had been travelling. So even if
> no one else ever reads anything here, the blog is incredibly useful.

Writing is clearly one of the best ways to organize ideas, especially
when they are read by others. The only better one for me is teaching.
If I have mastered a topic to the point that I can teach it to someone
else, then I believe I have a good handle on it.

> I can?t think of much more along those lines at the moment.

Pay attention to the modalities that work best for you. Do you learn
better visually, aurally, kinesthetically or by reading or something
else? It is different for each person, so this is a part of your self
examination. I once thought of myself as a visual learner, but now I
believe I'm pretty good at listening in certain contexts.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is the study of human excellence,
with an aim towards rapid reproduction of master skills in acolytes.
There are few other disciplines that are as focused on how we learn
and teach as the NLP crowd. There is a huge literature in the NLP
community about how people learn, what is necessary to learning, and
how to make shifts in thought once a new idea is incorporated into
your individual memeplex to avoid discontinuities in thought and
action.

The NLP approach to your question would be to find autodidacts that
are especially successful, and watch them VERY carefully over a period
of perhaps months. Figure out exactly what they are doing. Reverse
engineer it. Reproduce it, then prune it. Of course, people have
already done this work in the NLP community, and the results include
one of the best speed reading methodologies out there. Good tricks for
spelling well, memorization techniques, etc. etc.

Another interesting thing that NLP practitioners have discovered is
that confusion often precedes real learning. If you are reading this
paragraph and think that you know NLP is so much hog wash, then you've
already decided something that could block real learning. Confusion of
the nature "what the hell is this NLP shit?" is much more likely to
lead to real learning in the near future.

So maybe, just maybe, NLP is just one of those breakthrough terms
you've never run into before like DSP. :-)  Do understand that there
are as many factions of NLP as Christianity... so it's a little hard
to find the right religion out there... ;-)

> Another useful question might be, do I fail, and why?
>
> I fail a lot. Many big questions are just so hard to penetrate without
> a background in the right disciplines (whatever they may be, sometimes
> I can?t even find that out). The less pre-existing relevant background
> I have, the more likely failure seems to be. Also, if I try to forge
> ahead through areas I don?t actually understand, it usually ends in
> failure, as I?ve noted above. If I can identify background knowledge I
> need, but it?s too onerous to get the bits I need (often true of
> specialised academic areas, where they structure the knowledge like a
> fortress to keep out the infidels), that can be failure.

Sometimes, it's OK to hire a teacher. If the discipline is too
foreign, hire the knowledge you need. You can do this at a university,
of course, but these days it's also possible to hire people in far
away places to help for a not too large a price.

> I think I also fail when the things I have to learn have too many
> unknowns, and the dependencies are too complex. I tend to approach
> these things a bit at a time; make a bit of progress, drop it for
> months, come back and try a bit more. If the endeavour is too complex,
> it can be too hard to do it piecemeal.

Agreed. This is when you hire help, IMHO.

> Sometimes I fail to penetrate a particular field because I come at it
> with incompatible cultural assumptions. Even related disciplines can
> be very far apart culturally. Digital signal processing has been
> tough, not least because I think like a software developer, but they,
> even though doing everything in software, think like electronic
> engineers, hardware people, and to some extent mathematicians. Those
> ways of thinking are wildly divergent, so it can be very difficult to
> understand the texts.

Some things aren't worth learning IN DEPTH. Understand them
superficially, and hire out the details. www.vworker.com and the like
are really good for this sort of thing.

> * The Questions
>
> So that?s me. But I need more input. If you consider yourself an
> autodidact, whether specific or general or inbetween, I?d love to hear
> about your experiences and approach. Some specific questions:
>
> 1. Where do you lie on the specific / general continuum? If there are
> areas you are more comfortable with, what are they? How much
> difference do you find between your well known areas (perhaps where
> you have a degree?) and those you don?t know?

I have a degree and a half in computer science. I am a deep learner in
this area. I am a broad shallow learner in most other areas. There are
some areas that I just agree with myself I don't need to know very
much about (automobile repair, computer networking, databases). I have
a general curiosity about virtually every area of science, psychology
and history. The psychology came later in life when I determined that
a lot of my problems were related to the fact that I was clueless as
to how other human beings think.

> 2. What?s your motivation / how do you initiate? I think my motivator
> is questions in service of a project. Is that true for you? If not,
> what?s your thing?

Sometimes. Often, it's what am I interested in? In Steven Covey terms,
that's "Sharpening the Saw"...

Interesting side note. Steven Covey shows that with enough
intelligence, you can extract meaningful memes out of larger
memeplexes. What he did was take the "efficiency" memes out of Mormon
culture, remove the religious aspects, repackage it, and sell it to
the great unwashed masses. Genius! This is exactly the sort of thing
that comes out of the NLP approach. Whether Covey did this consciously
or not, I do not know.

> 3. When you know your target, what kind of process do you use to get
> there? Are you aware of it, or is it largely intuitive?

If I need to learn something deeply, I'll join a mailing list. There's
nothing better for me. Eventually, I move on. If I'm posting actively
to this mailing list in three years, I'll be surprised (pleasantly)...
because I usually learn what a group has to offer, then move on to the
next topic that excites me.

> 4. How do you solve the ?I don?t know what I don?t know? problem?

Just like Donald Rumsfeld. Go into battle with the army you have.

> 5. Do you record your progress? What sort of tools do you use?

Lots of notebooks. I rarely go back and read them, but the act of
writing things down tends to make it stick better.

> 6. Do you talk to other people much, or confine yourself to written materials?

Mailing lists. Vital to my way of learning. I get to teach... and that
jams the stuff further into my own head. Writing this email to you,
for example, is self serving in that it is reinforcing and reminding
me of things I already know, and prompts new thoughts as well. Whether
this email works for you or not, it was still worth the effort for me.
See?

> 7. Do you use esoteric knowledge sources, like academic journals, or
> is it mostly Google? Books? Blogs? Wikipedia? Anything else?

These days mostly the Internet. I live far from the nearest library,
but I like those too. The damned technical journals still aren't
publishing to the web, darn them all to heck!!!!

> 8. Do you incorporate structured learning materials? MIT
> OpenCourseWare? Actual enrolment in courses of study? Or do you find
> structured courses and materials intolerable?

I went back and took a semester of university courses in 2004, but
that was an unusual luxury. I learned well, and I liked it, but it
might have been an inefficient use of time overall.

> 9. Are there tools you use to help? Mindmapping? Diary/Commonplace
> Book? Notebooks? Webpages? Blogs? ? Where does this fail you, what
> would be better?

I'm sure I could improve. I have attempted blogging, but tend to do
better on mailing lists.

> 10. When do you fail, and why?

Frequently, usually because of a loss of interest, or a failure to focus.

> I?m awaiting your reponses with baited breath (should have brushed my
> teeth).

MMMmmmmm worms in teeth!!!

> Just comment wherever you see this, or if in doubt then
> comment on my blog. Please feel free to ignore some or all question,
> suggest and/or answer your questions, or just say whatever. Thanks!

Sure thing. Hope this serves some purpose to you as it has to me.

-Kelly



From atymes at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 18:27:50 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:27:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Calling all Autodidacts
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPC553p7AhCemEPxfzx-Bd+-RThPBBt5Q8hPJ_MQaHJ1VQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAMp1VPC553p7AhCemEPxfzx-Bd+-RThPBBt5Q8hPJ_MQaHJ1VQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS=rgAqRQ4x+L9c6q6e1MnktE9BPVFhsZk4ifJT1DaWrA@mail.gmail.com>

Insofar as an autodidact is one who engages in self-directed learning - which,
IMO, is something everyone who might ever read this post should be capable
of...

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 3:10 AM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Where do you lie on the specific / general continuum?

I tend to lean towards general.  Some things I do better than others, but I
have had to do a wide variety of things over the years.

> If there are
> areas you are more comfortable with, what are they?

Engineering, especially Web software, but that's just because I've been
working in that field for over a decade, and my degrees are in Computer
Science.

> How much
> difference do you find between your well known areas (perhaps where
> you have a degree?) and those you don?t know?

Depends on the field.  Here are some of the closer ones:

Web software vs. other software: not that much of a difference.  The
timing and input/output flows are different, but the same general principles
can be applied.

Vs. other forms of engineering: ...well, it's still equations and models, and
the basic principles still apply (design what you intend to do, examine it
for flaws, then try to build it, and finally test it).  These days, the design
can usually be simulated in software.  I apparently did quite well at
nanomechanics design, when I dabbled in it, because I was able to set
up a better modelling environment prior to trying to actually fabricate the
design.  I've been exploring rocket design recently, and the first challenge
is to find what I don't know.  The answer seems to lie more on the finance
end than the actual engineering - which brings me to...

Vs. business & other finance planning: there is a famed synchronicity
between software & finances.  Assuming the data you get is reliable, and
the models you have actually hold true, financial planning boils down to
simple spreadsheets.  The problem is, those assumptions often aren't
true.  You need to find ways to tell which data and which models are more
likely to be correct, and which ones are wishful thinking or - sadly, not too
uncommonly - malicious lies intended to make you fail (usually to enhance
the success of others, and that's how you can pick up on these: check the
motivations of all parties involved).

Vs. fiction writing: the writing process (outline, then fill in the pieces)
translates, though again, I may just be familiar with it from long practice.
I'm only technically a published author, so far, but I've used writing as a
form of entertainment for quite some time.

Vs. martial arts: the ultimate goal of some martial arts is to let one act like
a robot, whose body is programmed to succeed in all combat situations.
And, well, programming takes a lot of metaphors from software.  Granted,
there's also the physical toning so that the body is capable of carrying out
the instructions - these days, I only practice as exercise - but that's getting
away from the intellectual learning part.

Of course, there are also fields which are way different - but even there, my
first instinct is to try to map the fields to what I know.

> 2. What?s your motivation / how do you initiate? I think my motivator
> is questions in service of a project. Is that true for you? If not,
> what?s your thing?

That is often my motivator.  If I am not doing something which requires me
to learn X, then why am I learning X?  "For enjoyment" is not a valid answer:
if I am doing something for enjoyment that involves learning X, then I am
"doing something which requires me to learn X", and that something
shapes the specific part of X that I seek to learn.  For example, I doubt I
will learn painting just for the sake of learning painting - rather, there might
be something I wish to paint, or some specific thing (an event, a job, or
similar) for which knowledge of painting would be useful, and the thing in
question tells me which aspects of painting are most important to learn at
that time (brush on canvas is not the same as painted pottery, for example;
I have done one of the latter and zero of the former at this time).

> 3. When you know your target, what kind of process do you use to get
> there? Are you aware of it, or is it largely intuitive?

I am aware of it, but it is also partly intuitive.  My first step is
to google on
whatever terms I know of the field, often winding up on Wikipedia or a certain
few other wikis.  (For each subject X they are listed high on, they have
earned their high listing by being exactly the kind of resource one goes to
when trying to find general information about X.)

At the same time, I try to formulate whatever problem (or other thing, but it's
usually a specific problem) I am looking into, breaking it into parts and steps.
This helps me come up with more search terms, and helps me get a grip on
the problem.

I iterate on this, trying to come up with a general solution while
having specific
sections of unknown "how do I do this?"es.  I keep aware of dependencies
between the sections, so if I find out that a given section is in fact
impossible
(which happens), I can revise said general solution, or discard it and come up
with another.  Alternately, if I uncover enough information that I seem to have
a complete solution, I look for ways it can go wrong, then - if
practical - try it
out.  Based on the results of that experiment, I may discover that some of
what I thought I knew is incorrect, or I may have solved the problem that I
sought to solve in the first place.

> 4. How do you solve the ?I don?t know what I don?t know? problem?

Categorize it so I can at least come up with terms that describe areas that
include it, then look for papers or articles (including, again, Wikipedia)
describing a complete process to solve problems in the given area.  If it is a
process that completely solves the problem I wish to solve, then I only need
to figure out each step in that process.  As a second step, that initial search
may point me to experts in the field - so, maybe ask some of them.
(Especially university professors, whose job it is to spread this sort of
knowledge.)

Just this week, I had a good example of this: I wished to figure out the cost
to launch something into Low Earth Orbit, because I am trying to see if an
idea I had to launch at low cost is viable.  So, what are all the components
that factor into that?  Turns out, very few people know this - it's apparently
not even known well by the companies that currently do this.  But there is
a paper - apparently not available online - which breaks that down into its
components.  Some (quite a bit) of personal negotiation eventually got me
the paper.  Turns out, there are five components; the actual hardware &
fuel are a small part of one of them.  Of the five, three can be streamlined
and shared between multiple launches per year (if you have multiple
launches per year, which I was assuming), while the other two simply do
not apply to the launch model I am considering.

Once I believe I have a complete list, I also go for reality checks from people
I know who know something about the field.  For example: Spike, the above
seems relevant to your interests (and, again, it looks like few people in the
industry have a complete breakdown of costs).  If you'd like to check what I
found, both for your own benefit and so you can let me know if it seems to be
a complete list based on your own experience, please let me know offlist.
(Sorry for the wordiness of that, but again, this is to illustrate to
others how &
why this gets done.)

> 5. Do you record your progress? What sort of tools do you use?

I take notes, but I haven't found any really good tools for the overall flow.
Some tools are useful for certain specific parts.  For example, Excel rocks
for doing complex arithmetic progressions, such as financial projections.
But the main tool is simply something to write with, so I can externalize my
memory so I don't have to keep all parts of a project in my head at the same
time (especially when I am trying to focus on any small part of the task).  I
most often use Notepad (more complex presentation is simply not useful to
me, since I am the only audience, and features like autocorrect can be of
negative utility since I often use terms no common dictionary has heard of;
ironically, the autocorrect in the application I am using to type this does not
know the term "autocorrect").

> 6. Do you talk to other people much, or confine yourself to written materials?

Hell yes I talk to other people.  Written materials can only get me so far, and
the set of written materials I can find on my own is substantially less.

That said, written materials are my preferred first pass, so I don't waste the
time of experts asking for info that is obvious to anyone in the field.  More
importantly from a purely selfish point of view, such material can be found with
a simple google, getting me my answer much faster.

This twinned benefit is recognized by many - and apparently unknown to many
more.  Thus you have sites like http://lmgtfy.com/ , which uses patronization
to try to drill this point into the heads of people who do not yet
understand it.
(To those who don't click the link, the acronym means "Let Me Google That
For You".  It gives you an URL to an animation of how one can google for a
specific topic, then asks, "Was that so hard?")

Again, though, googling is only useful as a first resort, not a final
resort in all
cases.  If it yields the full result, great.  If not, it at least
helps me phrase the
question (possibly by giving me terms that those in the field use to describe
things), and may suggest who I can ask.  Sometimes my first google will
yield nothing useful except new terms for me to google on - and looking up
those terms, or terms found when looking those up, gets me the full answer.

> 7. Do you use esoteric knowledge sources, like academic journals, or
> is it mostly Google? Books? Blogs? Wikipedia? Anything else?

In my experience, academic journal articles are mostly of use after I have a
question of relevance to the specific article; exceptions are rare.  Google to
Wikipedia (in case the term I think of first is mentioned in an article, but not
an article title itself) is often my first path, but only my first -
and not always
my first.  Googling lets me see if there are far more relevant sources for
general knowledge on a topic, which there sometimes are - rarely, but
enough to be worth checking.

Thus I go to online books, blogs, and other such sources.  Granted, I bias
heavily toward information that is freely available online - because the utility
is just that high.  Googling for a subject that turns out to be general
knowledge, then reading a Wikipedia article, has sometimes solved
problems for me in under a minute flat.  I can not travel from my house to
the local library at anything approaching that speed (safety and legalities
aside, I currently possess no transport capable of the requisite acceleration
and deceleration, nor is it practical to obtain such just for this trip), to say
nothing of time that would be invested in sorting through books there.

Only after an initial online search has failed to satisfactorily answer my
questions, do I consider other sources.  Generally, tracking down physical
media requires that the question have very strong importance, and good
confidence that the information can be found in the specific physical media.
Asking other people is often more convenient - either ones I will be in the
company of anyway, or via email, or even via telephone (though I generally
attempt initial contact via email, as a courtesy to strangers whose schedules
I do not know).

> 8. Do you incorporate structured learning materials? MIT
> OpenCourseWare? Actual enrolment in courses of study? Or do you find
> structured courses and materials intolerable?

Unless there happen to be online tutorials that specifically address my
question (which there sometimes are), the investment to pursue these often
exceeds the value of the answer.  These seem better for preparatory learning,
when one expects - in advance - that one will have a number of questions in a
field, so that one will be better able to answer them when they arise.  (Thus
my enrolling in the AI class recently mentioned on this list.)

BTW: "I will attempt to work in field X" automatically means "I expect to have
a number of questions in field X" for most X of interest these days.  That
appears to be the most common justification for taking these courses,
whether by students new to the adult work force in general, or those entering
a new field during their career (as an extension of their current employment,
or retraining because their old specialty has become obsolete).

> 9. Are there tools you use to help? Mindmapping? Diary/Commonplace
> Book? Notebooks? Webpages? Blogs? ? Where does this fail you, what
> would be better?

See question 5.  The questions I usually focus on are small enough, that
none of these tools (except keeping notes) significantly help me organize
my thoughts.  I suspect that software that followed the same process I do
might be of use - but it would require automation of a lot of things no one
has yet come up with software to do in a generalized sense.  For instance,
asking detailed questions on a subject the software does not already
understand (in the sense that software can understand a topic): it is
unlikely this will be accomplished without having software that can pass
the Turing Test, as measured by then-contemporary organizations.

> 10. When do you fail, and why?

In almost all cases, it is because the expected resources that would be
invested to answer the question, exceed the expected value of the answer.
Almost any information can be had if one spends enough time/money/etc.
on it...but some information would require so much of this, that calling it
"impossible" (which equates to "would take infinite resources to discover";
note that no one has or can get infinite resources) is but a rounding error.

In turn, most of the time, this is because the expected value of the answer
(at least to me) is trivial.  For example: most of pop culture.  Do I care about
the latest happenings on a given reality show?  In almost all cases, no.
Even the less-than-a-minute to google the show's title would exceed the
value, to me, of the answer.

The second most common case is that the expected expense is too high.
For example: I know of a theoretical experiment that might be able to create
wormholes.  It would cost at least a billion dollars.  I do not at this time
possess any means of directing that amount of resources to be spent on this
question - which is more a question of influence than personal bank account.
That this could be used to generate a transportation infrastructure, the fees
from which could recover the money in a few years, is not a significant factor.
Of far more relevance is that "might": the odds of success are quite low.
Thus, it is not worth doing at this time.  Most likely, it will remain
such until
knowledge of the physics involved improves enough to greatly increase the
odds of success - assuming they do not disprove the theory entirely first,
which is quite possible.  But if they do not, then said improved knowledge
will likely come hand in hand with better engineering capability in this field,
significantly reducing the expected cost at the same time.

The information not being available to the methods I use is simply a special
case of expense.  I am capable of using other methods, but the costs
increase.  (For example: obtaining and reading a printed book has a
relatively high cost - mainly in time - versus obtaining and reading the same
information online, if it is available online without needing another person to
give me access.  If it is not available online and only available in print, then
obtaining and reading the printed copy is the minimum cost of access to the
information.  Some information is worth this.)

Very rarely is there information that is, in fact, literally
impossible for me to
obtain.  (Information in this class is usually obscured by history.  For
example, a 100% accurate diary of the life of Jesus Christ.  Even that
assumes time travel is actually impossible, and not merely really difficult.)



From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 27 22:20:01 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:20:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <20110827174039.GC22933@leitl.org>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
	<20110827174039.GC22933@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <006b01cc6507$7760a2a0$6621e7e0$@att.net>




On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 08:48:02PM -0700, spike wrote:

>> Friends, it is exactly this kind of thing that keeps my hopes high 
> that we are indeed standing on the threshold of a dream.  It was 
> recent enough to be fresh in our collective memory that knowledge was 
> so very expensive.  Now so much of it is free, we cannot even collect 
> the gifts in the severely limited time we have on this old planet.  spike

>...Nevermind that about 0.1% of total population are even interested in
checking out the goods.  --  Eugen* Leitl 


Sure that is one way to look at it, but do keep in mind that 0.1% of the
total population is over 6 million humans.  Six million human minds form an
awesome force, a stunning brain wave with unpredictable consequences.

spike




From spike66 at att.net  Sat Aug 27 23:05:23 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:05:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <006b01cc6507$7760a2a0$6621e7e0$@att.net>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>	<20110827174039.GC22933@leitl.org>
	<006b01cc6507$7760a2a0$6621e7e0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <007f01cc650d$ce07a710$6a16f530$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike

>>...Nevermind that about 0.1% of total population are even interested in
checking out the goods.  --  Eugen* Leitl 


>...Sure that is one way to look at it, but do keep in mind that 0.1% of the
total population is over 6 million humans.  Six million human minds form an
awesome force, a stunning brain wave with unpredictable consequences.  spike

We could form an enormous rock band, call it Six Million Hipsters.

What the small community of hipsters and transhumanists must do is recognize
what we can do and what we cannot do.  We cannot outvote the masses.  We
have very little political power, and we are unlikely to ever have much.  So
it seems perfectly natural that we should try at every opportunity to
minimize the importance of political power in general.  For instance, if
legislation were introduced saying: the pension system did not take into
account life extension technologies when they were set up, therefore anyone
who is using life extension technologies are ineligible for pensions past
the age of 80.  A Pension Czar will be assigned to determine what
technologies will be identified as life extenders, sorry no appeals.

We Six Million Hipsters can invent things and guide society in some ways,
but it can outvote us easily.  So libertarianism seems to be a good fit for
that community, in its desire to control the power of governments over us.

spike




From jrd1415 at gmail.com  Sat Aug 27 22:22:33 2011
From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:22:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time
In-Reply-To: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAHUTwkOCKx_0KKObOzkYYVr_DhaguWqJiU=pxYsJnpfuNJENqA@mail.gmail.com>

Welcome, Keith.  (No need to reply.)

Since we have a long time member with the same first name -- Keith
Henson -- it might be helpful if you could configure your postings to
show you as Keith V. or something similar.

Beyond that, welcome aboard.

Best, Jeff Davis

             "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                                                Ray Charles


From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 02:42:38 2011
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:42:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time
In-Reply-To: <CAHUTwkOCKx_0KKObOzkYYVr_DhaguWqJiU=pxYsJnpfuNJENqA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAHUTwkOCKx_0KKObOzkYYVr_DhaguWqJiU=pxYsJnpfuNJENqA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy237=yVF4oJKgyqziCUYfRvOKt3tkNUJzP=rQ6GNp1raA@mail.gmail.com>

Keith, why did you abandon academia?  Will you be content doing
science journalism?  Or do you plan eventually to do corporate
research & development?

I have deep respect for chemists, being that I always found it to be a
difficult subject.  And in medical school, biochemistry is considered
the subject that is a maker or breaker of a student's future as a
doctor.

John

On 8/27/11, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Welcome, Keith.  (No need to reply.)
>
> Since we have a long time member with the same first name -- Keith
> Henson -- it might be helpful if you could configure your postings to
> show you as Keith V. or something similar.
>
> Beyond that, welcome aboard.
>
> Best, Jeff Davis
>
>              "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
>                                                 Ray Charles
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 03:15:47 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:45:47 +0930
Subject: [ExI] Marshall Brain on the astounding near future potential of
 computer managers
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy3dzmeg5AZBBniUW2pO0yMyoddmObwmNQYXrnr7umQPmg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy3dzmeg5AZBBniUW2pO0yMyoddmObwmNQYXrnr7umQPmg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPBx5+42ka6u_mYf=z8V0=gNvGSVW10SnvfNAtqx8y4jvA@mail.gmail.com>

I have some software for replacing middle managers, it goes like this:

// do nothing

I have some ports, like this one:

# do nothing

and this one

-- do nothing

What do you think?

2011/8/20 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:
> I just discovered Marshall Brain and was astonished by his
> predictions/scenario for "Manna" software that replaces human middle
> managers.? I always supposed computers/robots would replace the teenage fast
> food workers, but certainly not their human overseers.
>
> http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
>
> John
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz



From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 03:32:48 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:32:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Marshall Brain on the astounding near future potential of
 computer managers
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPBx5+42ka6u_mYf=z8V0=gNvGSVW10SnvfNAtqx8y4jvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy3dzmeg5AZBBniUW2pO0yMyoddmObwmNQYXrnr7umQPmg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPBx5+42ka6u_mYf=z8V0=gNvGSVW10SnvfNAtqx8y4jvA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRA-n73eDM99xHqCkppTABH_pCGdjyqJA=KojcxVpb_Rw@mail.gmail.com>

More believable than the story.  (For example: robots starting to tranq
people to corral them "for their own protection", and tranq anyone who
tries to travel anyway, with nary a lawsuit about the assault?  A sci-fi
yarn that purports to be about a plausible future must present a
believable means by which we might get there.)

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have some software for replacing middle managers, it goes like this:
>
> // do nothing
>
> I have some ports, like this one:
>
> # do nothing
>
> and this one
>
> -- do nothing
>
> What do you think?
>
> 2011/8/20 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:
>> I just discovered Marshall Brain and was astonished by his
>> predictions/scenario for "Manna" software that replaces human middle
>> managers.? I always supposed computers/robots would replace the teenage fast
>> food workers, but certainly not their human overseers.
>>
>> http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
>>
>> John
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> --
> Emlyn
>
> http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
> Buzz posts,
> comments and all.
> 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
>



From veronesepk at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 03:42:54 2011
From: veronesepk at gmail.com (Keith Veronese)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:42:54 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Intro Time
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy237=yVF4oJKgyqziCUYfRvOKt3tkNUJzP=rQ6GNp1raA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+yghmtv42_53vakRfojztbCyJ7xZtKqT54G4DKDLAtufEHtdw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAHUTwkOCKx_0KKObOzkYYVr_DhaguWqJiU=pxYsJnpfuNJENqA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAGSKFy237=yVF4oJKgyqziCUYfRvOKt3tkNUJzP=rQ6GNp1raA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+yghmvxnwLpzHJReVf4Q0esc3LPbTzM=hG-UmQsx1o=TrVFbw@mail.gmail.com>

Good question - it might just be a little time off, we'll see. Definitely
wanted to try something different for a little while - we put a lot of
papers out, worked some crazy hours. I wrote during graduate school, so I
had some background in science writing as well.

It may just be a temporary period of disillusionment :).

- Keith V.

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 9:42 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Keith, why did you abandon academia?  Will you be content doing
> science journalism?  Or do you plan eventually to do corporate
> research & development?
>
> I have deep respect for chemists, being that I always found it to be a
> difficult subject.  And in medical school, biochemistry is considered
> the subject that is a maker or breaker of a student's future as a
> doctor.
>
> John
>
> On 8/27/11, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Welcome, Keith.  (No need to reply.)
> >
> > Since we have a long time member with the same first name -- Keith
> > Henson -- it might be helpful if you could configure your postings to
> > show you as Keith V. or something similar.
> >
> > Beyond that, welcome aboard.
> >
> > Best, Jeff Davis
> >
> >              "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
> >                                                 Ray Charles
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 03:54:15 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:54:15 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Marshall Brain on the astounding near future potential of
 computer managers
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRA-n73eDM99xHqCkppTABH_pCGdjyqJA=KojcxVpb_Rw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy3dzmeg5AZBBniUW2pO0yMyoddmObwmNQYXrnr7umQPmg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPBx5+42ka6u_mYf=z8V0=gNvGSVW10SnvfNAtqx8y4jvA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNRA-n73eDM99xHqCkppTABH_pCGdjyqJA=KojcxVpb_Rw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZPkR7f8yqr+DAhXx+u0Y_pHBmZJ9jOWKL0z7C7TCBTeQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> More believable than the story. ?(For example: robots starting to tranq
> people to corral them "for their own protection", and tranq anyone who
> tries to travel anyway, with nary a lawsuit about the assault? ?A sci-fi
> yarn that purports to be about a plausible future must present a
> believable means by which we might get there.)

The story read like an advertisement to send money to someone so "this
doesn't happen to you"... I wonder if the person named in the story is
a real person working on just such a visionary future.

There are very strong political undertones to the story... which made
it slightly less enjoyable for me. I did get all the way through
though... It seems foolish that the "rich" would build robots capable
of enslaving them just as soon as the robots became intelligent enough
to do their job... soon, there wouldn't be anyone rich enough, due to
the exponential nature of non-human intelligence.

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 03:57:00 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:57:00 -0600
Subject: [ExI] free lisp textbook, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPAVaC_y1NaQWv3Ejx_x1cCaMoOMVB8LnKiNbKCc8_azhQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <003f01cc63a2$f4dfef30$de9fcd90$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPCOV9X1kq7FWviSCjxw=Hve5sxhUZAbXSy58CQhZBeFNg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNRb-S+tgT+=TDy0=c+j0UgfXyozc+TR+wYMDb46n2frMw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAMp1VPAVaC_y1NaQWv3Ejx_x1cCaMoOMVB8LnKiNbKCc8_azhQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYSfkmV-AqCmORDAGryAB1QwurHwL2ie+XBCsYtZf6kTQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 11:21 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:


> wikiHow and Gnols were both just the "Learns" under my nomenclature,
> each leading to one "Know" (described by the title). Collapsing
> "Learns" and "Knows" together is simpler, but I think you then can't
> capture more complex relationships between ways of learning things
> (notably, one "learn" might give you multiple "knows", and multiple
> "learns" could get you to the same "know".

I wonder how you would deal with "Knews" and "Forgots"... LOL.

-Kelly


From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Sun Aug 28 04:27:47 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:27:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZeh_qH=BKFQ5D0zV_WoBkhsm-t0Zm82Vq=1iWVTo2rEQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005201cc5fca$65d2d450$31787cf0$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwZ3d5hO7-jiaDeM0UfBYDpWLVE9KbrULCb10+XoBXkkuQ@mail.gmail.com>	<002201cc6019$ecf80d70$c6e82850$@att.net>	<CAPy8Rwawqdnq9XWBCp5+Hq6mn=ev8Ub5FpPAU5ugvqm+7acWqQ@mail.gmail.com>	<005e01cc604f$7df43120$79dc9360$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAEwqDA+SL0k=YEbYAyZ0AJasJSTJUgXnJDj+a_=ErUQw@mail.gmail.com>
	<00bc01cc6088$9eeddff0$dcc99fd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E59C3C3.8070402@sbcglobal.net>

I'm a C++ person, console, not Windows.

FutureMan

On 8/21/2011 10:01 PM, spike wrote:
> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?
>
> I have been getting back up to speed on my Python coding, but I never did
> study Lisp, and it looks confusing.  I know we have a bunch of code jockeys
> and gurus of various scripting languages, but who here knows from Lisp?  I
> know Microsloth VBA and have written a lot of code in that, but it is nearly
> useless for AI and isn't object oriented: it doesn't allow user-defined
> functions.  Who are our professional coders?  Samantha?  Others?
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 04:42:02 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:42:02 -0600
Subject: [ExI] 21 scientific research projects starting this fall that
 could change the world
In-Reply-To: <CA+yghmuc6ytkKEqFCHyArGK7Md-cveJxjraDY_H0qFOWwNOO=w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy36_rgaJLyU6bhKMXkg21DAaCXwfcJtr-+6fw36MpfdeA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZ-nR9XW1a1Q-FCi90X0KgAo1JXSshL4sr0HkJGnLch9w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAK7-onsY0p0VD4cyFMNzLXXq7uJLgVDGPD5-MwChGY7T1Qj2sQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNT8xGem_Lm8HeOe=gvzVwo7=H2ti2emmVumtDdzf9sRNg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAK7-onukW=JAx0cTvV41xrqn00_WwQQ8Vi3N434ahbV3VEdEjA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CA+yghmuc6ytkKEqFCHyArGK7Md-cveJxjraDY_H0qFOWwNOO=w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbY9VkrUq3JHAkCk7nhH3i8Xn5n7WNrkcZC5wXs3P5E_Q@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/26 Keith Veronese <veronesepk at gmail.com>:
> I agree, transhuman projects need more funding, but the establishment of the
> NSF Engineering Center for
> Sensorimotor Neural Engineering does lend it some credibility and bring it
> away from the fringes. It's a first big step - it's going to take a
> phenomenal amount of corporate and government funding, but this is one way
> for the movement to build in the time being.

When practical applications become sufficiently possible that those
without vision can see the benefits, then a lot of money will end up
being spent on transhumanist projects. There's just too much money in
it for them to ignore. But work on it too soon, and you lose the
opportunity to be successful. So don't sweat it, these things will be
developed as they are possible for a finite amount of money.

I mean, we have a 120 Petabyte hard drive being built!!! This stuff is
coming down the pipe guys... don't worry that it doesn't look like
it's just around the corner.

-Kelly


From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Sun Aug 28 05:04:31 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:04:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>

I've followed this thread for a bit, but can't for the life of me see 
how the AI class, the offering of LISP as a preferred means for creating 
AI software, and the use of spreadsheets in lieu of hard coding, all fit 
together.  It appears that optimal solutions are being proposed for 
requirements not yet known, which raises another point: this class is a 
fundamental introduction to contemporary methods used to good advantage 
by autonomous robots operating in unstructured environments -- with 
applications in other areas related to object recognition, etc.  These 
are "basic" tools (the word 'basic' being rather relative in that the 
math involved ruins the lives of science students through at least their 
junior years at university), not general solutions.  Because of that, 
I'm not expecting much class work discussion between those of us taking 
the course that would interest ExI's.  We won't be developing AI, just 
learning some of the basic probability theory and numerical methods in 
the current tool-set; extremely dull stuff for anyone mainly interested 
in the Great Oz, and not the man behind the curtain.

Hopefully I'm wrong....

FutureMan


On 8/24/2011 9:29 AM, spike wrote:
>> ... On Behalf Of BillK
> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>
>>> What we really need for spreadsheets to more fully reach their full
> potential are:...
>>> Give me that and I'll be all over programming in Excel.
>
>> ...Yes, very nice, except for the elephant in the room...
> [debugging]...BillK
>
>
> I was thinking of a different elephant.  Anything written in Excel is in
> some sense owned or controlled by the BILL.  It is analogous to building
> your dream house on someone else's land.  I have done some really cool
> things in Excel, such as the atmosphere model, some iterative numerical
> analysis stuff, a model of a bouncing tetrahedron (with graphics!  {8^D), a
> sudoku solver, plenty of useful stuff in a programming environment that puts
> out solutions in a form useful to the many other excel users in any big
> company.
>
> That last point is important.  We have a lot of Matlab users, a lot of
> Labview users, C++ jockeys, all of these being powerful tools for a controls
> engineer, indispensible.  But most engineers never use either Matlab or
> Labview, and plenty couldn't write a line of code in any language that came
> along after Fortran went out of fashion.  On the other hand, every person
> who can fog a mirror in a big company such as Lockheeed, down to and
> including the guys who empty trash cans and possibly even upper management,
> use excel regularly.  So for that possibly bad reason, Excel allows
> collaborations where each specialty can create a worksheet.  If you know how
> to write a specification for a sheet and know how to integrate other
> people's work, you can do some truly amazing stunts in that environment.
> But it still belongs to the BILL in some important sense, the one with a G,
> not a K.
>
> spike
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 05:54:51 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:54:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSxAU+oPHp1q4m=cpif7HBek8Uf8A_wSffwHQ-ULBOSsQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 10:04 PM, G. Livick <glivick at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>?It appears that optimal solutions are being proposed for
> requirements not yet known

I'd say it appears correctly.

There was, actually, a chain of discussion that lead from AI through LISP -
"it looks like LISP programming will be used for this class" - to Excel - "I
don't know LISP, but I do know Excel" - to object oriented programming
in spreadsheets - "speaking of Excel, isn't each spreadsheet kind of like
an object?".  But that did deviate from talking about what this class
specifically will cover (specifically excluding related concepts).

> extremely dull stuff for anyone mainly interested in the Great Oz, and not
> the man behind the curtain.

I am, in fact, interested in the man behind the curtain.  I would not mind
being the man, in and of itself.  Short of that, I'd be content to build the
man, skip the curtain, and settle for "merely" advanced but understood
technology.  (To those who can't be bothered to look at the man even when
he's standing in plain sight, it looks like magic anyway.)



From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Sun Aug 28 11:30:56 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:30:56 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwYd5-j3suktwgVo+PDdRMpV=Xr3XjAqoEjCYBa=8Kud7A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1EE3C29A-F6E2-4335-81FC-3266E074B128@yahoo.com>
	<1313330763.42111.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<F25EF005-B84E-4CBA-9BE2-F8BF51153595@gmail.com>
	<1313338657.86872.YahooMailNeo@web112101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<9BFE5CA0-2823-462B-AF6E-E6C918507DC3@gmail.com>
	<1313341670.98752.YahooMailNeo@web112106.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313418647.96570.YahooMailNeo@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313427040.45037.YahooMailNeo@web112115.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>
	<201108201729.p7KHTSPp019310@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAPy8RwYd5-j3suktwgVo+PDdRMpV=Xr3XjAqoEjCYBa=8Kud7A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a6jgoPuFO_eRrfDwrwwhq7VnZkm946qRZchhgZDMmA4Gw@mail.gmail.com>

On 26 August 2011 22:23, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Exactly. So, if the government in China can change the outcome of
> research done there, why would we assume that our government doesn't
> do the same here? I believe that it does, specifically by choosing who
> gets grants and who doesn't.
>

This exactly what makes me wary of the too-quick enthusiasm of
transhumanists  ? la IEET for global governance mechanisms.

Because, ultimately, given societies may adopt one aesthetics or philosophy
over another one, but as far as technoscience is concerned, competition
amongst them is a powerful control mechanism in selecting the most effective
paradigms (or at least make the least ones go extinct).

But in a single Brave New World, or in the attempts to transform ONU in the
seed of any such thing? No sirrah.

Culture and zeitgeist has just as much impact on the skewing of
> scientific results (at least the ones that get published in peer
> reviewed publications) as totalitarian regimes.
>

Absolutely. At the end of the day, it is the cultural norm (and the vested
interests it serves) that counts. Legal ("totalitarian") repression is a
just a possible byproduct, which often is not even necessary, enforcement
being directly entrusted to social mechanisms.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Aug 28 14:39:14 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 07:39:14 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of G. Livick
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 10:05 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

>...I've followed this thread for a bit, but can't for the life of me see
how the AI class, the offering of LISP as a preferred means for creating AI
software, and the use of spreadsheets in lieu of hard coding, all fit
together...  We won't be developing AI, just learning some of the basic
probability theory and numerical methods in the current tool-set; extremely
dull stuff for anyone mainly interested in the Great Oz, and not the man
behind the curtain.  FutureMan


Sure, FutureMan, but the big fiery guy was really a lot more interesting
than the goof behind the curtain.  He really had the old SILENCE!  thing
going.  And the whole bursting into flame bit, don't we wish we could do
that?  It would be great at annual performance review time.

Your commentary is exactly the kind of feedback I have been looking for, and
why I suggested we keep all the Stanford AI discussion under strict subject
line discipline, so those who don't want to follow all that can effectively
filter it all without filtering any particular poster.   We can do subject
line filtering instead of poster filtering.

Granted the whole notion of weak AI, teaching cars to drive themselves and
doing however it is that Google figures out what we want from a few words,
may have exactly nothing to do with AGI and may offer nothing at all to help
us in understanding AGI.  But I see it as a worthwhile exercise in that it
may help us understand a little better how our own brains work.  I brought
up the example of the WW2 fighter games, and how the software opponents seem
to make reasonable and humanlike decisions on what to do in any particular
case.  I concluded way they did that is to make an enormous look-up table
from watching humans play, which is not intelligence.  But if we look at
online chatter in general, it is easy to conclude that human activity is
largely the bio equivalent of an enormous lookup table.

spike



From eugen at leitl.org  Sun Aug 28 20:00:12 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 22:00:12 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Alcor dumping "grandfathering"?
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5JuL+ZCL0Rv6TGnyw=0PHZU8wPgsmhXTMYSbcA4kDnNw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5JuL+ZCL0Rv6TGnyw=0PHZU8wPgsmhXTMYSbcA4kDnNw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110828200012.GP22933@leitl.org>

On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 09:16:52AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
> Sorry to put this here, but with the cryonics mailing list being shut
> down, I don't know where else to put it.  I think there are still a
> few signed up on this list.

There's the New Cryonet on yahoogroups that sees some traffic.
 
> Alcor seems to be in the middle making  a decisions to raise the
> minimum suspension funding retroactively.  For the people who set up
> insurance years ago, and are now too old to get more, they may have to
> go elsewhere or give up the prospect of being suspended entirely.

You're not getting a lot for your dues anyway.
 
> While this isn't exactly being done secretly, there is very little coming out.
> 
> If any of you talk to board members, you might ask them what the intent is.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Sun Aug 28 22:25:39 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 15:25:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Discontent with the path physics is taking
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a6jgoPuFO_eRrfDwrwwhq7VnZkm946qRZchhgZDMmA4Gw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1313119667.11654.YahooMailNeo@web112112.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313439431.45899.YahooMailNeo@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<1313459444.2097.YahooMailNeo@web112110.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
	<1313595299.34405.YahooMailNeo@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<006b01cc5cf8$1cc6b0d0$56541270$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwbCp+Vwtq+-JTrYjuMoij8tgeN48DFpik0AhHDC_bwwAg@mail.gmail.com>
	<003701cc5d0e$0d770150$286503f0$@att.net>
	<CAPy8Rwb0ZPXAwxzEMNv=zsPKAo1heDDFeacy9T_-KGJAMj1VKQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a60D8XdDnAfsY5jyznF=Mnqod23XRP-rfKfw0XjY1DORA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4DD5B0.9000507@sbcglobal.net>
	<CAPoR7a7YkXF+2m8GRO2Li69gdYOs6ydLAfYUH2hL+4L7SW=OZw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CABf9QbA3RPFXh4ecFTM28OZP57jy4THq8v667yDD5WABR9A-3A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwZmtgcW7SYaTnAvyvbKj6mkOBSJZG3vRTfSfODqEYy3Ew@mail.gmail.com>
	<201108201729.p7KHTSPp019310@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<CAPy8RwYd5-j3suktwgVo+PDdRMpV=Xr3XjAqoEjCYBa=8Kud7A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a6jgoPuFO_eRrfDwrwwhq7VnZkm946qRZchhgZDMmA4Gw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E5AC063.9040007@sbcglobal.net>

If the outcome of research is altered from what it was, then fruitful 
research on that topic stops right there.   New research builds on what 
came before.  If what came before wasn't valid, then additional research 
cannot extend it.  Governments can stop funding research they don't 
like, or spin the politics around research that undercuts their basic 
platform, but they can alter the actual result of research just once.  
It will work for awhile, but the scientific community will not be fooled 
by it, and will shortly reveal the scam, or reproduce the work and 
publish the proper results independently.

FutureMan


On 8/28/2011 4:30 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> On 26 August 2011 22:23, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com 
> <mailto:kellycoinguy at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Exactly. So, if the government in China can change the outcome of
>     research done there, why would we assume that our government doesn't
>     do the same here? I believe that it does, specifically by choosing who
>     gets grants and who doesn't.
>
>
> This exactly what makes me wary of the too-quick enthusiasm of 
> transhumanists  ? la IEET for global governance mechanisms.
>
> Because, ultimately, given societies may adopt one aesthetics or 
> philosophy over another one, but as far as technoscience is concerned, 
> competition amongst them is a powerful control mechanism in selecting 
> the most effective paradigms (or at least make the least ones go extinct).
>
> But in a single Brave New World, or in the attempts to transform ONU 
> in the seed of any such thing? No sirrah.
>
>     Culture and zeitgeist has just as much impact on the skewing of
>     scientific results (at least the ones that get published in peer
>     reviewed publications) as totalitarian regimes.
>
>
> Absolutely. At the end of the day, it is the cultural norm (and the 
> vested interests it serves) that counts. Legal ("totalitarian") 
> repression is a just a possible byproduct, which often is not even 
> necessary, enforcement being directly entrusted to social mechanisms.
>
> -- 
> Stefano Vaj
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 00:23:18 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:23:18 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
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	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
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	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZcp4-0=OnsNpgu2aXE_de4KZZ78fDz0qm+iXEHOnM+1A@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 9:22 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> What we really need for spreadsheets to more fully reach their full
>> potential are:
>> 1) Hosted in the cloud (ala Google Spreadsheets)
>> 2) Ability to reference values from other spreadsheets with live
>> updates (Hyper-references)
>> 3) Ability to access data from anywhere inside the spreadsheet. (HTTP,
>> web services, etc.)
>> 4) Ability to send notices from Excel to other environments. (email,
>> sms, web services, etc.)
>>
>> Give me that and I'll be all over programming in Excel.
>
> Yes, very nice, except for the elephant in the room.
>
> Generally it is estimated that programming in spreadsheets has about
> the same error rate as normal programming. i.e. pretty high. But where
> a program breaks, a spreadsheet still offers you neat rows and columns
> of figures. So most spreadsheets don't get a thorough debugging.
>
> <http://www.strategy-at-risk.com/2009/03/03/the-risk-of-spreadsheet-errors/>
>
> Quote:
> Audits done shows that nearly 90% of the spreadsheets contained
> serious errors. Code inspection experiments also shows that even
> experienced users have a hard time finding errors, succeeding in only
> finding 54% on average.
>
> Powell et alii settled for six error types:
>
> ? 1. Hard-coding in a formula ? one or more numbers appear in
> formulas ? ? ? ? 75%
> ? 2. Reference error ? a formula contains one or more incorrect
> references to other cells 11%
> ? 3. Logic error ? a formula is used incorrectly, leading to an
> incorrect result ? ?8%
> ? 4. Copy/Paste error ? a formula is wrong due to inaccurate use of copy/paste
> ? 5. Omission error ? a formula is wrong because one or more of its
> input cells is blank
> ? 6. Data input error ? an incorrect data input is used

I certainly agree that spreadsheets need something like a test
harness... I think there is enough of a framework in Excel and .NET
that you could implement such a thing but I haven't looked into it
seriously. I am perhaps one of the better qualified people to look at
such a solution... so I'll put in on my "really like to do" list...
:-)

It's hard to think what such tests would look like, or how they would
best be expressed. Ideally, you would want to check the results with
another little spreadsheet... The difficulty, is that unlike
parameterized programming, it's hard to say what a "module" is in a
spreadsheet. Maybe you could do tests in C# or VB and execute them
against the spreadsheet, but that would require spreadsheet users to
have extra skills to test their spreadsheets, which isn't an ideal
situation.

There are more programs out there written in Excel than any other
environment, bar none. It is sad that there aren't good testing tools
for those many many programs. It is worth thinking about, and I have
some, but not enough yet. I'm still waiting for the AH HAH moment that
says I've stumbled into the right solution. It's been rolling around
in the back of my head for a few years though.

-Kelly



From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Mon Aug 29 04:45:23 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:45:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>

Spike

On 8/28/2011 7:39 AM, spike wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of G. Livick
> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 10:05 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>
>> ...I've followed this thread for a bit, but can't for the life of me see
> how the AI class, the offering of LISP as a preferred means for creating AI
> software, and the use of spreadsheets in lieu of hard coding, all fit
> together...  We won't be developing AI, just learning some of the basic
> probability theory and numerical methods in the current tool-set; extremely
> dull stuff for anyone mainly interested in the Great Oz, and not the man
> behind the curtain.  FutureMan
>
>
> Sure, FutureMan, but the big fiery guy was really a lot more interesting
> than the goof behind the curtain.  He really had the old SILENCE!  thing
> going.  And the whole bursting into flame bit, don't we wish we could do
> that?  It would be great at annual performance review time.

Everyone likes the OZ.  It kind of spoils things to look behind the 
curtain to discover that it's all illusion.

>
>
>
> Granted the whole notion of weak AI, teaching cars to drive themselves and
> doing however it is that Google figures out what we want from a few words,
> may have exactly nothing to do with AGI and may offer nothing at all to help
> us in understanding AGI.  But I see it as a worthwhile exercise in that it
> may help us understand a little better how our own brains work.
About learning how our brain works from approaches we use to simulate 
its capabilities; not likely?  We don't actually know how our brains 
work -- by 'we', I mean 'they', those who would know if anybody did.  
That's where the "artificial" of AI comes in.
> I brought
> up the example of the WW2 fighter games, and how the software opponents seem
> to make reasonable and humanlike decisions on what to do in any particular
> case.  I concluded way they did that is to make an enormous look-up table
> from watching humans play, which is not intelligence.  But if we look at
> online chatter in general, it is easy to conclude that human activity is
> largely the bio equivalent of an enormous lookup table.

This class will help those who stick it out get a handle on how things 
such as you describe above are implemented in software.   It's not 
look-up tables....  But this knowledge comes at a price: we are looking 
behind the curtain, learning to do what the guy there does, with the 
attendant loss of technological innocence (or the availability to feign 
innocence).  Any claims from graduates that certain things in the world 
of AI are practical and their emergence predictable can expect 
challenges from other graduates as to possible methods.  Defense of such 
concepts as "uploading" will become impossible for people tasked with 
also explaining, in reasonably practical terms, just how it could be 
accomplished.  Unless, of course, we all take a minor in Ruby Slippers.
>
> spike
>
All this said, I expect that some portion of our discussions here might 
become richer as those taking the course start to have ideas about how 
certain classes of unsolved problems might be tackled with the new 
tools.  Perhaps the Dyson Shield idea will fall to practical concepts of 
ultra-fast computers running in superconductive environments, thus 
taking no power at all, executing algorithms that take advantage of 
Artificial_General_Intelligence.h.  I look forward to beginning.

FutureMan



From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 05:54:04 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 22:54:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
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	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
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	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:45 PM, G. Livick <glivick at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>?But this knowledge comes at a price: we are looking behind the
> curtain, learning to do what the guy there does, with the attendant loss of
> technological innocence (or the availability to feign innocence). ?Any
> claims from graduates that certain things in the world of AI are practical
> and their emergence predictable can expect challenges from other graduates
> as to possible methods. ?Defense of such concepts as "uploading" will become
> impossible for people tasked with also explaining, in reasonably practical
> terms, just how it could be accomplished.

Uh huh.  I suppose black powder is just an interesting toy of no military value,
there's no such thing as atomic decay because we can't conceive of it, and
heavier than air flight - having never been demonstrated before - is impossible,
then?

Seriously.  Just because we do not today know how to do something (and if
we could explain it in reasonably practical terms, we probably could do it
today), does not mean we never will, nor that we can not see how to go
about discovering how.  If you want to make such claims, the onus is upon
you to prove that it is not, in fact, possible.

There are untold number of projects using AI techniques to simulate different
parts of what the human brain can do, to different degrees of success.  It
appears that the main remaining challenges are to improve those pieces, then
wire them all together.  We know enough about how the human brain works
that it seems more likely than not that that will work...even if we can not
describe exactly how the end result will work right now.

This is basic stuff, man.  This is what it means to develop technology.

>?Unless, of course, we all take a
> minor in Ruby Slippers.

Or that, if you want to call it that.  But remember, it took the man behind the
curtain to give Dorothy that power.  Knowing how it worked was part of him.
The showmanship of Oz was gone before the topic came up.

We live, every day, among things our ancestors of many generations ago
would call miraculous.  They don't seem that way to us merely because we
know how they work.  Outside of abstract philosophical arguments that
keep getting special-cased around by reality, I am not aware of any serious
evidence that we can not create human-equivalent AIs - or even emulate
humans in silico.  For instance, take the famous thought experiment where
you replace a brain with artificial neurons, one neuron at a time.  We have
that capability today; it is merely impractically expensive, not impossible,
to actually conduct that experiment (say, on an animal, or a human who'd
otherwise be about to die, to avoid ethical problems).  "Impractically
expensive" is the kind of thing that development tends to take care of.



From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Mon Aug 29 07:16:27 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:16:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
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	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
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	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
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	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>

On 8/28/2011 10:54 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:45 PM, G. Livick<glivick at sbcglobal.net>  wrote:
>>   But this knowledge comes at a price: we are looking behind the
>> curtain, learning to do what the guy there does, with the attendant loss of
>> technological innocence (or the availability to feign innocence).  Any
>> claims from graduates that certain things in the world of AI are practical
>> and their emergence predictable can expect challenges from other graduates
>> as to possible methods.  Defense of such concepts as "uploading" will become
>> impossible for people tasked with also explaining, in reasonably practical
>> terms, just how it could be accomplished.
> Uh huh.  I suppose black powder is just an interesting toy of no military value,
> there's no such thing as atomic decay because we can't conceive of it, and
> heavier than air flight - having never been demonstrated before - is impossible,
> then?
Not saying that at all.
>
> Seriously.  Just because we do not today know how to do something (and if
> we could explain it in reasonably practical terms, we probably could do it
> today), does not mean we never will, nor that we can not see how to go
> about discovering how.  If you want to make such claims, the onus is upon
> you to prove that it is not, in fact, possible.
Hardly.  The scientific method places the onus on the claimant.  
Otherwise, we'd have to accept everything imaginable as possible, since 
"nothing is impossible."
>
> There are untold number of projects using AI techniques to simulate different
> parts of what the human brain can do, to different degrees of success.  It
> appears that the main remaining challenges are to improve those pieces, then
> wire them all together.  We know enough about how the human brain works
> that it seems more likely than not that that will work...even if we can not
> describe exactly how the end result will work right now.
One will not find such claims about the workings of the brain, let alone 
mind, in the scientific literature.  The layman's knowledge of the state 
of the art of things does not open for him the awe of the researcher 
over how little is known.  As a result, an unfounded optimism is not 
unusual among interested observers.  As for the number of "AI 
Techniques" we already have being nearly sufficient, after a little more 
tweaking, to knit into a grand unified solution that will cover all 
bases: the people taking the Stanford AI course should emerge from it 
able to assess that statement directly.  My fiddling with this stuff 
over the years has me thinking quite the contrary, though; the field is 
in it's infancy as I see it.
>
> This is basic stuff, man.  This is what it means to develop technology.
Technology is developed from previous technology in incremental 
fashion.  It never emerges out of whole cloth.
>
>>   Unless, of course, we all take a
>> minor in Ruby Slippers.
> Or that, if you want to call it that.  But remember, it took the man behind the
> curtain to give Dorothy that power.  Knowing how it worked was part of him.
> The showmanship of Oz was gone before the topic came up.
True enough.  But without the man making it work, there would have been 
no magic.  Dorothy's observation of it did not cause the magic to 
present itself to her.
>
> We live, every day, among things our ancestors of many generations ago
> would call miraculous.  They don't seem that way to us merely because we
> know how they work.  Outside of abstract philosophical arguments that
> keep getting special-cased around by reality, I am not aware of any serious
> evidence that we can not create human-equivalent AIs - or even emulate
> humans in silico.  For instance, take the famous thought experiment where
> you replace a brain with artificial neurons, one neuron at a time.  We have
> that capability today; it is merely impractically expensive, not impossible,
> to actually conduct that experiment (say, on an animal, or a human who'd
> otherwise be about to die, to avoid ethical problems).  "Impractically
> expensive" is the kind of thing that development tends to take care of.
It's not just impractically expensive to replicate the actions of a 
neuron in software today, it's impossible.  We don't have the whole 
picture yet; I'd guess, at best, only 10%, of which 9% will be shown in 
time to be inaccurate.  Pull up a medical text on basic neurology and 
see for yourself.  We know even less how they function as communicators 
in networks, how the 60-some neurotransmitters affect things, how the 
glia support or suppress activity, etc.
Adrian, I see you've signed up for this course, so perhaps as we get 
into it we can explore some of these areas in light of the new knowledge 
thus acquired.  This should be very interesting!

FutureMan



From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 17:01:57 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:01:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 12:16 AM, G. Livick <glivick at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Hardly. ?The scientific method places the onus on the claimant. ?Otherwise,
> we'd have to accept everything imaginable as possible, since "nothing is
> impossible."

Actually, no.  There are some things that have been proven impossible.  For
instance, accelerating (in the usual sense) from below the speed of light to
above it, for any entity that has mass.  The class of things that we merely
don't yet know how to do is different.

> One will not find such claims about the workings of the brain, let alone
> mind, in the scientific literature.

Because such speculation does not belong in the scientific literature.  Said
literature is for reports of results after the work has been
performed.  Instead,
look for project descriptions, that - if successful - will ultimately result in
reports in scientific literature.  Look up the Blue Brain Project, for
example: it
is explicitly trying to simulate an entire mammalian brain.

>?The layman's knowledge of the state of
> the art of things does not open for him the awe of the researcher over how
> little is known. ?As a result, an unfounded optimism is not unusual among
> interested observers.

This is true, and we agree that the AI course shall inform us of the state of
the art better.

>?As for the number of "AI Techniques" we already have
> being nearly sufficient, after a little more tweaking, to knit into a grand
> unified solution that will cover all bases: the people taking the Stanford
> AI course should emerge from it able to assess that statement directly. ?My
> fiddling with this stuff over the years has me thinking quite the contrary,
> though; the field is in it's infancy as I see it.

As I said, the pieces need improvement on their own.  It's a lot more
tweaking, not a little.

> Technology is developed from previous technology in incremental fashion. ?It
> never emerges out of whole cloth.

This is not always true.  There are many documented examples of revolutionary,
rather than evolutionary, improvements.

But that is irrelevant here.  There appears to exist a path, using only
incremental improvements, from where we are today to emulating human brains,
and from there to translating an existing, living brain into such an emulation.

> True enough. ?But without the man making it work, there would have been no
> magic. ?Dorothy's observation of it did not cause the magic to present
> itself to her.

Agreed.  And this course is about creating said man.

> It's not just impractically expensive to replicate the actions of a neuron
> in software today, it's impossible.  We don't have the whole picture yet;
> I'd guess, at best, only 10%, of which 9% will be shown in time to be
> inaccurate.

I said it's impractically expensive to replicate an entire brain, not a single
neuron.

As to emulating a neuron - a quick search on "neuron simulation" seems to
provide many examples of replicating the actions of a neuron in software
today.  But for sake of argument, let us assume they are all imperfect.

Are you saying that it is physically impossible - not just "we don't have the
information today", but "we can never obtain this information" - to eventually
discover how neurons work, in 100% detail?

This seems to be the core of your argument, and an extraordinary claim.
What evidence do you have that it is impossible to uncover the missing
details?

Note that we have 100% detail about certain other physical phenomena.
For instance, how electricity travels through a wire made of thickness X
by length Y of material Z, or how air under given atmospheric conditions
travels over a certain surface.  Neither is mere complexity a blocker:
there are many programs that have taken the air flow model, and applied
it to the airflow over an entire airplane under a series of conditions, for
instance to find where on the plane a flight will induce the most stress -
and an entire 747, say, would seem to be at least as complex as a
typical biological cell.  If it is impossible to get this level of detail about
neurons, what is it about neurons that makes this impossible?

If it is not impossible to uncover said details, then it is not impossible to
emulate them in software once they are uncovered.  Once we can emulate
one - including a complete model of its synapses - then we can emulate
two, including any synapses they share if the original model correctly
emulated the one neuron's synapses (and if it is confirmed that they only
interact via synapses - if there is any other method, we will need to uncover
and emulate that too).  Once we have two - again, including their method of
interaction - then we can add a third, and a fourth, and eventually an entire
brain's worth.



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 18:59:17 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:59:17 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
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	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYmDgGHXtffpY4Dk02B6-zA9As2JY48a7xQsE1om+67ug@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> Seriously. ?Just because we do not today know how to do something (and if
> we could explain it in reasonably practical terms, we probably could do it
> today), does not mean we never will, nor that we can not see how to go
> about discovering how. ?If you want to make such claims, the onus is upon
> you to prove that it is not, in fact, possible.

The best effort I've seen to work out this sort of thing is Physics of
the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers,
Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku. He
creates a language for talking about different classes of impossible,
and then discusses whether the things we see in science fiction are
class 1,2,or 3 impossibilities. If you want to prove that AI can't
meet human levels of performance, I would suggest starting by figuring
out which class of impossibility it is, and why.

Of course my gut feeling is that it's nowhere near impossible.

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 19:11:37 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:11:37 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you saying that it is physically impossible - not just "we don't have the
> information today", but "we can never obtain this information" - to eventually
> discover how neurons work, in 100% detail?
>
> This seems to be the core of your argument, and an extraordinary claim.
> What evidence do you have that it is impossible to uncover the missing
> details?
>
> Note that we have 100% detail about certain other physical phenomena.
> For instance, how electricity travels through a wire made of thickness X
> by length Y of material Z,

I'm objecting, just a bit, on a technicality, to this statement... I
don't think we understand how anything works to 100% detail. We don't
know if it's all strings in 11 dimensions, or something else. What we
do know is how to predict things with enough accuracy to be useful and
reproducible. To take your example, it is not true that we have a 100%
understanding of how electricity travels through materials at absolute
zero. Nor do we understand completely (to my knowledge) how
electricity acts inside of all types of plasmas. We have difficulty
with how electricity acts when only a few atoms of material are
involved. Yet, we do have enough understanding to build a workable
(most of the time) power grid and semi conductors. So, good enough,
yes, 100% no.

Similarly, I think we will achieve levels of artificial intelligence
that will be impressive before we understand the human brain even
close to 100%. Look at Watson, for a recent example. Pretty
impressive. Yet we don't understand how Ken Jennings' brain works with
very much certainty. We can be pretty certain that it doesn't work
like Watson... ;-)

-Kelly


From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 20:03:18 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:03:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
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	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
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	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm objecting, just a bit, on a technicality, to this statement... I
> don't think we understand how anything works to 100% detail. We don't
> know if it's all strings in 11 dimensions, or something else. What we
> do know is how to predict things with enough accuracy to be useful and
> reproducible.

Fair enough.  That's the sense I was going for.  Though, note that that
phrasing leaves open the possibility of objecting even if we do achieve it.

Take, for example, me.  People sometimes question my chains of logic -
and sometimes rightly so.  I'm human, nobody's perfect all the time.  But
let's say I get uploaded then make a mistake.  Even if there is scads of
evidence that the emulation is most likely perfect, won't there be a
temptation to always declare that any mistakes I make are due to flaws
in my emulated mind?  This will be impossible to completely prove or
disprove: even if my emulation and my original version live side by side,
experiencing and learning much the same things, by the time any
difference comes up, there will inevitably have been differences that could
cause different thoughts.  (For example, the exact moment we wake up,
thought cycles devoted to use of our different physical capabilities, and
so on.)  If the uploading process is destructive and one-way, it becomes
even harder to prove or disprove, as there won't be an original me to
compare to.

All we need is a good enough understanding to reproduce a human mind
in silico.  As demonstrated elsewhere, this need not be perfect.  Even
some obvious differences (especially where there are existing analogues,
such as slightly decreased reasoning capability akin to what old people
currently experience) might be tolerated, especially if there is a path to
correct those differences over time (such as faster hardware), in exchange
for:

* the perception, by the individual and those other people and institutions
the individual cares about (such as the law), that this is the same person,
which requires the preservation of memory;

* a continued ability to actively influence the world (as opposed to
"immortality through one's works" or otherwise relying exclusively on
other people to react to what one did, without the capability to react to
their reactions);

* and a baseline of ability at least equal to human average in the areas
the individual cares about (movement and speech are likely to be
required; equipment to manufacture new humans can be discarded, or
at least removed from the shell the mind inhabits, in many cases).


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 29 19:57:55 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:57:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] human level ai, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <017c01cc6685$f26c0230$d7440690$@att.net>

Reiteration please, if the topic wanders off of Stanford AI class, do adjust
the subject line, thanks, since we gave that subject temporary papal
dispensation to sin, we want to retain righteousness in other areas.


>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson

>... If you want to prove that AI can't meet human levels of performance, I
would suggest starting by figuring out which class of impossibility it is,
and why.  -Kelly


The problem can be broken down into subcategories of human intelligence.  We
once thought chess required human judgment to reach the top levels, but
software blasted through the top human level and kept right on going.
Recently, the French Chess Association caught three of its own players, the
top players in that nation, cheating using computers.  Last week a major
tournament had a B rated player scalping masters.  They took away his
briefcase and pen, at which time he instantly reverted to B rated play, and
lost all the remaining games.  Two years ago, a cell phone won a major
tournament in Brazil which included two grandmasters, without even having to
call a friend.

One of the things I hope to get from the Stanford AI class is an idea for
why AI can or cannot be expected to meet and exceed human level performance
in the area of designing AI software.

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 29 20:05:49 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:05:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] damien's new book
Message-ID: <018901cc6687$0d25c920$27715b60$@att.net>

 

Assistant deputy moderator's note:  Anyone here who manages to get a book
published, on dead trees or any electronic medium, is welcome to post about
it here.  That isn't considered advertising or spam, that is a special
circumstance in which every person here will likely take pride for having
one of our own manage to achieve.  Writers, anything you say about your own
work is never considered inappropriate self-promotion, quite to the
contrary.  As is written in Hezekiah chapter 4, "If that man hath a horn,
and he bloweth not his own horn, wherewithal shall it be blown?  spike

 

 

Our own Damien Broderick, who we count as one of us with great pride, has
posted privately:

 

 

 

Hope it's okay to do a bit of shameless self-promotion:

 

The near-future science fiction novel POST MORTAL SYNDROME, by me and my
wife Barbara Lamar, is now available in trade paperback print:

 

<http://www.amazon.com/Post-Mortal-Syndrome-Science-Fiction/dp/1434435598/re
f=sr_1_1?s=books
<http://www.amazon.com/Post-Mortal-Syndrome-Science-Fiction/dp/1434435598/re
f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314645294&sr=1-1>
&ie=UTF8&qid=1314645294&sr=1-1>

 

An earlier version was serialized on the website of the Aussie popular
science magazine COSMOS, and got some 100,000 hits.

 

We tried to do the impossible thing for a thriller aimed at the mass

market: depict scientific developments and paradigm change in a

*positive* light, and the enemies of life extension and human enhancement as
the deathists they are.

 

(Incidentally, the book is dedicated to Aubrey de Grey.)

 

Have fun!

 

Damien Broderick

 

 

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 20:17:48 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:17:48 +0100
Subject: [ExI] human level ai, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <017c01cc6685$f26c0230$d7440690$@att.net>
References: <017c01cc6685$f26c0230$d7440690$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armimLox7Hp_w2OauQNVPbHRKjfHZSe8SPQSyEwQHknd96g@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 8:57 PM, spike wrote:
> Reiteration please, if the topic wanders off of Stanford AI class, do adjust
> the subject line, thanks, since we gave that subject temporary papal
> dispensation to sin, we want to retain righteousness in other areas.
>
>


But, but, but........
Putting    'was: RE: ai class at stanford'  in the Subject field means
it still gets picked up by the stanford filters.


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Aug 29 21:54:45 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:54:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] human level ai, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armimLox7Hp_w2OauQNVPbHRKjfHZSe8SPQSyEwQHknd96g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <017c01cc6685$f26c0230$d7440690$@att.net>
	<CAL_armimLox7Hp_w2OauQNVPbHRKjfHZSe8SPQSyEwQHknd96g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01d701cc6696$44384e10$cca8ea30$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] human level ai, was: RE: ai class at stanford

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 8:57 PM, spike wrote:
> Reiteration please, if the topic wanders off of Stanford AI class, do 
> adjust the subject line, thanks, since we gave that subject temporary 
> papal dispensation to sin, we want to retain righteousness in other areas.
>
>


But, but, but........
Putting    'was: RE: ai class at stanford'  in the Subject field means
it still gets picked up by the stanford filters.


BillK 




Hmmm, good point thanks Billk.

Proposed solution: should your subject line wander off of AI class at
Stanford, suggest a couple of ways to deal: you could just put the new
subject and eliminate ai class at Stanford.  Or you could leave the Was: Re
in there, and cut the rest, or you could leave it all in there knowing
plenty of us don't want to filter any of the content here automatically, but
want to signal the busy about the topic, so you delete when you are in a
hurry, but read when not.

Since the posters here generally display the good old fashioned genuine
intelligence as opposed to the artificial variety, I will leave it to you to
figure out how to accomplish this general goal: let's not get a ton of stuff
posted here under the subject line ai class at stanford when it does not
cover that topic.  Otherwise we will need to discontinue the experiment of
allowing temporary overposting on that generally interesting topic.

Good eye BillK.

spike



From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Aug 29 22:53:32 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:53:32 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
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	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> instance to find where on the plane a flight will induce the most stress -
> and an entire 747, say, would seem to be at least as complex as a
> typical biological cell. ?If it is impossible to get this level of detail about
> neurons, what is it about neurons that makes this impossible?
>
> If it is not impossible to uncover said details, then it is not impossible to
> emulate them in software once they are uncovered. ?Once we can emulate
> one - including a complete model of its synapses - then we can emulate
> two, including any synapses they share if the original model correctly

I agree with your sentiment.  How do you put one's high holy identity
onto the examination workbench?  Ok, so I'm leading the question - let
me explain.  I have no intention of devolving this conversation into
the usual muck and mire of qualia and identity and souls and other
such ephemera.  However...  in our collective Theory of Mind there
should be some explanation the mechanism by which the sense of self
exists.  Without at least some vector towards something like a
galactic center of gravity we'll be forever examining this bit or that
and looking to see if it "contains" the magic that makes us all agree,
"I have intelligence, You have intelligence, He or She has
intelligence - but It; it is just a thing that does our bidding."  (is
intelligence isomorphic to sentience?)  I used the mashup of "galactic
center" and "center of gravity" because I feel that the galactic
center captures the essence of a galaxy-worth of parts working
together to make the thing we recognize and label a galaxy; and the
center of gravity is a simplification of a host of forces that are
easily beyond undergraduate physics to imagine while "center of
gravity" is something so intuitively simple a 3 year old can explain
why the hammer doesn't fall when the head rests on a table with the
handle sticking over the edge.  So the central tendency of all the
moving parts at various levels of aggregation
([sub]atomic->[micro|macro]scopic->Astronomic->Cosmic) have some role
to play in the relationship of individual organisms (which are likely
complex systems in themselves) up through networks of organisms.
Human-level intelligence is one goal, Humanity-level intelligence is
another again.  Networks of humanity-level intelligences is beyond
[our complete] comprehension.

I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the
world's most complicated clockwork automaton will yield a machine
surprisingly adept at acting like a human (even surpassing human
ability) - but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
rights that people currently hold?

I'll pause here to see if anyone is interested.  :)



From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 00:52:13 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:52:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRb6UD6ABimiBqN-D52tb0snZLHbM6DuLkeopMSrAN+4g@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the
> world's most complicated clockwork automaton will yield a machine
> surprisingly adept at acting like a human (even surpassing human
> ability) - but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
> rights that people currently hold?

The current standard, so far as there is one, is when it passes the
Turing Test.


From sjatkins at mac.com  Tue Aug 30 01:14:34 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:14:34 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E5C397A.5020702@mac.com>

On 08/29/2011 01:03 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Kelly Anderson<kellycoinguy at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I'm objecting, just a bit, on a technicality, to this statement... I
>> don't think we understand how anything works to 100% detail. We don't
>> know if it's all strings in 11 dimensions, or something else. What we
>> do know is how to predict things with enough accuracy to be useful and
>> reproducible.
> Fair enough.  That's the sense I was going for.  Though, note that that
> phrasing leaves open the possibility of objecting even if we do achieve it.
>
> Take, for example, me.  People sometimes question my chains of logic -
> and sometimes rightly so.  I'm human, nobody's perfect all the time.  But
> let's say I get uploaded then make a mistake.  Even if there is scads of
> evidence that the emulation is most likely perfect, won't there be a
> temptation to always declare that any mistakes I make are due to flaws
> in my emulated mind?

No more than you blame your parents, genetics, any possible brain damage 
and such for your
mistakes now.  It is actually not in your interest to blame these 
externalities as you would be
effectively saying that you are fundamentally broken and not to be 
trusted to some degree.
Self defeating.

>   This will be impossible to completely prove or
> disprove: even if my emulation and my original version live side by side,
> experiencing and learning much the same things, by the time any
> difference comes up, there will inevitably have been differences that could
> cause different thoughts.  (For example, the exact moment we wake up,
> thought cycles devoted to use of our different physical capabilities, and
> so on.)  If the uploading process is destructive and one-way, it becomes
> even harder to prove or disprove, as there won't be an original me to
> compare to.

So what?  Why would it be of any practical use or a useful use of your 
time to fret over it?
You couldn't easily sue the upload firm as they likely required sign off 
and releases aplenty.
So wouldn't you only be undercutting your self-confidence and the 
confidence of others in you?

- s


From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 01:20:19 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:20:19 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E5C397A.5020702@mac.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5C397A.5020702@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSc2GOM_6axtnS5=TBJ+kVr7GpyUbOG27C3Z8hx6BL_Qw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> On 08/29/2011 01:03 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>> Take, for example, me. ?People sometimes question my chains of logic -
>> and sometimes rightly so. ?I'm human, nobody's perfect all the time. ?But
>> let's say I get uploaded then make a mistake. ?Even if there is scads of
>> evidence that the emulation is most likely perfect, won't there be a
>> temptation to always declare that any mistakes I make are due to flaws
>> in my emulated mind?
>
> No more than you blame your parents, genetics, any possible brain damage and
> such for your
> mistakes now. ?It is actually not in your interest to blame these
> externalities as you would be
> effectively saying that you are fundamentally broken and not to be trusted
> to some degree.
> Self defeating.

True.  But what if someone else cited that to have me legally declared a
nonperson?



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 30 01:35:36 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:35:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was:  RE:  ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ... but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the 
>> rights that people currently hold?

>...The current standard, so far as there is one, is when it passes the
Turing Test.

That notion is oversimplified.  In a limited sense, an Eliza derivative,
which is really merely a lookup table, has already passed the Turing test.
A few years ago a guy created a teen-speak version of Eliza and turned it
loose in a teen chat site.  Granted it was a limited version of the Turing
test, since the teens did not generally know there is a chat simulator, but
some of them fell hard for it.  One conversation went on for over fifty
minutes.  Even then, the reason the twit caught on is by noting that the
answers were coming back too fast to have been done by a human.

In the recent chess tournament, the opponent of the cheater were initially
fooled, thinking they were playing a human when they were actually playing a
computer.  This limited Turing test was initially passed, then subsequently
failed, after the arbiters became suspicious that an untitled player was
scalping experts and masters.  In that case, the Turing test failure was
only uncovered by results, not the "dialog" of the chess game.

When a computer passes a rigorous version of the Turing test, we may
discover that human intelligence is for the most part an enormous lookup
table, or is far simpler in common practice than we always assumed.  Eliza
is a far more interesting conversationalist than at least some humans
currently.

spike



From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 02:26:24 2011
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:56:24 +0930
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>

"We begin with a love story--from a man who unwittingly fell in love
with a chatbot on an online dating site. Then, we encounter a robot
therapist whose inventor became so unnerved by its success that he
pulled the plug. And we talk to the man who coded Cleverbot, a
software program that learns from every new line of conversation it
receives...and that's chatting with more than 3 million humans each
month. Then, five intrepid kids help us test a hypothesis about a toy
designed to push our buttons, and play on our human empathy. And we
meet a robot built to be so sentient that its creators hope it will
one day have a consciousness, and a life, all its own. "

http://www.radiolab.org/2011/may/31/

Make the time to listen to this, the interview with the creator of the
Furby is worth the price of admission alone. But the first story, the
guy who fell in love with a chatbot? It happened twice, and I believe
he said he works in AI. Fascinating.

-- 
Emlyn

http://my.syyn.cc - Synchonise Google+, Facebook, WordPress and Google
Buzz posts,
comments and all.
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
Find me on Facebook and Buzz


On 30 August 2011 11:05, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford
>
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> ... but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
>>> rights that people currently hold?
>
>>...The current standard, so far as there is one, is when it passes the
> Turing Test.
>
> That notion is oversimplified. ?In a limited sense, an Eliza derivative,
> which is really merely a lookup table, has already passed the Turing test.
> A few years ago a guy created a teen-speak version of Eliza and turned it
> loose in a teen chat site. ?Granted it was a limited version of the Turing
> test, since the teens did not generally know there is a chat simulator, but
> some of them fell hard for it. ?One conversation went on for over fifty
> minutes. ?Even then, the reason the twit caught on is by noting that the
> answers were coming back too fast to have been done by a human.
>
> In the recent chess tournament, the opponent of the cheater were initially
> fooled, thinking they were playing a human when they were actually playing a
> computer. ?This limited Turing test was initially passed, then subsequently
> failed, after the arbiters became suspicious that an untitled player was
> scalping experts and masters. ?In that case, the Turing test failure was
> only uncovered by results, not the "dialog" of the chess game.
>
> When a computer passes a rigorous version of the Turing test, we may
> discover that human intelligence is for the most part an enormous lookup
> table, or is far simpler in common practice than we always assumed. ?Eliza
> is a far more interesting conversationalist than at least some humans
> currently.
>
> 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  Tue Aug 30 05:29:22 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 22:29:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>

>...On Behalf Of Emlyn
Subject: Re: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at Stanford

>... And we talk to the man who coded Cleverbot, a software program that
learns from every new line of conversation it receives...and that's chatting
with more than 3 million humans each month...

http://www.radiolab.org/2011/may/31/  --  ...Emlyn

JA!  This is exactly what I have been wondering about for some time.  I
think it is a simple enough coding task, even I might be able to do it
singlehandedly, in you-know-what.  In a teen chat room, the dialog is simple
minded indeed, scarcely able to pass for artificial idiocy.  I think I could
write code that reads the archives, creates from that a lookup table and
after reading a few megabytes, can generate passable teen drivel on its own.
Then with fresh responses from unaware teens, it could continually expand
and update that table to keep it stocked up with the latest hipster terms
and usages.

NOW THINK ABOUT THIS, for it would meet at least the loose definition of a
learning program, it would pass the Turing test for at least the unaware, it
would eventually be good enough that it would make a passable companion to
those who are scarcely passable companions themselves, it would be able to
discuss the latest teen idol, aaaaaand... it wouldn't even be all that
difficult to code.  I think this would be a fun little project, one on which
I could use the help of one of you hipsters.  What is an example of a teen
chat site?  Is there a site that can be downloaded as one big revolting glob
of teen text?  Has anyone here ever tried to download such a thing?  If you
can, and will, do send it, and I will try to write up some code.

More difficult question now: if I can code a teen chatbot, is it ethical?
Morally OK to do that?  What bad consequences can be imagined?  What good
consequences could be imagined?

Since teens are emotionally delicate, or in most cases already have enough
problems without finding they have just been having an hour long
conversation with a spreadsheet, are there counter suggestions?  Would it be
morally OK to go to a religion chat site and pull the same gag?  How about a
motorcycle group?

Regarding this last question about a motorcycle group, I belong to a group
in which new people come along regularly and ask questions that have been
asked a jillion times before.  I think I could write code that would
recognize questions identical to a previous one from the archives and answer
it.  This would be perfectly OK, and would be very open about being
software.  For instance, we regularly get stuff like "Does Fram make an oil
filter that would fit the cavalcade?  Joe Newbie"  The software would get
the guy's name and answer immediately "Ja, Joe Newbie, use a PH4023, and if
you can't find that, you can try a Delco 1660 which is a buck cheaper and
works fine.  Answered by SpikeBot."

That isn't trying to fool anyone, but helps the silly prole who asked the
question.

spike 



From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Tue Aug 30 06:08:30 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:08:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Off Topic: Turing Test -- ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRb6UD6ABimiBqN-D52tb0snZLHbM6DuLkeopMSrAN+4g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNRb6UD6ABimiBqN-D52tb0snZLHbM6DuLkeopMSrAN+4g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E5C7E5E.4040207@sbcglobal.net>

The Turing Test only described a means for measuring how well a computer 
dedicated to that specific task could "imitate" human verbal 
communication.  Caution in tossing around buzz words and buzz phrases 
without first researching their true meaning and accuracy is not 
infrequently advisable.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

FutureMan


On 8/29/2011 5:52 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mike Dougherty<msd001 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the
>> world's most complicated clockwork automaton will yield a machine
>> surprisingly adept at acting like a human (even surpassing human
>> ability) - but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
>> rights that people currently hold?
> The current standard, so far as there is one, is when it passes the
> Turing Test.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Tue Aug 30 06:10:55 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:10:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>
	<007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E5C7EEF.7050807@sbcglobal.net>

Spike, you have to lay off the coffee!

FutureMan


On 8/29/2011 10:29 PM, spike wrote:
>> ...On Behalf Of Emlyn
> Subject: Re: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at Stanford
>
>> ... And we talk to the man who coded Cleverbot, a software program that
> learns from every new line of conversation it receives...and that's chatting
> with more than 3 million humans each month...
>
> http://www.radiolab.org/2011/may/31/  --  ...Emlyn
>
> JA!  This is exactly what I have been wondering about for some time.  I
> think it is a simple enough coding task, even I might be able to do it
> singlehandedly, in you-know-what.  In a teen chat room, the dialog is simple
> minded indeed, scarcely able to pass for artificial idiocy.  I think I could
> write code that reads the archives, creates from that a lookup table and
> after reading a few megabytes, can generate passable teen drivel on its own.
> Then with fresh responses from unaware teens, it could continually expand
> and update that table to keep it stocked up with the latest hipster terms
> and usages.
>
> NOW THINK ABOUT THIS, for it would meet at least the loose definition of a
> learning program, it would pass the Turing test for at least the unaware, it
> would eventually be good enough that it would make a passable companion to
> those who are scarcely passable companions themselves, it would be able to
> discuss the latest teen idol, aaaaaand... it wouldn't even be all that
> difficult to code.  I think this would be a fun little project, one on which
> I could use the help of one of you hipsters.  What is an example of a teen
> chat site?  Is there a site that can be downloaded as one big revolting glob
> of teen text?  Has anyone here ever tried to download such a thing?  If you
> can, and will, do send it, and I will try to write up some code.
>
> More difficult question now: if I can code a teen chatbot, is it ethical?
> Morally OK to do that?  What bad consequences can be imagined?  What good
> consequences could be imagined?
>
> Since teens are emotionally delicate, or in most cases already have enough
> problems without finding they have just been having an hour long
> conversation with a spreadsheet, are there counter suggestions?  Would it be
> morally OK to go to a religion chat site and pull the same gag?  How about a
> motorcycle group?
>
> Regarding this last question about a motorcycle group, I belong to a group
> in which new people come along regularly and ask questions that have been
> asked a jillion times before.  I think I could write code that would
> recognize questions identical to a previous one from the archives and answer
> it.  This would be perfectly OK, and would be very open about being
> software.  For instance, we regularly get stuff like "Does Fram make an oil
> filter that would fit the cavalcade?  Joe Newbie"  The software would get
> the guy's name and answer immediately "Ja, Joe Newbie, use a PH4023, and if
> you can't find that, you can try a Delco 1660 which is a buck cheaper and
> works fine.  Answered by SpikeBot."
>
> That isn't trying to fool anyone, but helps the silly prole who asked the
> question.
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From glivick at sbcglobal.net  Tue Aug 30 06:31:42 2011
From: glivick at sbcglobal.net (G. Livick)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:31:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>
	<007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <4E5C83CE.9070009@sbcglobal.net>

Hey, I found a really large database of knowledge designed just for 
computers:  http://researchcyc.cyc.com/
As for programming, a no-brainer is the free IDE/Compiler/Linker from 
MS:  
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-cpp-express. 
The latest has 32 and 64 bit installations, and a whole lot of free 
stuff to use.  I've used this platform for years (in various 
iterations), both professionally and for my robot stuff; it's simple to 
get going and make things happen, although the user manuals and 
explanations of the various APIs SUCK IMHO.

Shall we expect something to emerge from your development platform in 
time to keep us company on those long, cold, rainy nights coming up soon?

With a slight tug on the leg of Spike,

FutureMan


On 8/29/2011 10:29 PM, spike wrote:
>> ...On Behalf Of Emlyn
> Subject: Re: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at Stanford
>
>> ... And we talk to the man who coded Cleverbot, a software program that
> learns from every new line of conversation it receives...and that's chatting
> with more than 3 million humans each month...
>
> http://www.radiolab.org/2011/may/31/  --  ...Emlyn
>
> JA!  This is exactly what I have been wondering about for some time.  I
> think it is a simple enough coding task, even I might be able to do it
> singlehandedly, in you-know-what.  In a teen chat room, the dialog is simple
> minded indeed, scarcely able to pass for artificial idiocy.  I think I could
> write code that reads the archives, creates from that a lookup table and
> after reading a few megabytes, can generate passable teen drivel on its own.
> Then with fresh responses from unaware teens, it could continually expand
> and update that table to keep it stocked up with the latest hipster terms
> and usages.
>
> NOW THINK ABOUT THIS, for it would meet at least the loose definition of a
> learning program, it would pass the Turing test for at least the unaware, it
> would eventually be good enough that it would make a passable companion to
> those who are scarcely passable companions themselves, it would be able to
> discuss the latest teen idol, aaaaaand... it wouldn't even be all that
> difficult to code.  I think this would be a fun little project, one on which
> I could use the help of one of you hipsters.  What is an example of a teen
> chat site?  Is there a site that can be downloaded as one big revolting glob
> of teen text?  Has anyone here ever tried to download such a thing?  If you
> can, and will, do send it, and I will try to write up some code.
>
> More difficult question now: if I can code a teen chatbot, is it ethical?
> Morally OK to do that?  What bad consequences can be imagined?  What good
> consequences could be imagined?
>
> Since teens are emotionally delicate, or in most cases already have enough
> problems without finding they have just been having an hour long
> conversation with a spreadsheet, are there counter suggestions?  Would it be
> morally OK to go to a religion chat site and pull the same gag?  How about a
> motorcycle group?
>
> Regarding this last question about a motorcycle group, I belong to a group
> in which new people come along regularly and ask questions that have been
> asked a jillion times before.  I think I could write code that would
> recognize questions identical to a previous one from the archives and answer
> it.  This would be perfectly OK, and would be very open about being
> software.  For instance, we regularly get stuff like "Does Fram make an oil
> filter that would fit the cavalcade?  Joe Newbie"  The software would get
> the guy's name and answer immediately "Ja, Joe Newbie, use a PH4023, and if
> you can't find that, you can try a Delco 1660 which is a buck cheaper and
> works fine.  Answered by SpikeBot."
>
> That isn't trying to fool anyone, but helps the silly prole who asked the
> question.
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 06:48:48 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:48:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Off Topic: Turing Test -- ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E5C7E5E.4040207@sbcglobal.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
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	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNRb6UD6ABimiBqN-D52tb0snZLHbM6DuLkeopMSrAN+4g@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5C7E5E.4040207@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTy74vpvw=zqbg+gk4SxAVhomPD=sdURzMFTCsnQztPkg@mail.gmail.com>

That's why I said "so far as there is one".  OTOH, it was given as an example
of something that, if imitated, would seem to leave no further thing that humans
could point to as "intelligence" - because, if there was, then people could talk
about it, but computers wouldn't be able to, thus giving a way to distinguish
computers from humans via communication, thus they do not in fact pass the
Turing Test.

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:08 PM, G. Livick <glivick at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> The Turing Test only described a means for measuring how well a computer
> dedicated to that specific task could "imitate" human verbal communication.
> ?Caution in tossing around buzz words and buzz phrases without first
> researching their true meaning and accuracy is not infrequently advisable.
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/
>
> FutureMan
>
>
> On 8/29/2011 5:52 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mike Dougherty<msd001 at gmail.com> ?wrote:
>>>
>>> I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the
>>> world's most complicated clockwork automaton will yield a machine
>>> surprisingly adept at acting like a human (even surpassing human
>>> ability) - but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
>>> rights that people currently hold?
>>
>> The current standard, so far as there is one, is when it passes the
>> Turing Test.
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 10:32:48 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:32:48 +0200
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSc2GOM_6axtnS5=TBJ+kVr7GpyUbOG27C3Z8hx6BL_Qw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5C397A.5020702@mac.com>
	<CALAdGNSc2GOM_6axtnS5=TBJ+kVr7GpyUbOG27C3Z8hx6BL_Qw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a6OCQOS3m5E26x0N_jgVYEmn34nwiGWfCisCm6-61s=aw@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 August 2011 03:20, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> True.  But what if someone else cited that to have me legally declared a
> nonperson?
>

Yes, we routinely do that when you suffer a significant enough impairment or
you simply cannot be found. See under "legal death".

For the rest, I see no patterns commanding that stupid or illogic persons be
considered any less persons than smart ones, and I doubt that such criteria
would ever be adopted for AGIs...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 10:52:10 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:52:10 +0200
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
References: <Acxms+gD56vYYhOkTy+QGJZcXv/nRQ==>
	<001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a4iwLAiB9Vgty_fZhwFQZW6smdSGUTyK3SFMH9d3TBw6Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 August 2011 03:35, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Eliza
> is a far more interesting conversationalist than at least some humans
> currently.
>

Indeed. :-)

This is why "success" in a Turing test has no meaning without a context, and
I prefer to speak of "performance" in Turing test (such as: what percentage
of interviewers you manage to deceive for how many exchanges, in average).

I am also pretty sure that there human beings which do sound more like
emulations (and perhaps poor ones...) than others.

Let us say that a fully Turing-qualified emulation would be one whose
results in any finite number of exchanges would be indistinguishable from
the average results of human beings, so that its positives and negatives
would be just the matter of wild guesses from the side of interviewers.

Another more interesting issue is that of Turing-specific tests as opposed
to Turing-generic, that is the test where the emulation does not simply
pretend to be human, but pretend to be a given individual, say, Mr. Smith.

This is a game which we can also play, and I am pretty sure that emulations
will surpass other human beings soon enough.

When an emulation will perform as well as Mr. Smith returning from a
five-years travel around the world or the hospital after a serious accident,
I think that everybody will recognise him as Mr. Smith, period.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 10:24:49 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:24:49 +0200
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
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On 30 August 2011 00:53, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the
> world's most complicated clockwork automaton will yield a machine
> surprisingly adept at acting like a human (even surpassing human
> ability) - but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
> rights that people currently hold?
>

When you choose to do so. This is a sociological, not a philosophical or
technological issue. When you consider an emulated personality of your aunt
as your aunt, then it start making  sense to describe such personality as
"your aunt uploaded", no matter how perfect or coarse the emulation is.

Legal systems wildly differ in this respect but "personality" and "rights"
may already be granted to different extents to entities as different as
corporations, embryos, great apes, non-Turing qualified human beings,
children still-to-be-conceived, municipalities, or denied to human beings in
a coma, stil unborn, in slavery, etc.

Moreover, we routinely project and hallucinate our own subjective states not
only on other human beings, but on animals, plants, collective entities,
minerals, machines, natural phenomena, irrespective of how little
behaviourally anthropomorphic they may be ("my car is angry with me because
I neglected maintenance").

What's the big deal? It is just the humanist paradigm ("all human beings are
both equal amongst themselves and trascendentally different from everything
else") that makes things more complicate than they need to be.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 11:17:31 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:17:31 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Off Topic: Turing Test -- ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTy74vpvw=zqbg+gk4SxAVhomPD=sdURzMFTCsnQztPkg@mail.gmail.com>
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On 30 August 2011 08:48, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> That's why I said "so far as there is one".  OTOH, it was given as an
> example
> of something that, if imitated, would seem to leave no further thing that
> humans
> could point to as "intelligence" - because, if there was, then people could
> talk
> about it, but computers wouldn't be able to, thus giving a way to
> distinguish
> computers from humans via communication, thus they do not in fact pass the
> Turing Test.
>

"Intelligence" and "behavioural human-ness" are too often confused. As far
as basic arithmetic is concerned a pocket calculator is already more
intelligent than any human being. Conversely, there are plenty of human
beings who are not very intelligent but are more or less persuasively human.

The Turing test measures something which is relevant to social communication
with humans, but of course does not tell us anything about how intelligent
the system concerned is in terms of flops or of its performance in the
execution of other classes of programs.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 12:26:16 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:26:16 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
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On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm objecting, just a bit, on a technicality, to this statement... I
>> don't think we understand how anything works to 100% detail. We don't
>> know if it's all strings in 11 dimensions, or something else. What we
>> do know is how to predict things with enough accuracy to be useful and
>> reproducible.
>
> Fair enough. ?That's the sense I was going for. ?Though, note that that
> phrasing leaves open the possibility of objecting even if we do achieve it.

So, if we pass the Turing test, for example, without understanding
100% how humans do it, then we understand how humans talk "well
enough" to be useful and reproducible. So in this "engineering sense",
the Turing test says we understand "intelligence" to a particular
measurable level.

> Take, for example, me. ?People sometimes question my chains of logic -
> and sometimes rightly so. ?I'm human, nobody's perfect all the time. ?But
> let's say I get uploaded then make a mistake. ?Even if there is scads of
> evidence that the emulation is most likely perfect, won't there be a
> temptation to always declare that any mistakes I make are due to flaws
> in my emulated mind? ?This will be impossible to completely prove or
> disprove: even if my emulation and my original version live side by side,
> experiencing and learning much the same things, by the time any
> difference comes up, there will inevitably have been differences that could
> cause different thoughts. ?(For example, the exact moment we wake up,
> thought cycles devoted to use of our different physical capabilities, and
> so on.) ?If the uploading process is destructive and one-way, it becomes
> even harder to prove or disprove, as there won't be an original me to
> compare to.

So rather than calling this the "Turing" test, we'll call this the
"Adrian" test. If for X minutes I can't tell the difference between a
computer pretending to be Adrian, and the real Adrian, then we've
passed a further version of the Turing test that could be considered
passing a test to see if we have successfully "uploaded" Adrian. Yes,
there will be flaws in the emulated mind, and yes even if the mind is
perfectly emulated, there will be immediate divergence.

I consider the test for "not too much" divergence to be the ability to
successfully merge the experiences of the emulation back into the
original. That is, if the emulation spends a month learning Chinese,
and that learning can be successfully merged back into the original
brain such that it now speaks Chinese, and remembers learning Chinese,
then that was a successful emulation. If the divergence is too much to
reintegrate, then that would be a failed emulation with too much
divergence. I think this is technically possible, some day. Especially
if the emulation is run at 1,000,000 times the speed of the original.
Then the original doesn't have time to diverge much. I could learn a
lot of Chinese that way, no? I am reminded of the STNG episode where
Picard learns to play the flute and be a family man... he still
remembers how to play the flute afterwards.

Furthermore, are you morally responsible for anything your emulation
does? If you are religious, do you have to do penance for sins
committed by your emulation during the divergence?

> All we need is a good enough understanding to reproduce a human mind
> in silico. ?As demonstrated elsewhere, this need not be perfect.

Agreed.

> Even
> some obvious differences (especially where there are existing analogues,
> such as slightly decreased reasoning capability akin to what old people
> currently experience) might be tolerated, especially if there is a path to
> correct those differences over time (such as faster hardware), in exchange
> for:
>
> * the perception, by the individual and those other people and institutions
> the individual cares about (such as the law), that this is the same person,
> which requires the preservation of memory;

As a thought exercise... if you choose not to reintegrate the
divergent emulation, then you wouldn't be responsible for what it did,
it was just a virtual reality run... but if you do reintegrate, then
you are responsible???

> * a continued ability to actively influence the world (as opposed to
> "immortality through one's works" or otherwise relying exclusively on
> other people to react to what one did, without the capability to react to
> their reactions);

Again, if there is reintegration, then the emulation achieves
continued mortality from that reintegration, and dies meaninglessly if
not reintegrated.

> * and a baseline of ability at least equal to human average in the areas
> the individual cares about (movement and speech are likely to be
> required; equipment to manufacture new humans can be discarded, or
> at least removed from the shell the mind inhabits, in many cases).

I think this can be dealt with through the limits of the VR that the
emulation operates in.

-Kelly



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 12:29:20 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:29:20 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8RwYW4kGgSFDDP6HM7y=kAu8xwLTq4eKr0PWQq5Z4avRCyg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the
> world's most complicated clockwork automaton will yield a machine
> surprisingly adept at acting like a human (even surpassing human
> ability) - but where/when do you call it a person and grant it all the
> rights that people currently hold?

When that emulation is reintegrated into the original emulator?

-Kelly


From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 13:16:57 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:16:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:45 PM,  Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> ?If the uploading process is destructive and one-way,

Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?

I know Hans Moravec proposed that decades ago and it became a
pervasive meme, but it's an awful concept and a serious marketing
burden for transhumanism.

I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.

Keith Henson



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 30 13:50:25 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:50:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] damien's new book
Message-ID: <00b401cc671b$c5cc4be0$5164e3a0$@att.net>

 

Damien Broderick wrote:

 

We've just started a blog about the book and related topics, so pliz do
consider attaching this link to yer own blogs, or however these mysteries of
the interwebs work:

 

http://postmortalsyndrome.blogspot.com

 

Thanks!

 

Damien

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 30 14:52:14 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 07:52:14 -0700
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <4E5C83CE.9070009@sbcglobal.net>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>	<CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>	<007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>
	<4E5C83CE.9070009@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <00c601cc6724$68016ff0$38044fd0$@att.net>


... On Behalf Of G. Livick
Subject: Re: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford

>...Hey, I found a really large database of knowledge designed just for
computers:  http://researchcyc.cyc.com/

Thanks FutureMan.

Couple of ideas on this, but before I do I have a question for BillK or
others.  Regarding subject line filtering, in Microsloth Outlook, is there a
feature which will filter a thread, but only if the subject line is
identical to the wording of the filterbot?  For instance, is there a way to
filter "ai class at stanford" but not "RE: turing test, was: RE: ai class at
stanford"  ?

>...Shall we expect something to emerge from your development platform in
time to keep us company on those long, cold, rainy nights coming up soon?

>...With a slight tug on the leg of Spike,  FutureMan

Dunno.  Might be returning to the working world soon.  Hope springs eternal.

In the meantime, an offlist discussion has given me a hell of an idea.
About thirty years ago right when cable TV was starting, the FCC didn't
control content at all.  Since it wasn't broadcast but went over a cable a
customer had to pay for, there were no restrictions on what could be done,
so one of the early ideas was to do Candid Camera with anything goes rules.
They even exhumed Alan Funt as the host.  They did a lot of gags that
involved nudity in public places, such as a restaurant, the bank and so
forth, but the kicker was this: they would get everyone in cahoots except
for one, two, sometimes four or five people.  The other thirty or forty
people in the bank would all be in on the gag, which really was a key
element to getting the victim to do and say funny stuff.  The
naked-woman-at-the-bank-and-no-one-seems-to-notice gag really was hilarious
as all hell.  She would get in line behind some poor sap, and he would
usually freak out while everyone else in there acted like nothing was the
least bit unusual, ah well, people wake up in the morning, forget to get
dressed, etc.  Or, bowling alley, the Nudist Bowling Team having reserved
all but five lanes, they get thirty people to come in, drop the clothing all
except the bowling shoes, watch the reaction of the proles in the remaining
four lanes.  Comedy gold!

Nowthen, looks like we can do something like this with a particular person
in which every participant in the group is a chatbot except one.  This might
be used in those cases where the one person is suspected of planning a
terrorist attack for instance, and we find out she is looking around on the
internet for bomb making technology. We let the suspect participate in a
group chat with the chatbots for a while, gain confidence in them, then see
if she goes offline with any of them asking for ways to do some murderous
deed because someone from that country once drew a cartoon of Joseph Smith,
for instance.  Then we use the chatbot to send her to where she gets an
inert warhead with a tracking device in it.  Lives could be saved.

It's a natural application of the chatbot application I am envisioning: have
a particular suspect chatting with twenty chatbots simultaneously, each with
enough difference in personality that the victim doesn't know she is the
only one in the room.  Now THERES a Turing test for you.

Another challenge: see if someone can insert a chat bot into an existing
group where everyone already knows each other, and have that go unnoticed.
In the motorcycle group I mentioned before, we have archives going back
about 12 years, and there aren't that many of us who go all the way back.  I
could contact the other few who I know do go back that far, and clue them to
play along.  Then we see if all the others will fall for it, and in that
group, I think they will.  It doesn't have the ethical problems of messing
with their heads in a teen chat group: I don't see that it would hurt anyone
to insert a robo-biker.

spike





From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 15:57:54 2011
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:57:54 +0100
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <00c601cc6724$68016ff0$38044fd0$@att.net>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>
	<CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAL_armgXGXZ3w5E3PRpvPwoJuGct+qibtFUX8mWdGPO0oc5brQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 3:52 PM, spike wrote:
>
> Couple of ideas on this, but before I do I have a question for BillK or
> others. ?Regarding subject line filtering, in Microsloth Outlook, is there a
> feature which will filter a thread, but only if the subject line is
> identical to the wording of the filterbot? ?For instance, is there a way to
> filter "ai class at stanford" but not "RE: turing test, was: RE: ai class at
> stanford" ??
>


Yes, you should be able to set up a filter like that.

One way is to specify
Subject must contain the words     'ai class at stanford'
AND
Subject must NOT contain the words       'was'

(No quotes when setting up the filter)

Though that would have missed G. Livick's post as he didn't use 'was'.
Can't win 'em all.  :)


BillK



From eugen at leitl.org  Tue Aug 30 16:00:24 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:00:24 +0200
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110830160024.GL16334@leitl.org>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 06:16:57AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:45 PM,  Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> snip
> 
> > ?If the uploading process is destructive and one-way,
> 
> Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?

Anyone reading this will only be uploaded as a nice chunk of
vitrified tissue which will be presectioned and destructively
scanned in a massively parallel fashion, abstracting nonrelevant
data along the way. It is destructive, but not necessarily
one-way, though it is effectively one-way as nobody will bother
fabricating slow and expensive meat puppets.
 
> I know Hans Moravec proposed that decades ago and it became a
> pervasive meme, but it's an awful concept and a serious marketing
> burden for transhumanism.

Doesn't affect cryonics, as this side of suspension process is
resurrection-agnostic.
 
> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.

It would be a lot harder since there isn't any medical nantechnology,
nor will there be any for anyone reading this message right now.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 16:13:50 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:13:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwb8mGWJ=nQJDRFvUMX7AE=bv_sP+ADjjbf-KSLuG9TB6A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
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	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
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	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNT36=8u_uGQX7eYBnTuuS0rAv57YBFR9b9nWDGcf3=COA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> So, if we pass the Turing test, for example, without understanding
> 100% how humans do it, then we understand how humans talk "well
> enough" to be useful and reproducible. So in this "engineering sense",
> the Turing test says we understand "intelligence" to a particular
> measurable level.

Standard terms (such as "well enough") in quotes to flag similes is a
warning flag.  You give the impression that you do not understand that
"well enough" means "well enough" in all senses, and that you might
not be able to distinguish between your use of quotes-as-similes and
this paragraph's use of quotes-as-designators.  This suggests that
rational conversation may be impossible.

Put another way, consider the difference in intended meaning between
"we understand how humans talk 'well enough' to be useful" and  "we
understand how humans talk well enough to be useful".

> So rather than calling this the "Turing" test, we'll call this the
> "Adrian" test.

...and there's the ad hominem.  The expected value of the rest of your
post is low enough that I'm not even going to read it.  I will, however,
post this just in case those were honest mistakes, so you can reply
without making yourself appear not worth talking to in the future.


From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 16:20:54 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:20:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwYW4kGgSFDDP6HM7y=kAu8xwLTq4eKr0PWQq5Z4avRCyg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
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	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
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	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNTZp=coXtdNqtU-BhLs7Rtyh58JDe2qkcATkrDiumXk4g@mail.gmail.com>

Kelly,

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 5:29 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have no doubt your approach to iteratively building and tweaking the

Please be more careful editing quotes.  The way you have this, you're
saying that I said Mike's words.  You should have either removed the
"Adrian Tymes...wrote:" line, or started with something that I actually
wrote.  (This doesn't apply just when you're quoting me; the general
rule is true any time you're quoting someone.  I happened to be in this
particular example, is all.)

Not a big problem, but it is something to watch for.


From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 16:28:01 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:28:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS4YD-DY0mdKzX-zgtmFypq40xT8ioOaTpoC8gW0HY62g@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 6:16 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?

What Eugen said: there are good odds that the first upload will be
created from a cryonics patient.  Another possible scenario is
Turing's thought experiment of replacing the brain one part at a
time (he specified one neuron at a time) until you eventually have a
complete upload.

Granted, you could in theory - assuming good enough knowledge of
how the brain works, and the necessary technology - eventually
recreate an organic brain and download into that.  That's still "one-way"
in that you're not going back to the original brain.

> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.

What are those reasons?  I think it would be the other way around.
For instance, replacing the brain piece by piece means you only
have to monitor one part of the brain at a time, and that strikes me
as simpler than monitoring the entire brain at once.


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 30 16:17:49 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:17:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgXGXZ3w5E3PRpvPwoJuGct+qibtFUX8mWdGPO0oc5brQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001a01cc66b5$1eca9b50$5c5fd1f0$@att.net>	<CAMp1VPAemq747E5UVpc4d3O31chfMNi6WaYE-nrGbk7+zkLq-g@mail.gmail.com>	<007501cc66d5$c6a1ee30$53e5ca90$@att.net>	<4E5C83CE.9070009@sbcglobal.net>	<00c601cc6724$68016ff0$38044fd0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <00de01cc6730$5cc49520$164dbf60$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 3:52 PM, spike wrote:
>
>> ... ?For instance, is there a way to filter "ai class at stanford" but
not "RE: turing test, was: RE: ai class at stanford" ??
>


>Yes, you should be able to set up a filter like that.

>One way is to specify Subject must contain the words     'ai class at
stanford'
AND Subject must NOT contain the words       'was'

>(No quotes when setting up the filter)

>Though that would have missed G. Livick's post as he didn't use 'was'.


Thanks, but then Adrian and you found a way.  Just take out or intentionally
misspell the word Stanford, so that if you wander off, you could just label
it "ai class."  Then it would be subject to the usual posting limit
guidelines, and all is fair game.  As you suggested, BillK, it can be set up
to filter a post only if it contains both "ai" and Stanford, and always keep
any post which contains the word "was" anywhere in the subject line.
Furthermore, with this pool of hipsters, I am most confident you guys can do
it.  For myself I don't want to filter any of the ai class discussion, but I
want those who are not interested in that to be free.

>Can't win 'em all.  :)  BillK

Hmm, on the contrary, if we are sufficiently clever, we can win em all,
every game every time.  {8-]




From spike66 at att.net  Tue Aug 30 17:23:57 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:23:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] spike turing test, was RE:  ai class at stanford
Message-ID: <002301cc6739$9a27acf0$ce7706d0$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai class at stanford

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> ...So rather than calling this the "Turing" test, we'll call this the
"Adrian" test.

>...and there's the ad hominem.  The expected value of the rest of your post
is low enough that I'm not even going to read it.  I will, however, post
this just in case those were honest mistakes, so you can reply without
making yourself appear not worth talking to in the future.

Kelly has posted enough here that we know he has not a trace of malice.
That being said, the idea itself is sound: we can come up with personalized
versions of the broad category we call "Turing test" and attach our names,
so that my notion of slipping a chatbot into a teenspeak group to see if
they notice would be the spike Turing test.  Bonus: that way we can pretend
we are long lost relatives of Alan.

Spike Turing



From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 17:51:04 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:51:04 +0200
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNS4YD-DY0mdKzX-zgtmFypq40xT8ioOaTpoC8gW0HY62g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNS4YD-DY0mdKzX-zgtmFypq40xT8ioOaTpoC8gW0HY62g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a6ZM2PJxi2J9DL69SBPbQvA6BC_EqHrxNso5T64yoQ3Sg@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 August 2011 18:28, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> What Eugen said: there are good odds that the first upload will be
> created from a cryonics patient.  Another possible scenario is
> Turing's thought experiment of replacing the brain one part at a
> time (he specified one neuron at a time) until you eventually have a
> complete upload.
>

You cannot go any more "destructive" than that.

So, instead of trying to distill some metaphysical differences between the
Moravec process and the Turing one, I suspect that it would be better to
admit frankly that whenever there is no "gene whisper" to lead us, the
metaphors we choose to adhere to as far as "survival" and its definitions
are concerned are fundamentally arbitrary and/or culturally determined.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From sjatkins at mac.com  Tue Aug 30 18:49:02 2011
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:49:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a6ZM2PJxi2J9DL69SBPbQvA6BC_EqHrxNso5T64yoQ3Sg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNS4YD-DY0mdKzX-zgtmFypq40xT8ioOaTpoC8gW0HY62g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a6ZM2PJxi2J9DL69SBPbQvA6BC_EqHrxNso5T64yoQ3Sg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E5D309E.3060009@mac.com>

On 08/30/2011 10:51 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> On 30 August 2011 18:28, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com 
> <mailto:atymes at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     What Eugen said: there are good odds that the first upload will be
>     created from a cryonics patient.  Another possible scenario is
>     Turing's thought experiment of replacing the brain one part at a
>     time (he specified one neuron at a time) until you eventually have a
>     complete upload.
>
>
> You cannot go any more "destructive" than that.
>
> So, instead of trying to distill some metaphysical differences between 
> the Moravec process and the Turing one, I suspect that it would be 
> better to admit frankly that whenever there is no "gene whisper" to 
> lead us, the metaphors we choose to adhere to as far as "survival" and 
> its definitions are concerned are fundamentally arbitrary and/or 
> culturally determined.

The question itself seems arbitrary and meaningless.   Perhaps instead 
of asking "is the upload me, or even legally me" it would be better to 
ask, is that upload person given [sufficiently] full rights and can I 
declare it my primary heir?    What you feel about whether that person 
is "you" or not is a somewhat orthogonal and rather subjective matter.

- samantha


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From rtomek at ceti.pl  Tue Aug 30 20:09:53 2011
From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:09:53 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108302122210.9249@tau.ceti.pl>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108302209010.9249@tau.ceti.pl>

On Sun, 21 Aug 2011, spike wrote:

> 
> Have we any Lisp hipsters here?
> 
> I have been getting back up to speed on my Python coding, but I never did
> study Lisp, and it looks confusing.  I know we have a bunch of code jockeys
> and gurus of various scripting languages, but who here knows from Lisp?  I
> know Microsloth VBA and have written a lot of code in that, but it is nearly
> useless for AI and isn't object oriented: it doesn't allow user-defined
> functions.  Who are our professional coders?  Samantha?  Others?

I am about nine days behind my mailbox wrt reading emails :-).

I am somewhere beyond the newbie in Common Lisp.

Python could have been Lisp in the old days but it is totally different 
beast nowadays (i.e. requires thinking in different way). This is not 
necessarily a bad thing, and I guess just one Common Lisp is quite a lot. 
I used to do some Python but right now I reserve it for things that are 
too awkward (for my taste) when expressed in CL.

All above are just MHO (just in case someone would like to argue that 
Python is something while CL is something else or even the same).

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 stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 20:47:11 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:47:11 +0200
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <4E5D309E.3060009@mac.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNS4YD-DY0mdKzX-zgtmFypq40xT8ioOaTpoC8gW0HY62g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPoR7a6ZM2PJxi2J9DL69SBPbQvA6BC_EqHrxNso5T64yoQ3Sg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5D309E.3060009@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a4FQ3Fr2XaoKWJPTBBx4J59K4fF4TxoReUVbTeKFP5OWQ@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/30 Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com>

> **
> The question itself seems arbitrary and meaningless.   Perhaps instead of
> asking "is the upload me, or even legally me" it would be better to ask, is
> that upload person given [sufficiently] full rights and can I declare it my
> primary heir?    What you feel about whether that person is "you" or not is
> a somewhat orthogonal and rather subjective matter.
>

Exactly.

The real issue is: "would such person be recognised as myself for most
practical purposes by everybody else?".

Were this the case, however, there would not be any issue of "inheritance"
in a legal sense. The company born out of a merger is the successor the
merged companies, a company changing its registered office, representatives
or objects just remains itself.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From jrd1415 at gmail.com  Tue Aug 30 23:47:30 2011
From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:47:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <20110830160024.GL16334@leitl.org>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<20110830160024.GL16334@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <CAHUTwkOSAqeeS=t5uHJ3Qifwz=PXMy0Skv2xt+bU-EqbzaVD+w@mail.gmail.com>

Gene et al,

It's my impression that the whole "destructive scan" meme is an
artifact of the microtome-sliced sample-preparation method of electron
microscopy.  I can't imagine that this anti-diluvian
sample-preparation and scanning method would continue into the future
as the dominant scanning paradigm.  Certainly not for **my** brain,
thankyouverymuch.

Please explain why it would be infeasible to clear the lumen of the
circulatory system of the vitrified patient, replace it with LN2, and
dispatch nanobots in this fluid to conduct the scan, non-destructively
from the inside, "infiltrating the brain" as Keith describes.

Then Gene, you make the comment below:

" ...there isn't any medical nantechnology, nor will there be any for
anyone reading this message right now."

We don't have the nanotech at the moment.  Well duh, but more to the
point, so what?  Scanning-for-upload will be the "back end" of the
freeze-wait-reanimate process, so the fact that we don't have the
reanimation tech -- scanning included -- right now is both well
established(in our circles) and trivially irrelevant.  Anyone "reading
this message right now", if vitrified (cryonically preserved) will
be,...well... preserved.  They will remain essentially unchanged,
essentially indefinitely, and consequently, will be there waiting when
the tech arrives.

But I don't have to explain this to you, Gene.  You're fully versed in
this business -- theory and practice -- having worked with 21st
Century Medicine maybe a decade ago helping to develop ice-blockers
for the vitrification process.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

So I'm befuddled.  (Scratches head in befuddlement.)  Why are you,
overqualified as you are in this business, making negative,
misleading, and coyly irrelevant comments?  Still pissy about the
knuckle-dragging atavism and luddite obstructionism of your fellow
humans?  Can't help you there.  Well,...actually...

Best, Jeff Davis

"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                         Ray Charles



On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 06:16:57AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:45 PM, ?Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> snip
>>
>> > ?If the uploading process is destructive and one-way,
>>
>> Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?
>
> Anyone reading this will only be uploaded as a nice chunk of
> vitrified tissue


> which will be presectioned and destructively
> scanned in a massively parallel fashion, abstracting nonrelevant
> data along the way. It is destructive, but not necessarily
> one-way, though it is effectively one-way as nobody will bother
> fabricating slow and expensive meat puppets.
>
>> I know Hans Moravec proposed that decades ago and it became a
>> pervasive meme, but it's an awful concept and a serious marketing
>> burden for transhumanism.
>
> Doesn't affect cryonics, as this side of suspension process is
> resurrection-agnostic.
>
>> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
>> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.
>
> It would be a lot harder since there isn't any medical nantechnology,
> nor will there be any for anyone reading this message right now.
>
> --
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
> ______________________________________________________________
> ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
> 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A ?7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Aug 31 00:12:48 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:12:48 -0400
Subject: [ExI] spike turing test, was RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <002301cc6739$9a27acf0$ce7706d0$@att.net>
References: <002301cc6739$9a27acf0$ce7706d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJSuDx956WFQGHCyNPRmL=GVLpZkYGaELAu5jEwnsDrOQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 1:23 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> That being said, the idea itself is sound: we can come up with personalized
> versions of the broad category we call "Turing test" and attach our names,
> so that my notion of slipping a chatbot into a teenspeak group to see if
> they notice would be the spike Turing test. ?Bonus: that way we can pretend
> we are long lost relatives of Alan.
>
> Spike Turing

And if you can get Pirsig's bike you can be Spike "Touring" Turing...
Although that sounds like you're exploring a themed museum.



From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 00:32:51 2011
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:32:51 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Off Topic: Turing Test -- ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPoR7a6bkCSW8Ayi3pnrVxHVAW_P+D6qU1GhiahRJBaYtjOYmQ@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CALAdGNRb6UD6ABimiBqN-D52tb0snZLHbM6DuLkeopMSrAN+4g@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5C7E5E.4040207@sbcglobal.net>
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Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJc=kzxu1FZtnFqa=D1Dc6d0osOW5k9y+2GWQVh-Cj2qg@mail.gmail.com>

2011/8/30 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> The Turing test measures something which is relevant to social communication
> with humans, but of course does not tell us anything about how intelligent
> the system concerned is in terms of flops or of its performance in the
> execution of other classes of programs.

Right.  Some of us could make the case that others here score very
poorly on the social communication with [normal] humans.  The
disturbing fact about a double-blind Turing test is that people are
sometimes identified as computers.  What does the contrapositive of
the Turing test prove?

Also interesting to note that a computer is considered a highly
successful machine as its number of flops increases, while humans are
considered much less favorably as their number of flops increase.  :)


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 31 00:54:48 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:54:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] spike turing test, was RE: ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJSuDx956WFQGHCyNPRmL=GVLpZkYGaELAu5jEwnsDrOQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002301cc6739$9a27acf0$ce7706d0$@att.net>
	<CAOJFdbJSuDx956WFQGHCyNPRmL=GVLpZkYGaELAu5jEwnsDrOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003a01cc6778$9587c060$c0974120$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: Re: [ExI] spike turing test, was RE: ai class at stanford

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 1:23 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> That being said, the idea itself is sound: we can come up with
personalized versions of the broad category we call "Turing test" and attach
our names, so that my notion of slipping a chatbot into a teenspeak group to
see if they notice would be the spike Turing test. ?  ... Spike Turing

>...And if you can get Pirsig's bike you can be Spike "Touring" Turing...


That's the spirit.  Now if I were to get my ear pierced on one side for a
pair of decorative pieces as I rode Pirsig's bike, perhaps they would give
me still another nickname, at which time I could perhaps be called Spike
Two-ring Touring Turing.



.
.
.
.
.
.

...heeeeere we gooooo...

spike





From max at maxmore.com  Wed Aug 31 03:43:09 2011
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:43:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Alcor dumping "grandfathering"?
In-Reply-To: <20110828200012.GP22933@leitl.org>
References: <CAPiwVB5JuL+ZCL0Rv6TGnyw=0PHZU8wPgsmhXTMYSbcA4kDnNw@mail.gmail.com>
	<20110828200012.GP22933@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <CAJX-7wVmX64OaraHtVXvXEAB5RawaVgE=g4ssaW0iiD+vFbmgQ@mail.gmail.com>

Keith: Rather than inflaming people based on rumors, why not wait until
Alcor communicates what is being considered in order to tackle the massive
underfunding problem that has accumulated over many years? (Details of a
possible proposal will probably come out in about two weeks.) Something MUST
be done, but the proposal under consideration is much less dire than you're
painting it.

Eugene: That's just about a content-free statement. And it's not in the
least bit helpful. Who is this "you" that you're referring to? Do you mean
yourself? Do you mean people far away from Alcor, in Europe? Do you mean
everyone with arrangements with Alcor? I suspect that you've been reading
Darwin's blog and actually believing his collection of lies, distortions,
exaggerations, out-of-context claims, and occasional truths. Or is there
some other basis for this off-hand, dismissive, and destructive statement?

--Max

P.S. I'll be traveling to England (for the SENS5 conference) on Thursday
morning. I'll do my best to respond to any worthwhile posts on this topic,
but can't guarantee that I'll be able to.


On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 09:16:52AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
>
> > Alcor seems to be in the middle making  a decisions to raise the
> > minimum suspension funding retroactively.  For the people who set up
> > insurance years ago, and are now too old to get more, they may have to
> > go elsewhere or give up the prospect of being suspended entirely.
>
> You're not getting a lot for your dues anyway.
>



-- 
Max More
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480/905-1906 ext 113
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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 31 06:11:35 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:11:35 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTZp=coXtdNqtU-BhLs7Rtyh58JDe2qkcATkrDiumXk4g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>	<CAOJFdbJmhWc6BhLPa5tNZnW0i3xbUptjfE5Qk4-8CE3AqjwyHQ@mail.gmail.com>	<CAPy8RwYW4kGgSFDDP6HM7y=kAu8xwLTq4eKr0PWQq5Z4avRCyg@mail.gmail.com>
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	NqtU-BhLs7Rtyh58JDe2qkcATkrDiumXk4g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000601cc67a4$d6e45f10$84ad1d30$@att.net>


Haaaa!  This really IS about the AI class at Stanford.

So I have this textbook by Russell and Norvig.  Those of you who have it or
know the answer by whatever means, do feel free to jump on this:

Assume I have a chat group archive that goes back a bunch of years and I
have thousands of posts on some very specific topic.  The group has been
strictly moderated, so there isn't a lot of clutter there.  We see new
members come on regularly with the typical newbie questions, and someone
will patiently explain that there is a FAQ, but seldom do we get new guys
who have already read it.  Similarly, surprisingly few new posters here have
read the Extropian Principles  http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm  but, back
to this other group.  What we need is a robo-FAQ for when new guys come
along and ask tired old questions.  I think it would be possible to make a
database that would answer the common questions on a chat site, perhaps by
matching word for word with previous posters' questions.  A robo-FAQ would
be cool!

Question please: does the Russell and Norvig book anywhere explain how to do
that?  I may try to invent my way through it, but if it has been invented
already, I would rather go that route.  I don't want to derive the FAQ, I
want to write the software to go through on its own a huge pile of text,
note when certain keywords seem to show up over and over, then look at what
people posted in response.  For instance, if a new guy's post has the terms
"oil", "filter", and "which" I want the software to look for other posts
which have that, and then give the same answer that was given before.

The more I think about this however, the more obvious the idea becomes.  A
robo-FAQ is an obvious thing to need or want, and it's a cool coding
project.  Therefore it must have been done a thousand times before now.  Has
anyone here seen a robo-FAQ?  Is the code public domain?

spike



From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 06:39:05 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:39:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <000601cc67a4$d6e45f10$84ad1d30$@att.net>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
	<CAL+RtPf=bm68a9PvfRkokgxEPX_CC-sfoW+Tbdc1HF1s6QL4zw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNT3Hu3DjDuLfep_d_f3vGH4ahoNEhhijQCuSHKQf=xaPw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:11 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> The more I think about this however, the more obvious the idea becomes. ?A
> robo-FAQ is an obvious thing to need or want, and it's a cool coding
> project. ?Therefore it must have been done a thousand times before now. ?Has
> anyone here seen a robo-FAQ? ?Is the code public domain?

I have seen attempts at it.  Most often, the reason it gets pulled is because it
keeps triggering on stuff that is similar to the newbie question but not quite -
even when the questioner takes pains to distinguish the question from what's
in the FAQ.

To take one example:

<person> "How do I install X?"
<bot> "Hello!  I see you are asking how to install X.  To install X, take disc Y
and do Z."

So far so good, right?

<person> "My computer crashed, and I'm trying to install X on my new box.
When I put the disc in and run the command I get an error message about an
invalid key."
<bot> "Hello!  I see you are asking how to install X.  To install X, take disc Y
and do Z."
<person> "I just said I took the disc and did that thing.  Arrgh!"

Actually, the X installation tool thought - mistakenly - that it was
being pirated.
But that's beside the point.

Also consider those phonemail menu trees.  The point is (usually) not actually
to make people frustrated so they go away; the trees are an effort to help
people find the information they want efficiently, with labor saving as a bonus.
The frustration factor comes from how often people call in with requests that
are not actually in the set of information available to the tree.



From eugen at leitl.org  Wed Aug 31 08:57:31 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:57:31 +0200
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <CAHUTwkOSAqeeS=t5uHJ3Qifwz=PXMy0Skv2xt+bU-EqbzaVD+w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<20110830160024.GL16334@leitl.org>
	<CAHUTwkOSAqeeS=t5uHJ3Qifwz=PXMy0Skv2xt+bU-EqbzaVD+w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110831085731.GD16334@leitl.org>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 04:47:30PM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
> Gene et al,
> 
> It's my impression that the whole "destructive scan" meme is an
> artifact of the microtome-sliced sample-preparation method of electron
> microscopy.  I can't imagine that this anti-diluvian

Not just electron microscopy, there's no way to nondestructively
image a ~l sized chunk of glass. Fundamental physical limits
do not care about the technology vogue.

> sample-preparation and scanning method would continue into the future
> as the dominant scanning paradigm.  Certainly not for **my** brain,
> thankyouverymuch.

I hope you're not equally squeamish when it comes to methods of
modern medicine. Because the only other options are kinda dire.
 
> Please explain why it would be infeasible to clear the lumen of the
> circulatory system of the vitrified patient, replace it with LN2, and

Clear = removing material. So it is fundamentally destructive, though
one might quibble it doesn't remove relevant structural information. 

> dispatch nanobots in this fluid to conduct the scan, non-destructively

You're in the lumen of a cleared vessel, with some 100 um vitrified
tissue between you and the other one. Which methods will you be
using to nondestructively scan these 100 um deep volume with
required 1 nm or better resolution, without degrading intermediate layers?
How long are you going to take?

And why are you doing such ineffective contortions if all you
have to do is slice up the volume into sufficiently small
sections, and use known methods like interative ablation of
surface imaging, which allows you to speedly image at up to
atomic resolution *without* degrading underlying layers?
You could do dental work via anal access in principle, but 
you'll probably agree it is more difficult that way.

> from the inside, "infiltrating the brain" as Keith describes.

Because latter assumes a living system, instrumented with a 
rather large volume of nanoagents, which will cause volume
inflation and need to be done slowly so the biology can deal
with it.

Once you're vitrified, you do not want to go above devitrification
temperature, as it would introduce the damage you worked so hard
to avoid, and you're dealing with a brittle glass object. You can
of course introduce a fractal heat exchange infrastructure and 
flash-devitrify it, but then you've made your job much harder,
as you will have to remove cryoprotectants *and* keep the
tissue from unraveling as it no longer has homeostasis working
for you. In other words, as soon as you no longer process the
tissue at cryogenic temperatures you a) introduce irreversible
information destruction *without any need* b) make time critically
relevant, again *without any need*.

This is obviously stupid, and this will not be done as long
as there are other, much easier ways. See the anal dental. 
 
> Then Gene, you make the comment below:
> 
> " ...there isn't any medical nantechnology, nor will there be any for
> anyone reading this message right now."
> 
> We don't have the nanotech at the moment.  Well duh, but more to the

This means your only option is vitrification, or maybe fixation and
embedding.

> point, so what?  Scanning-for-upload will be the "back end" of the
> freeze-wait-reanimate process, so the fact that we don't have the
> reanimation tech -- scanning included -- right now is both well
> established(in our circles) and trivially irrelevant.  Anyone "reading

If it was trivially irrelevant I wouldn't have to write these
missives every year, or so. Not that these do any good.

> this message right now", if vitrified (cryonically preserved) will
> be,...well... preserved.  They will remain essentially unchanged,
> essentially indefinitely, and consequently, will be there waiting when
> the tech arrives.

Anyone who hears uploading implies she will be suspended while alive
by magical nano, using incremental in vivo scanning/substitution.

This ain't going to happen. Unless you've bought into the Singularity
cult, world without end, amen. At which point you've become a part
of the problem.
 
> But I don't have to explain this to you, Gene.  You're fully versed in
> this business -- theory and practice -- having worked with 21st
> Century Medicine maybe a decade ago helping to develop ice-blockers
> for the vitrification process.  Correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> So I'm befuddled.  (Scratches head in befuddlement.)  Why are you,
> overqualified as you are in this business, making negative,
> misleading, and coyly irrelevant comments?  Still pissy about the

If you have technical arguments why you think above does not apply,
I'll be very happy to hear them.

> knuckle-dragging atavism and luddite obstructionism of your fellow
> humans?  Can't help you there.  Well,...actually...

Don't hint at it, spill the beans!
 
> Best, Jeff Davis
> 
> "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
>                          Ray Charles
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 06:16:57AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
> >> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:45 PM, ?Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> snip
> >>
> >> > ?If the uploading process is destructive and one-way,
> >>
> >> Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?
> >
> > Anyone reading this will only be uploaded as a nice chunk of
> > vitrified tissue
> 
> 
> > which will be presectioned and destructively
> > scanned in a massively parallel fashion, abstracting nonrelevant
> > data along the way. It is destructive, but not necessarily
> > one-way, though it is effectively one-way as nobody will bother
> > fabricating slow and expensive meat puppets.
> >
> >> I know Hans Moravec proposed that decades ago and it became a
> >> pervasive meme, but it's an awful concept and a serious marketing
> >> burden for transhumanism.
> >
> > Doesn't affect cryonics, as this side of suspension process is
> > resurrection-agnostic.
> >
> >> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
> >> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.
> >
> > It would be a lot harder since there isn't any medical nantechnology,
> > nor will there be any for anyone reading this message right now.
> >
> > --
> > Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
> > 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A ?7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From giulio at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 08:44:54 2011
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:44:54 +0200
Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?H+_=40_Second_Life_=96_September_15=2C_201?=
	=?windows-1252?q?1?=
Message-ID: <CAKTCJyf0QvufW2gLyBRUgN0yfKWch2HRGAENwqLPegpbPCURJw@mail.gmail.com>

http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2011/08/h-second-life-september-15-2011.html
Humanity+ is hosting a virtual event in Second Life on September 15!

Join us in Second Life to brainstorm how to move forward together!

Our upcoming event is for our members and friends. The elements of
Multiplicity, Individuation, Novelty, Diversity and Skills (MINDS) are
all factors that link to leadership.

Speakers include Ben Goertzel, Howard Bloom, Martine Rothblatt, and
Linda M. Glenn, Giulio Prisco and Natasha Vita-More. We welcome you to
come and find out what others are thinking and saying about Humanity+
and leadership, and bring your own ideas to contribute to the
conversation. If you are not a member and who like to join Humanity+
go to http://humanityplus.org/join/join-hplus/ If you have any
questions about the event, please email us at info at humanityplus.org

Where: Teleport to Terasem Island, Second Life (coordinates: 121:155:30)
When: September 15, 2011 at 9:00 PM US EST time (US: 8:00PM CST, 6:00PM PST)

We hope to see you there!


From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 09:52:07 2011
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:52:07 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Off Topic: Turing Test -- ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJc=kzxu1FZtnFqa=D1Dc6d0osOW5k9y+2GWQVh-Cj2qg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
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	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
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	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CALAdGNRb6UD6ABimiBqN-D52tb0snZLHbM6DuLkeopMSrAN+4g@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5C7E5E.4040207@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTy74vpvw=zqbg+gk4SxAVhomPD=sdURzMFTCsnQztPkg@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAOJFdbJc=kzxu1FZtnFqa=D1Dc6d0osOW5k9y+2GWQVh-Cj2qg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPoR7a6nY2gv43sVxkt6ggQEQ8HvdLQq3cy7KDofe5Lw_-nY-A@mail.gmail.com>

On 31 August 2011 02:32, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Right.  Some of us could make the case that others here score very
> poorly on the social communication with [normal] humans.  The
> disturbing fact about a double-blind Turing test is that people are
> sometimes identified as computers.  What does the contrapositive of
> the Turing test prove?
>

In fact, IMHO, as discussed, the real test is when a number of interviewers
deal with a number of computers of brand X *and* human beings, and the
number of guesses does not exceed what is statistically warranted.


> Also interesting to note that a computer is considered a highly
> successful machine as its number of flops increases, while humans are
> considered much less favorably as their number of flops increase.  :)
>

Very old argument, but "intelligence" has always been identified, both as a
comparative feature of human beings and with regard to AI, as the things
that could not be easily automated at that time (say, ability to memorise
epic poems before their transcription,  large integers arithmetics, playing
chess, etc., pattern recognition, etc.).

So, I suspect that IQ tests themselves will have to keep pace with
developments in the AGI camp.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 12:29:11 2011
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 06:29:11 -0600
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNT36=8u_uGQX7eYBnTuuS0rAv57YBFR9b9nWDGcf3=COA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
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	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
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	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
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	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwbaj2NZPgOzwb2tfRVa-wVyZLwetO_SD83PS+exwgB5+g@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 10:13 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So, if we pass the Turing test, for example, without understanding
>> 100% how humans do it, then we understand how humans talk "well
>> enough" to be useful and reproducible. So in this "engineering sense",
>> the Turing test says we understand "intelligence" to a particular
>> measurable level.
>
> Standard terms (such as "well enough") in quotes to flag similes is a
> warning flag. ?You give the impression that you do not understand that
> "well enough" means "well enough" in all senses, and that you might
> not be able to distinguish between your use of quotes-as-similes and
> this paragraph's use of quotes-as-designators. ?This suggests that
> rational conversation may be impossible.

I can live with well enough losing the quotes. Let's go with Alan
Turing's standard. Well enough in this case means that the simulation
would be indisinguishable from you by people who know you well. That
is, the Adrian upload would have to be able to fool your friends into
thinking it is really you for some period of time to pass the test. Is
that a little less fuzzy?

> Put another way, consider the difference in intended meaning between
> "we understand how humans talk 'well enough' to be useful" and ?"we
> understand how humans talk well enough to be useful".

I meant it in the sense that we understand physics well enough to
build a bridge and have it stand up most of the time.

>> So rather than calling this the "Turing" test, we'll call this the
>> "Adrian" test.
>
> ...and there's the ad hominem. ?The expected value of the rest of your
> post is low enough that I'm not even going to read it. ?I will, however,
> post this just in case those were honest mistakes, so you can reply
> without making yourself appear not worth talking to in the future.

I'm not sure why I appear not worth talking to... but what I'm
proposing is that the test for a successful upload would be that your
friends could not distinguish between you and the upload for some
period of time, to be determined. I think that is sufficiently
rigorous for at least some purposes.

-Kelly



From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 15:48:56 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:48:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class (Eugen Leitl)
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:25 PM,  Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 06:16:57AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:45 PM, ?Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> snip
>>
>> > ?If the uploading process is destructive and one-way,
>>
>> Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?
>
> Anyone reading this will only be uploaded as a nice chunk of
> vitrified tissue

That seems awfully dogmatic to me.  People who are 20 and reading this
list could well be here in 2100, they would only have to make it to
89.

What makes you so certain that nanotechnology will not come into
existence by the end of the century?  (Convince me, I would like to be
convinced.)

> which will be presectioned and destructively
> scanned in a massively parallel fashion, abstracting nonrelevant
> data along the way. It is destructive, but not necessarily
> one-way, though it is effectively one-way as nobody will bother
> fabricating slow and expensive meat puppets.

>> I know Hans Moravec proposed that decades ago and it became a
>> pervasive meme, but it's an awful concept and a serious marketing
>> burden for transhumanism.
>
> Doesn't affect cryonics, as this side of suspension process is
> resurrection-agnostic.

I was not talking about cryonics.

>> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
>> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.
>
> It would be a lot harder since there isn't any medical nantechnology,
> nor will there be any for anyone reading this message right now.

If anyone cares about marketing transhumanism in the present, we
should quit talking about destructive uploading.  It is a really
distasteful and (to my way of thinking) stupid way to upload when
there are conceivable options that provide a path to reversible
uploading as slick as boiling a frog.

Keith Henson



From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 15:55:16 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:55:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ai class at stanford
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwbaj2NZPgOzwb2tfRVa-wVyZLwetO_SD83PS+exwgB5+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00bc01cc5ed9$5f0d19b0$1d274d10$@att.net>
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	<4E4F3801.1030808@sbcglobal.net>
	<012a01cc5ef6$8a963f90$9fc2beb0$@att.net>
	<3E165DBC-BF4E-443F-9769-D5BF0EC68C4C@mac.com>
	<000301cc61ed$6db343b0$4919cb10$@att.net>
	<CALAdGNQDx4TFbdqm=4-fYApjhE-W=LZbHQ74EJwL-azG-Gq-Dw@mail.gmail.com>
	<002401cc61f4$9263cbb0$b72b6310$@att.net>
	<CAPy8RwaCTaivW3nQGDVRjjZxidCpr1eoMbh+AF8qE_7jPdjQuw@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAL_armh4rAgiYtocQw11KMzxvN26wztTGe11MLUTwgxu411mzg@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b801cc627a$faf47a40$f0dd6ec0$@att.net>
	<4E59CC5F.6030501@sbcglobal.net>
	<007301cc6590$4237c930$c6a75b90$@att.net>
	<4E5B1963.5050508@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTGRX-Ngqfpucb_9Nws1axju9dGr8-GBcAaBSDzJPTMHg@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E5B3CCB.8060204@sbcglobal.net>
	<CALAdGNTR0MhcgE1znhKrZRw9kbWGz7Z-sXzmYLsSCGug+-ce8Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8RwYrkU1TR9ALEoLBSc+BK7LuXoFRSCECdM2V8upJzF7Omg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNSY=+EymV1J-VvbGLbzcM-XLFv2V6iAGo-gOehn755MhQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8Rwb8mGWJ=nQJDRFvUMX7AE=bv_sP+ADjjbf-KSLuG9TB6A@mail.gmail.com>
	<CALAdGNT36=8u_uGQX7eYBnTuuS0rAv57YBFR9b9nWDGcf3=COA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPy8Rwbaj2NZPgOzwb2tfRVa-wVyZLwetO_SD83PS+exwgB5+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTEAHS3Edh5H4jdeBOMb_UMyrcm4gNgpgDptFu8rBTSJw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 5:29 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can live with well enough losing the quotes. Let's go with Alan
> Turing's standard. Well enough in this case means that the simulation
> would be indisinguishable from you by people who know you well. That
> is, the Adrian upload would have to be able to fool your friends into
> thinking it is really you for some period of time to pass the test. Is
> that a little less fuzzy?

Quite.  Sorry, the specific phrasing you used was strongly suggestive of
those who attempt to deny rational discourse.  I thought it might have
been a mistake/accident in your case, since your other posts have been
quite coherent.  That's why I explained why I was ignoring the rest.

> what I'm
> proposing is that the test for a successful upload would be that your
> friends could not distinguish between you and the upload for some
> period of time, to be determined. I think that is sufficiently
> rigorous for at least some purposes.

I agree with that, where "your friends" is further defined as "the people
who know you best and are the most able - among anyone - to tell you
from an impostor".


From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 16:23:00 2011
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:23:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Alcor dumping "grandfathering"?
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5Xzpkur4owmiCVm_+QCM0X_r4Dw1Nn-6q-o8UEaRVqdQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:25 PM,  Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
>
> Keith:  Rather than inflaming people based on rumors, why not wait until
> Alcor communicates  what is being considered in order to tackle the massive
> underfunding problem that has accumulated over many years? (Details of a
> possible proposal will probably come out in about two weeks.) Something MUST
> be done, but the proposal under consideration is much less dire than you're
> painting it.

That's nice to know.

But even dumping old timers like me is *far* from the most serious
concern I have.

Regardless of what Alcor *says,* the actions *not* taken over the past
few years make it look from the outside like Alcor is giving up on
it's mission.  The conclusion from the financial analysis that Alcor
loses money on every member it takes on is obviously wrong (some of
those members kick in millions when they die). But the effect of this
belief is that Alcor has been making next to no efforts to gain new
members--a sensible path if you accept the financial analysis.

I appreciate the problems you have.  If you want to discuss them
privately, you have my phone number.  I am just as willing to hash
them out in public.  It's not like I have not done that before.  :-)

Keith Henson


From eugen at leitl.org  Wed Aug 31 17:00:00 2011
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:00:00 +0200
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class (Eugen Leitl)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20110831170000.GV16334@leitl.org>

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 08:48:56AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:

> That seems awfully dogmatic to me.  People who are 20 and reading this

People reading this list include me (1966) and you (1942), who
co-authored with Drexler in 1977. Looking back 30 years, and looking
at who's still working on machine-phase, what are your estimates
and you and me see http://nanomedicine.com/ like capabilities in
what is left of our lifetimes? The way things are going we're not
even going to get a cryosuspension by the time we need it. 
Which could be far sooner than either one of us care to speculate.

> list could well be here in 2100, they would only have to make it to
> 89.

Tell that to Sasha Chislenko, Hara Ra, Robert Bradbury and
dozens of people we knew but are no longer there.
 
> What makes you so certain that nanotechnology will not come into
> existence by the end of the century?  (Convince me, I would like to be
> convinced.)

I don't know what will happen by end of century. What
I do know is that none of it will be relevant for you and me
and most other people on this list (sadly, also no longer
spring chicken).

I have another hunch: there are probably less than 5 people 
reading this list who're 20 or below. You might wonder what
it indicates, and it's not merely email being a dead medium.

But, hey, it doesn't matter, as long as you can click the Facebook
"like" button, or upboat the orange-red.
 
> >> I know Hans Moravec proposed that decades ago and it became a
> >> pervasive meme, but it's an awful concept and a serious marketing
> >> burden for transhumanism.
> >
> > Doesn't affect cryonics, as this side of suspension process is
> > resurrection-agnostic.
> 
> I was not talking about cryonics.

Keith, I doubt you and I even get a shitty suspension. Hope I'm wrong, of course.

Machine-phase will happen eventually (unless things go seriously sour),
but unless you subscribe to an AI-driven Singularity, which is a particularly
pernicious cult for futurists to embrace, as it greatly enhances their
private, personal chances to encounter the information-theoretic Grim Reaper
not on our watch. Sorry.
 
> >> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
> >> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.
> >
> > It would be a lot harder since there isn't any medical nantechnology,
> > nor will there be any for anyone reading this message right now.
> 
> If anyone cares about marketing transhumanism in the present, we
> should quit talking about destructive uploading.  It is a really

In order to market you must first have a product. Unless you're
in the religion business. I'm not.

> distasteful and (to my way of thinking) stupid way to upload when
> there are conceivable options that provide a path to reversible

There are many conceivable options. Unfortunately, none of them
relevant to us reading these lines. You all can disagree. The obits
will tell us who's right soon enough.

> uploading as slick as boiling a frog.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Aug 31 16:55:08 2011
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:55:08 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class (Eugen Leitl)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNR2UydovfM7KBbHu9ZD4JiKoPr8OPYc0HGfrp1z-8_HSg@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> That seems awfully dogmatic to me. ?People who are 20 and reading this
> list could well be here in 2100, they would only have to make it to
> 89.

Math error: they would only have to live another 89 years, putting them at
109 in 2100.

That said, I agree: there probably will be 109 year olds in 2100, in enough
quantity and demographics that some of them will probably have read this
list, even if medical technology essentially stagnates at its current level (an
extremely conservative assumption)

> If anyone cares about marketing transhumanism in the present, we
> should quit talking about destructive uploading. ?It is a really
> distasteful and (to my way of thinking) stupid way to upload when
> there are conceivable options that provide a path to reversible
> uploading as slick as boiling a frog.

Which options would those be?



From agrimes at speakeasy.net  Tue Aug 30 16:31:38 2011
From: agrimes at speakeasy.net (Alan Grimes)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:31:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class
In-Reply-To: <20110830160024.GL16334@leitl.org>
References: <CAPiwVB5KsbtAGa8p_4V=HiSrk9nxOXtYkiS3OM+0uqjYdeojjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<20110830160024.GL16334@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <4E5D106A.9060306@speakeasy.net>

Eugen Leitl wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:45 PM,  Adrian Tymes<atymes at gmail.com>  wrote:

>>>   If the uploading process is destructive and one-way,

>> Can you think of any reason uploading would need to be destructive and one-way?

> Anyone reading this will only be uploaded as a nice chunk of
> vitrified tissue which will be presectioned and destructively
> scanned in a massively parallel fashion, abstracting nonrelevant
> data along the way.

So you completely discount any possibility of further conceptual 
advancement in "uploading"?

What about people who have alternate ideas but lack the eloquence and 
stature to advance them separately, they don't get a choice either?

In the past, 1% of species survived because there was sufficient 
variation that some of them got it "right". How can you argue that even 
1% of uploads will survive if there is no variation at all?

> It is destructive, but not necessarily
> one-way, though it is effectively one-way as nobody will bother
> fabricating slow and expensive meat puppets.

Sez who?

>> I have reasons to think it would be a lot harder than infiltrating the
>> brain with nanotech monitoring posts and learning how to emulate it.

> It would be a lot harder since there isn't any medical nantechnology,
> nor will there be any for anyone reading this message right now.

I can reasonably expect to live another 30-40 years, are you really 
saying that progress will be that slow?

-- 
E T F
N H E
D E D

Powers are not rights.



From agrimes at speakeasy.net  Wed Aug 31 16:40:04 2011
From: agrimes at speakeasy.net (Alan Grimes)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:40:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI class (Eugen Leitl)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4VwmbR5yOKWGkjF-SdYorApp3ktdzY5poZ+Vtnig3KKQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E5E63E4.7020109@speakeasy.net>

Keith Henson wrote:
> If anyone cares about marketing transhumanism in the present, we
> should quit talking about destructive uploading.  It is a really
> distasteful and (to my way of thinking) stupid way to upload when
> there are conceivable options that provide a path to reversible
> uploading as slick as boiling a frog.

Indeed! And still other forms of transhumanism that don't involve 
uploading at all! =)

I move that I be re-instated to the extropy-chat list with full 
privileges and Eugene be placed under the same posting-prohibitions that 
I've been suffering under for reason of being excessively offensive and 
destructive to the ends of the movement. =P

-- 
E T F
N H E
D E D

Powers are not rights.



From max at maxmore.com  Wed Aug 31 19:11:23 2011
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:11:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Alcor dumping "grandfathering"?
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5Xzpkur4owmiCVm_+QCM0X_r4Dw1Nn-6q-o8UEaRVqdQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5Xzpkur4owmiCVm_+QCM0X_r4Dw1Nn-6q-o8UEaRVqdQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJX-7wWXbjyKMuoPzhnNzuFxPkeuUR9nbihh9EUvXJ6fd7drWA@mail.gmail.com>

Are you talking about the Freitas analysis that presents a terribly
pessimistic view of future expenses? I find that analysis hard to believe.
No one has really gone through it critically with the detail required to
check its assumptions and projections.

Gaining new members is high on my priority list, starting in the very near
future. I'm already working on that in some ways, but can really go on the
offensive in a few months.

--Max

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:25 PM,  Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
> >
> > Keith:  Rather than inflaming people based on rumors, why not wait until
> > Alcor communicates  what is being considered in order to tackle the
> massive
> > underfunding problem that has accumulated over many years? (Details of a
> > possible proposal will probably come out in about two weeks.) Something
> MUST
> > be done, but the proposal under consideration is much less dire than
> you're
> > painting it.
>
> That's nice to know.
>
> But even dumping old timers like me is *far* from the most serious
> concern I have.
>
> Regardless of what Alcor *says,* the actions *not* taken over the past
> few years make it look from the outside like Alcor is giving up on
> it's mission.  The conclusion from the financial analysis that Alcor
> loses money on every member it takes on is obviously wrong (some of
> those members kick in millions when they die). But the effect of this
> belief is that Alcor has been making next to no efforts to gain new
> members--a sensible path if you accept the financial analysis.
>
> I appreciate the problems you have.  If you want to discuss them
> privately, you have my phone number.  I am just as willing to hash
> them out in public.  It's not like I have not done that before.  :-)
>
> Keith Henson
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
Max More
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480/905-1906 ext 113
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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 31 21:20:10 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:20:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] destructive uploading was AI
Message-ID: <008501cc6823$c3dfa620$4b9ef260$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Alan Grimes


>...I move that I be re-instated to the extropy-chat list with full
privileges and Eugene be placed under the same posting-prohibitions that
I've been suffering under for reason of being excessively offensive and
destructive to the ends of the movement. =P

--

We are in this mortal state together, and only by working together can we
solve the biggest problems facing all mortals.   I do urge everyone here to
treat everyone here as brothers and sisters, kindred spirits and fellow
travellers through our limited time on this planet.   State your case, treat
all with utmost kindness and charity please.

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Aug 31 21:50:41 2011
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:50:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] cornell turing test
Message-ID: <008a01cc6828$0769da60$163d8f20$@att.net>

 

OK, well now I am convinced.  A chatbot can meet and exceed the level of
discourse often seen in online chat.  Check it out, a Cornell team set
Cleverbot to have a monologue.  Turns out it didn't get along so well with
itself:

 

http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/31/ai-vs-ai-what-happens-when-you-make-a-c
hatty-computer-talk-to-itself-cornell-finds-out/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+B
ountiful
<http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/31/ai-vs-ai-what-happens-when-you-make-a-
chatty-computer-talk-to-itself-cornell-finds-out/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+
Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2a5ecc35f8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN>
&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2a5ecc35f8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN

 

{8^D

 

Jeeze, if our computers can't even get along, what chance have we?

 

spike

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