From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 1 02:55:54 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2013 22:55:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: <20130328154005.GF6172@leitl.org> References: <20130325144626.GB6172@leitl.org> <20130327112404.GC6172@leitl.org> <51535A48.70502@libero.it> <20130328103045.GU6172@leitl.org> <20130328154005.GF6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Look, I'm no enjoying any of this in the slightest. > I need good news. Can you give me any? ### We could exchange links to completely opposing views all day long and still waste each other's time. Based on my reading of diverse sources of information I developed a conviction that primary problems in energy production are vanishingly unlikely to cause massive human die-offs in any foreseeable span of time. By primary I mean caused by depletion of fossil or nuclear resources, not by various social disturbances secondarily impacting the ability to generate energy, such as environmentalist hysterias, madness of crowds, wars and a surfeit of stupidity. Primary energy problems are not even likely to significantly impact population growth in the next few hundred years. Just take this as Bayesian data, and let's call it a day. Rafal From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 1 12:49:12 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2013 14:49:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: References: <20130325144626.GB6172@leitl.org> <20130327112404.GC6172@leitl.org> <51535A48.70502@libero.it> <20130328103045.GU6172@leitl.org> <20130328154005.GF6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130401124912.GX6172@leitl.org> On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 10:55:54PM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > Look, I'm no enjoying any of this in the slightest. > > I need good news. Can you give me any? > > ### We could exchange links to completely opposing views all day long > and still waste each other's time. I need something peer-reviewed, or at least containing hard data, and not opinions, which are rather useless, unless I know the reputation of the opinion holder for doing due diligence. > Based on my reading of diverse sources of information I developed a > conviction that primary problems in energy production are vanishingly > unlikely to cause massive human die-offs in any foreseeable span of A low probability of a large-outcome event would at least require doing due diligence. It seems that only 50 kPeople world wide are doing their due diligence. That is a remarkably low number. > time. By primary I mean caused by depletion of fossil or nuclear > resources, not by various social disturbances secondarily impacting > the ability to generate energy, such as environmentalist hysterias, > madness of crowds, wars and a surfeit of stupidity. Primary energy The problem is that many people will consider this a "merely" economic problem. Even after the fact there will be a failure to allocate the blame accurately. > problems are not even likely to significantly impact population growth > in the next few hundred years. If the net energy graphs are accurate you should see a very significant impact by 2020, and a giant impact 2030. I really hope that these graphs are not accurate. I do, I do. > Just take this as Bayesian data, and let's call it a day. From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 1 15:54:58 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2013 16:54:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: <20130401124912.GX6172@leitl.org> References: <20130325144626.GB6172@leitl.org> <20130327112404.GC6172@leitl.org> <51535A48.70502@libero.it> <20130328103045.GU6172@leitl.org> <20130328154005.GF6172@leitl.org> <20130401124912.GX6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > If the net energy graphs are accurate you should see a very > significant impact by 2020, and a giant impact 2030. > > The net energy graphs could be correct, but the impact will probably not be evenly spread throughout the world. Just as food and energy consumption is not evenly spread at present. The countries who at present consume the most energy and food will do their best to maintain their consumption to avoid affecting their standard of living. So Rafal, in the town where he lives, might indeed not notice any shortage of food or energy, while millions are dying in poorer countries. He would be quite correct to say that he didn't notice any shortages. The big players in energy will only take notice when restrictions affect their own standard of living. Nothing personal, just business as usual. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 1 17:35:37 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:35:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: References: <20130325144626.GB6172@leitl.org> <20130327112404.GC6172@leitl.org> <51535A48.70502@libero.it> <20130328103045.GU6172@leitl.org> <20130328154005.GF6172@leitl.org> <20130401124912.GX6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5159C569.1080708@libero.it> Il 01/04/2013 17:54, BillK ha scritto: > On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >> If the net energy graphs are accurate you should see a very >> significant impact by 2020, and a giant impact 2030. > The net energy graphs could be correct, but the impact will probably > not be evenly spread throughout the world. Just as food and energy > consumption is not evenly spread at present. > The countries who at present consume the most energy and food will do > their best to maintain their consumption to avoid affecting their > standard of living. > So Rafal, in the town where he lives, might indeed not notice any > shortage of food or energy, while millions are dying in poorer > countries. He would be quite correct to say that he didn't notice any > shortages. > The big players in energy will only take notice when restrictions > affect their own standard of living. > Nothing personal, just business as usual. This is true both if the causes of the shortages are social or natural. If the costs of extracting oil / gas go up because new technologies are prevented from being developed and deployed with spurious reasons, the effect will not be so different than natural depletion. For example, if government subside fuel prices, so the fuel sell under a true market price, the consumption will stay up until fuel become scarce and disappear completely from regulated markets. But, in the same time, there will not be incentives to develop and deploy any substitute for the depleting resource. The government simply shift the costs from a group of people to another, just to make the first happier. Mirco From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 2 04:20:08 2013 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2013 20:20:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Deep ocean osmotic membranes Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 4:00 AM, "spike" wrote: snip > Therefore, my reasoning tells me that kelp > somehow osmosises or osmosizes, or osmizes fresh water, or otherwise > extracts (since I know how to spell that verb) fresh or freshish water using > sunlight somehow. So if dumb old plants can do it, blind, brainless members > of that lowly kingdom, we smart guys up at the pinnacle of technological > intelligence scale on the ranking taxonomic division should be able to > figure out how to do it, even if we need to employ the chlorophyll-meisters. No exceptions to the second law. Plants use energy from sunlight to pump out excess ions. Even the trick of going deep and using the difference in density for part (or even all) of the energy needed to make fresh water comes from lowering salt into the depth of the ocean. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 2 14:50:41 2013 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 06:50:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 4:00 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > I need something peer-reviewed, or at least containing hard data, > and not opinions, which are rather useless, unless I know the > reputation of the opinion holder for doing due diligence. I have an article in for peer review at the JBIS. In fact, it has been in peer review for 6 months now. JBIS might not have been the most sensible place to offer the article since it is rapidly getting out of date what with the China/India power satellite cooperation. I can't post it as long as it is in peer review, but I can send around copies for comment. Here is the concluding paragraphs: "The disruptive element behind this paper is large, high efficiency lasers developed outside the space industry for other purposes. "The physics and business models presented here stems from the realization that an existing power satellite, fitted with large propulsion lasers and the optics to track faraway vehicles, would result in a huge reduction in the cost to lift hundreds of thousands of tons of parts for more power satellites. The cost advantage of simple (hot hydrogen) laser propulsion is so large that it is worth constructing an initial power satellite and a set of propulsion lasers with relatively conventional rockets or rocket planes. In spite of the high initial cost, the value of propulsion lasers in GEO is very large. A power-satellite construction business based on this model appears to be able to build power satellites at such a low cost and in such large numbers that they could displace fossil fuels in a couple of decades." I think I offer it here before, but it has been so long I don't remember if anyone from this list asked for a copy. If you don't have the file JBIS7 and want to read it, ask for a copy. If you do read it and think you might be able to contribute, let me know. I may be lining up people to work on it. Keith From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 2 08:14:32 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:14:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Call for Papers: JAGI Special Issue on Brain Emulation and Connectomics Message-ID: <515A9368.7040207@aleph.se> Might be of interest to some list members: http://www.carboncopies.org/call-for-papers-jagi-special-issue-on-brain-emulation-and-connectomics-a-convergence-of-neuroscience-and-artificial-general-intelligence -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 2 19:08:08 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 15:08:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > "The disruptive element behind this paper is large, high efficiency > lasers developed outside the space industry for other purposes. Would that other purpose be CIWS? I was looking at Phalanx systems and noted that there is now a laser version (which must be easier to manage than 4500 rps of tungsten or depleted uranium shells) Will 50kw lasers work or will you need to scale vertically/horizontally to get to orbit? From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 2 20:16:50 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 13:16:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] saudis building enormous gb solar installation Message-ID: <00f001ce2fdf$039238d0$0ab6aa70$@rainier66.com> This is cool. Even if it turns out it isn't yet economically feasible, this installation will provide a ton of excellent cost/output data: http://singularityhub.com/2013/04/02/worlds-largest-solar-power-plant-online -in-united-arab-emirates/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bedf5cd4e3-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN I like the idea of solar concentrators in some environments, such as really dusty dry places. They might be easier to clean and perhaps a bit more forgiving than a glass surface. There is also that Rankine cycle; I am a big fan of those things. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 2 22:01:06 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] saudis building enormous gb solar installation In-Reply-To: <00f001ce2fdf$039238d0$0ab6aa70$@rainier66.com> References: <00f001ce2fdf$039238d0$0ab6aa70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 4:16 PM, spike wrote: > This is cool. Even if it turns out it isn?t yet economically feasible, this > installation will provide a ton of excellent cost/output data: > > http://singularityhub.com/2013/04/02/worlds-largest-solar-power-plant-online-in-united-arab-emirates/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bedf5cd4e3-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN > Are you "Sham 1" isn't a 4/1 joke? (my first thought reading that name) From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 3 08:44:40 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 10:44:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20130403084440.GA6172@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 02, 2013 at 03:08:08PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Will 50kw lasers work or will you need to scale > vertically/horizontally to get to orbit? You'll probably need MW-GW nonpulsed output total, depending on craft size. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 3 09:15:36 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 11:15:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] saudis building enormous gb solar installation In-Reply-To: References: <00f001ce2fdf$039238d0$0ab6aa70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130403091536.GG6172@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 02, 2013 at 06:01:06PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 4:16 PM, spike wrote: > > This is cool. Even if it turns out it isn?t yet economically feasible, this > > installation will provide a ton of excellent cost/output data: > > > > http://singularityhub.com/2013/04/02/worlds-largest-solar-power-plant-online-in-united-arab-emirates/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bedf5cd4e3-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN > > Parabolic troughs work well enough in the desert. But, most industrial locations are not in the desert. One loophole is that 1 TW/year total includes heating and air conditioning, which involves few 10 K thermal differential and can be driven by low-quality energy. Plus, impact of insulation (negawatts) is also not considered. Transportation can be electrified, and considerably improve efficiency overall. > Are you "Sham 1" isn't a 4/1 joke? (my first thought reading that name) From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 3 10:28:38 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 12:28:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Global solar photovoltaic industry is likely now a net energy producer, Stanford researchers find Message-ID: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> Why the net energy decay is a problem -- you need energy input for heavy infrastructure work. In absence of cheap energy, rapid EROEI is more important than high EROEI. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/april/pv-net-energy-040213.html Global solar photovoltaic industry is likely now a net energy producer, Stanford researchers find The construction of the photovoltaic power industry since 2000 has required an enormous amount of energy, mostly from fossil fuels. The good news is that the clean electricity from all the installed solar panels has likely just surpassed the energy going into the industry's continued growth, Stanford researchers find. By Mark Golden Video by Mark Shwartz Despite its rapid growth rate, the photovoltaic power industry is producing - or is on the cusp of producing - a net energy benefit for society, Stanford researchers say. The rapid growth of the solar power industry over the past decade may have exacerbated the global warming situation it was meant to soothe, simply because most of the energy used to manufacture the millions of solar panels came from burning fossil fuels. That irony, according to Stanford University researchers, is coming to an end. For the first time since the boom started, the electricity generated by all of the world's installed solar photovoltaic (PV) panels last year probably surpassed the amount of energy going into fabricating more modules, according to Michael Dale, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Global Climate & Energy Project (GCEP). With continued technological advances, the global PV industry is poised to pay off its debt of energy as early as 2015, and no later than 2020. "This analysis shows that the industry is making positive strides," said Dale, who developed a novel way of assessing the industry's progress globally in a study published in the current edition of Environmental Science & Technology. "Despite its fantastically fast growth rate, PV is producing ? or just about to start producing ? a net energy benefit to society." The achievement is largely due to steadily declining energy inputs required to manufacture and install PV systems, according to co-author Sally Benson, GCEP's director. The new study, Benson said, indicates that the amount of energy going into the industry should continue to decline, while the issue remains an important focus of research. "GCEP is focused on developing game-changing energy technologies that can be deployed broadly. If we can continue to drive down the energy inputs, we will derive greater benefits from PV," she said. "Developing new technologies with lower energy requirements will allow us to grow the industry at a faster rate." The energy used to produce solar panels is intense. The initial step in producing the silicon at the heart of most panels is to melt silica rock at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit using electricity, commonly from coal-fired power plants. Mark Shwartz To be considered a success, PV panels must ultimately pay back all the energy that went into them, said Michael Dale, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Global Climate & Energy Project. As investment and technological development have risen sharply with the number of installed panels, the energetic costs of new PV modules have declined. Thinner silicon wafers are now used to make solar cells, less highly refined materials are now used as the silicon feedstock, and less of the costly material is lost in the manufacturing process. Increasingly, the efficiency of solar cells using thin film technologies that rely on earth-abundant materials such as copper, zinc, tin and carbon have the potential for even greater improvements. To be considered a success ? or simply a positive energy technology ? PV panels must ultimately pay back all the energy that went into them, said Dale. The PV industry ran an energy deficit from 2000 to now, consuming 75 percent more energy than it produced just five years ago. The researchers expect this energy debt to be paid off as early as 2015, thanks to declining energy inputs, more durable panels and more efficient conversion of sunlight into electricity. Strategic implications If current rapid growth rates persist, by 2020 about 10 percent of the world's electricity could be produced by PV systems. At today's energy payback rate, producing and installing the new PV modules would consume around 9 percent of global electricity. However, if the energy intensity of PV systems continues to drop at its current learning rate, then by 2020 less than 2 percent of global electricity will be needed to sustain growth of the industry. This may not happen if special attention is not given to reducing energy inputs. The PV industry's energetic costs can differ significantly from its financial costs. For example, installation and the components outside the solar cells, like wiring and inverters, as well as soft costs like permitting, account for a third of the financial cost of a system, but only 13 percent of the energy inputs. The industry is focused primarily on reducing financial costs. Continued reduction of the energetic costs of producing PV panels can be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as using less materials or switching to producing panels that have much lower energy costs than technologies based on silicon. The study's data covers the various silicon-based technologies as well as newer ones using cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium diselenide as semiconductors. Together, these types of PV panels account for 99 percent of installed panels. The energy payback time can also be reduced by installing PV panels in locations with high quality solar resources, like the desert Southwest in the United States and the Middle East. "At the moment, Germany makes up about 40 percent of the installed market, but sunshine in Germany isn't that great," Dale said. "So from a system perspective, it may be better to deploy PV systems where there is more sunshine." This accounting of energetic costs and benefits, say the researchers, should be applied to any new energy-producing technology, as well as to energy conservation strategies that have large upfront energetic costs, such as retrofitting buildings. GCEP researchers have begun applying the analysis to energy storage and wind power. Mark Golden works in communications at the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University. Media Contact Mark Golden, Precourt Institute for Energy: (650) 724-1629, mark.golden at stanford.edu Dan Stober, Stanford News Service, (650) 721-6965 From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 3 11:31:43 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 13:31:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Iain Banks has terminal cancer Message-ID: <20130403113143.GN6172@leitl.org> Alas: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks.page From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 3 13:54:49 2013 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 05:54:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 4:00 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > "The disruptive element behind this paper is large, high efficiency > > lasers developed outside the space industry for other purposes. > > Would that other purpose be CIWS? Yes. > I was looking at Phalanx systems > and noted that there is now a laser version (which must be easier to > manage than 4500 rps of tungsten or depleted uranium shells) You might know that the next generation of ships is going to double or more the power plant. > Will 50kw lasers work or will you need to scale > vertically/horizontally to get to orbit? The biggest military laser is 105 kW, and there is no reason they could not scale to GW. Eugen Leitl worte > You'll probably need MW-GW nonpulsed output total, > depending on craft size. Right. 270 MW will support the LEO to GEO traffic, something upwards of 3 GW is needed for the end of air breathing to LEO. Snip. > Why the net energy decay is a problem -- you need energy input > for heavy infrastructure work. In absence of cheap energy, > rapid EROEI is more important than high EROEI. That's why power satellites are interesting. They have an energy payback time of under two months. snip > Subject: [ExI] Iain Banks has terminal cancer Bummer. Nobody really knows what the post singularity world will be like, but Banks tried and his work, like that of Charley Stross, is excellent. There are experimental treatments on the research horizon that just cure such things. Cancers avoid the immune system by displaying a "I'm a good guy" signal on their surfaces. Block that (which has been done experimentally) and you get really sick for a couple of weeks while the immune cells clean up the cancer. I wonder if Banks would consider cryonics? Grim as it seems, cancer is the best way you can go for a good suspension. Keith From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 3 14:21:26 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 16:21:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20130403142126.GX6172@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 05:54:49AM -0800, Keith Henson wrote: > > I was looking at Phalanx systems > > and noted that there is now a laser version (which must be easier to > > manage than 4500 rps of tungsten or depleted uranium shells) > > You might know that the next generation of ships is going to double or > more the power plant. I understand next-gen ships are hybrid, since they're chronically juice-starved. > > Will 50kw lasers work or will you need to scale > > vertically/horizontally to get to orbit? > > The biggest military laser is 105 kW, and there is no reason they > could not scale to GW. Well, these are big expensive boxes, and if you cover a football field of these with optics, it's going to cost you a penny. > > Why the net energy decay is a problem -- you need energy input > > for heavy infrastructure work. In absence of cheap energy, > > rapid EROEI is more important than high EROEI. > > That's why power satellites are interesting. They have an energy > payback time of under two months. Do you have the calculations for this? The best I know is InP on capton, 2 kW/kg. It won't age gracefully, will need infrastructure to deploy and you'll also need phased array aerials. In terms of lifetime you can probably recycle silicon onboard, but this is going to get quite heavy. > snip > > > Subject: [ExI] Iain Banks has terminal cancer > > Bummer. > > Nobody really knows what the post singularity world will be like, but > Banks tried and his work, like that of Charley Stross, is excellent. > > There are experimental treatments on the research horizon that just > cure such things. Cancers avoid the immune system by displaying a > "I'm a good guy" signal on their surfaces. Block that (which has been > done experimentally) and you get really sick for a couple of weeks > while the immune cells clean up the cancer. > > I wonder if Banks would consider cryonics? Grim as it seems, cancer > is the best way you can go for a good suspension. I presume Iain is now mostly offline, but if any of you have contacts, consider plugging the idea to him. From mlatorra at gmail.com Wed Apr 3 14:22:13 2013 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 08:22:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Iain Banks has terminal cancer In-Reply-To: <20130403113143.GN6172@leitl.org> References: <20130403113143.GN6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: Sad, sad news. One of my favorite authors. I had been hoping to read many more Culture novels from Banks over the coming decades. May Iain M. Banks Sublime. 2013/4/3 Eugen Leitl > > Alas: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks.page > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Apr 3 16:23:07 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 12:23:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Global solar photovoltaic industry is likely now a net energy producer, Stanford researchers find In-Reply-To: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 6:28 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > the clean electricity from all the installed solar panels has likely just > surpassed the energy going into the industry's continued growth > How very depressing, that only happened now!? Solar technology is supposed to save us all from energy starvation that you say will engulf us all in 2020, and yet only now in 2013 has it managed to produced a little more energy than it consumed; it sounds like the fusion energy fiasco all over again. If this really is a existential problem as you insist it is and if it is likely to kick in before some of our cell phone contracts expire as you also say it will then don't you think it might be wise to at least talk about energy solutions other than solar or wind or moonbeams or harnessed hummingbirds? Maybe we should get serious and consider solutions that at least have a fighting chance of working. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 3 20:18:01 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 13:18:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Does anyone here have experience mining or trading in Bitcoins or any of its cousins? These digital currency markets have gone parabolic. It's phenomenal: http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 3 20:50:33 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 13:50:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I'd noticed that too. I've been advised to hold off, since the spike is just over the past few months. There are many tales of commodities that experienced such a price spike, then crashed back down unpredictably - often much faster. On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Gordon wrote: > > Does anyone here have experience mining or trading in Bitcoins or any of > its cousins? These digital currency markets have gone parabolic. It's > phenomenal: > > http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price > > Gordon > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 3 21:11:13 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:11:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515C9AF1.1040905@libero.it> Il 03/04/2013 22:50, Adrian Tymes ha scritto: > I'd noticed that too. I've been advised to hold off, since the > spike is just over the past few months. There are many > tales of commodities that experienced such a price spike, > then crashed back down unpredictably - often much faster. There is a sell-off now. And MtGox is under a DDoS (or simply is unable to manage the load) In the last few months I already saw a number of large corrections (20%, sometimes more), and then the prices returned near the top in hours. Then they resumed the climbing in few days. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 3 20:59:41 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:59:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515C983D.9010404@libero.it> Il 03/04/2013 22:18, Gordon ha scritto: > > Does anyone here have experience mining or trading in Bitcoins or any of > its cousins? These digital currency markets have gone parabolic. It's > phenomenal: > > http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price I bought Bitcoin and know a bit about mining and trading them. What do you want to know? If are able to buy now, you could just buy a big bottom. It usually happen every week. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 3 22:23:26 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:23:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515CABDE.8060905@libero.it> Il 03/04/2013 22:50, Adrian Tymes ha scritto: > I'd noticed that too. I've been advised to hold off, since the > spike is just over the past few months. There are many > tales of commodities that experienced such a price spike, > then crashed back down unpredictably - often much faster. Do people used these commodities to send, anonymously, in few minutes, 4 millions US$ of value to someone else? http://blockchain.info/address/159SCycgn8weAy2XGUEhD6V1RTFni7E3iq Mirco From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 3 22:26:11 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 15:26:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515C983D.9010404@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515C983D.9010404@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365027971.17923.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> > I bought Bitcoin and know a bit about mining and trading them. > What do you want to know? Hi Mirco. This is day two of my investigation into this subject, so I'm more a less a complete newbie. I'm looking at mining Bitcoin (BTC) or Litecoin (LTC), but I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile on my computer. I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop with a P7 2.2 Ghz (capable of something like 3 Ghz in burst mode) and 6 gigs of RAM. It is basically a desktop replacement, but it has only an onboard NVIDIA chip and not a separate card. I think this means I cannot do GPU mining, but I don't know that for a fact. Do you? From what I gather, GPU mining is much more efficient than CPU mining.? I've seen some say that CPU mining is no longer worth the trouble, at least for BTC. I wonder if CPU mining for LTC would still make sense, as the blocks are smaller. I am as I type this doing some LTC mining in solo mode (just installed it last night). I have not yet succeeded in connecting to any pools. For some reason my Litecoin client won't function except in solo mining mode.? Solo or pooled, I don't yet know if this is a worthwhile endeavor, as it is maxing out my resources (CPU utilization 100%, running in burst mode at 2.4 Ghz). I worry that I might fry my computer in pursuit only a few dollars. Perhaps mining is only worthwhile on desktops with high end graphics cards and good cooling. I've read about the new ASIC dedicated mining machines that are just beginning to hit the market. From what I understand, they will change everything. I've heard they will cause the Difficulty level to rise dramatically, making even GPU mining almost pointless. I don't know if that is true. I would be grateful for any insights. Thanks.? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 3 22:21:57 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:21:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> On 03/04/2013 21:18, Gordon wrote: > > Does anyone here have experience mining or trading in Bitcoins or any > of its cousins? These digital currency markets have gone parabolic. > It's phenomenal: Well, the word you were looking for was likely hyperbolic or exponential. Squinting on the log-scale I would say hyperbolic. In a sense nobody has experience with Bitcoins, they are too new. But if you plot the all-time plot you will also see the peak 2 years ago, which looks fairly similar: accelerating price as the hype builds up, then a peak as it crashes. That ought to instill a healthy dose of caution. From an economical perspective, we should expect high volatility - it is a small currency with a value driven more by speculation than actual usage. And as plenty of bitcoin institutions are discovering, establishing security and reputations can be tough. From a theoretical perspective I feel torn. Bitcoin is a crypto-libertarian dream, a currency free from government control where you can invent new financial instruments with an afternoon of web-programming. This is what we were talking about back in the 90s! Yay! At last! But... while I think SilkRoad is very neat and that people should be allowed to buy drugs, it shows that bitcoin might make it *too easy* to run black market activity. It seems perfect for hiring people to rough others up, or even assassination markets - and it might allow buyers to avoid the currently tricky step of contacting unsavory characters. From our experience with viruses and exploits, the scary explosion happens when an economic driver appears and starts to feed a bad business. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aleksei at iki.fi Wed Apr 3 22:43:58 2013 From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 01:43:58 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 11:18 PM, Gordon wrote: > > Does anyone here have experience mining or trading in Bitcoins or any of > its cousins? > Yes. Few things in the world currently have such potential for disruption as Bitcoin (and other (quasi)cryptocurrencies, eventually). Looking into Bitcoin and everything it connects to is also intellectually very satisfying, as cryptocurrencies and their economic and political ramifications are a delightfully complex topic. For people new to Bitcoin, I recommend Rick Falkvinge as a thoughtful proponent who's well worth reading. Here are some recent things he's written, that also link back to earlier things worth reading: http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/ http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/03/why-bitcoin-is-poised-to-change-society-much-more-than-the-internet-did/ -- Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 3 22:53:34 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 15:53:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515CABDE.8060905@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CABDE.8060905@libero.it> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 3:23 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 03/04/2013 22:50, Adrian Tymes ha scritto: > > I'd noticed that too. I've been advised to hold off, since the > > spike is just over the past few months. There are many > > tales of commodities that experienced such a price spike, > > then crashed back down unpredictably - often much faster. > > Do people used these commodities to send, anonymously, in few minutes, 4 > millions US$ of value to someone else? > In some cases, yes. Gold is a commodity, for example. And doubtless this happened with some of the dot coms a bit over a decade ago. (Maybe not perfectly anonymously, but certainly harder to trace than a simple bank transfer.) But more importantly, this is irrelevant. All such commodities had some reason they were valuable; otherwise, they would not have experienced any rise in price. And yet they still had this sort of volatility, at least from time to time. True, lasting value rarely comes from an existing commodity suddenly becoming more expensive. OTOH, anyone who makes a valuable commodity permanently less expensive is often rewarded for their labor. Aluminum comes to mind here. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 3 23:06:58 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 16:06:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> Message-ID: <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Anders Sandberg wrote: >From a theoretical perspective I feel torn. Bitcoin is a crypto-libertarian dream, a currency free from government control where you can invent new financial instruments with an afternoon of web-programming I've followed Bitcoin since the beginning but only now I am beginning to take it seriously. Crazy though the idea seems, BTC?seems to be becoming established as a hedge against the global economy. This recent price surge was caused by the crisis in Cyprus, evidently. As a miner, one can in principle make some money while assuming relatively little risk. The costs are processor cycles, electrical power, and perhaps a few headaches. With prices climbing rapidly, this prospector is looking for an axe and shovel. ?? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 3 23:24:29 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:24:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365027971.17923.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515C983D.9010404@libero.it> <1365027971.17923.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515CBA2D.30106@libero.it> Il 04/04/2013 00:26, Gordon ha scritto: >> I bought Bitcoin and know a bit about mining and trading them. >> What do you want to know? > > Hi Mirco. This is day two of my investigation into this subject, so I'm > more a less a complete newbie. I'm looking at mining Bitcoin (BTC) or > Litecoin (LTC), but I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile on my > computer. I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop with a P7 2.2 Ghz (capable of > something like 3 Ghz in burst mode) and 6 gigs of RAM. It is basically a > desktop replacement, but it has only an onboard NVIDIA chip and not a > separate card. I think this means I cannot do GPU mining, but I don't > know that for a fact. Do you? From what I gather, GPU mining is much > more efficient than CPU mining. Much more, but it is curretly displaced by ASICs. You could use this page to see what is more profitable to mine (if it is profitable) with your PC: http://dustcoin.com/mining > Solo or pooled, I don't yet know if this is a worthwhile endeavor, as it > is maxing out my resources (CPU utilization 100%, running in burst mode > at 2.4 Ghz). I worry that I might fry my computer in pursuit only a few > dollars. Perhaps mining is only worthwhile on desktops with high end > graphics cards and good cooling. This is the most probable answer. > I've read about the new ASIC dedicated mining machines that are just > beginning to hit the market. From what I understand, they will change > everything. I've heard they will cause the Difficulty level to rise > dramatically, making even GPU mining almost pointless. I don't know if > that is true. This is totally true. They have a greater hashrate than GPU as they are done only for this purpose. And they consume a lot less power per GHash/s > I would be grateful for any insights. Thanks. Mirco From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 3 23:20:27 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 16:20:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515CABDE.8060905@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CABDE.8060905@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365031227.79161.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Mirco Romanato wrote: > Do people used these commodities to send, anonymously, in few minutes, 4 millions US$ of value to someone else? Yes, but I doubt many transactions of that size are happening as yet.? The total market value of all bitcoins in circulation exceeded $1 billion a few days ago, I believe for the first time. That news caught my attention. It is a large market, enough for me to take it seriously, but it is of course still tiny compared compared the size of the global economy. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 3 23:34:16 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:34:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> Message-ID: <515CBC78.5000903@libero.it> Il 04/04/2013 00:21, Anders Sandberg ha scritto: > Well, the word you were looking for was likely hyperbolic or > exponential. Squinting on the log-scale I would say hyperbolic. > In a sense nobody has experience with Bitcoins, they are too new. But if > you plot the all-time plot you will also see the peak 2 years ago, which > looks fairly similar: accelerating price as the hype builds up, then a > peak as it crashes. That ought to instill a healthy dose of caution. Before the peak it was like 5 cent/BTC and after the peak it was 2$/BTC. So, not a bad bet, in my mind. It just moved from 2 to 12 in a year and now from 12 to 130 in three months (but the adoption rate and useful ness is a lot larger). > From an economical perspective, we should expect high volatility - it is > a small currency with a value driven more by speculation than actual > usage. And as plenty of bitcoin institutions are discovering, > establishing security and reputations can be tough. I do not much about actual usage, but I would like to ask something to the person doing this http://blockchain.info/address/159SCycgn8weAy2XGUEhD6V1RTFni7E3iq 36K BTC in a single transaction (around 4 millions US$). Now we know what shacked the market today. Not who, but is something. Not stranely the last big selloff was exactly 36K BTC a few days ago. > From a theoretical perspective I feel torn. Bitcoin is a > crypto-libertarian dream, a currency free from government control where > you can invent new financial instruments with an afternoon of > web-programming. This is what we were talking about back in the 90s! > Yay! At last! But... while I think SilkRoad is very neat and that people > should be allowed to buy drugs, it shows that bitcoin might make it *too > easy* to run black market activity. It seems perfect for hiring people > to rough others up, or even assassination markets - and it might allow > buyers to avoid the currently tricky step of contacting unsavory > characters. From our experience with viruses and exploits, the scary > explosion happens when an economic driver appears and starts to feed a > bad business. This is a free market in private law enforcement, I would say. Mirco From andymck35 at gmail.com Thu Apr 4 20:13:42 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:13:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Iain Banks has terminal cancer In-Reply-To: References: <20130403113143.GN6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:22:13 -0800, Michael LaTorra wrote: > Sad, sad news. One of my favorite authors. I had been hoping to read many > more Culture novels from Banks over the coming decades. May Iain M. Banks > Sublime. My thoughts exactly, for those we admire death visits way too soon. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 4 00:07:09 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 17:07:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365034029.86739.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> From:Aleksei Riikonen wrote: >?For people new to Bitcoin, I recommend Rick Falkvinge as a thoughtful proponent who's well worth reading. Here are some recent things he's written, that also link back to earlier things worth reading: > http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/ > http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/03/why-bitcoin-is-poised-to-change-society-much-more-than-the-internet-did/ Thanks, Aleksei The first link did not work for me. The second is an excellent article, and it reminds me of a concern I have about the long term potential for digital currencies. From the article: "As nobody is in control of the money supply (it is set to grow predictably at a slowing rate until 2140), and demand increases with a limited supply, the price for each bitcoin increases. This is what we?re seeing now, as more and more people realize bitcoin?s business potential." While the supply of bitcoins will eventually and automatically be capped, ensuring scarcity and in this respect making it comparable to gold or any other precious metal, there is no limit to the number of digital currencies that might arise to compete with it. I know of at least six. Litecoin for example is considered by some to be to bitcoin what silver is to gold. But does the precious metal analogy really make sense? I can create a new digital currency but I cannot create a new precious metal.? For the long term, I worry that digital currencies could proliferate like the fiat money they are supposed to replace. In that case, they would not hold their value relative to hard commodities like oil and precious metals. Any thoughts? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 4 05:03:49 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 22:03:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool! Message-ID: <000001ce30f1$cc9f3300$65dd9900$@rainier66.com> They didn't give the source documents on this, but I will be eager to hear more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/04/03/dark-matter-major-astrophysics-dis covery/?intcmp=features It's a fun time to be alive if one is into physics and astronomy. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 4 06:20:00 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 08:20:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130404062000.GL6172@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 01:18:01PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > > Does anyone here have experience mining or trading in Bitcoins or any of its cousins? These digital currency markets have gone parabolic. It's phenomenal: You missed the boat on mining, unfortunately. With trading, do you mean running an exchange or arbitrage? > > http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price As an early adopter, I also wish I'd walk the walk quite a bit more. Few investments give you 2-3 orders of magnitude return. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 4 06:22:46 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 08:22:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130404062246.GM6172@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 01:50:33PM -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote: > I'd noticed that too. I've been advised to hold off, since the > spike is just over the past few months. There are many > tales of commodities that experienced such a price spike, > then crashed back down unpredictably - often much faster. Nobody knows what's going to happen. See Falkvinge's take on the issue http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/03/why-bitcoin-is-poised-to-change-society-much-more-than-the-internet-did/ also http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/ No, this is not an endorsement. Don't put anything in what you're not ready to walk away from. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 4 06:39:14 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 08:39:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365027971.17923.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515C983D.9010404@libero.it> <1365027971.17923.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130404063914.GN6172@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 03:26:11PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > > I bought Bitcoin and know a bit about mining and trading them. > > > What do you want to know? > > Hi Mirco. This is day two of my investigation into this subject, so I'm more a less a complete newbie. I'm looking at mining Bitcoin (BTC) or Litecoin (LTC), but I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile on my computer. I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop with a P7 2.2 Ghz (capable of something like 3 Ghz in burst mode) and 6 gigs of RAM. It is basically a desktop replacement, but it has only an onboard NVIDIA chip and not a separate card. I think this means I cannot do GPU mining, but I don't know that for a fact. Do you? From what I gather, GPU mining is much more efficient than CPU mining.? The boat has sailed both on CPU and GPU mining. You will need FPGA or ASIC based rigs. Don't bother, rather just buy them. > I've seen some say that CPU mining is no longer worth the trouble, at least for BTC. I wonder if CPU mining for LTC would still make sense, as the blocks are smaller. I am as I type this doing some LTC mining in solo mode (just installed it last night). I have not yet succeeded in connecting to any pools. For some reason my Litecoin client won't function except in solo mining mode.? > > Solo or pooled, I don't yet know if this is a worthwhile endeavor, as it is maxing out my resources (CPU utilization 100%, running in burst mode at 2.4 Ghz). I worry that I might fry my computer in pursuit only a few dollars. Perhaps mining is only worthwhile on desktops with high end graphics cards and good cooling. Your ROI will be exactly zero. Don't bother. > I've read about the new ASIC dedicated mining machines that are just beginning to hit the market. From what I understand, they will change everything. I've heard they will cause the Difficulty level to rise dramatically, making even GPU mining almost pointless. I don't know if that is true. The FPGA miners already upped the game. Again, don't bother, unless you have free juice. > I would be grateful for any insights. Thanks.? From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 4 07:39:53 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 08:39:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515CBC78.5000903@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <515CBC78.5000903@libero.it> Message-ID: <515D2E49.1050703@aleph.se> On 04/04/2013 00:34, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> From a theoretical perspective I feel torn. Bitcoin is a >> crypto-libertarian dream, a currency free from government control where >> you can invent new financial instruments with an afternoon of >> web-programming. This is what we were talking about back in the 90s! >> Yay! At last! But... while I think SilkRoad is very neat and that people >> should be allowed to buy drugs, it shows that bitcoin might make it *too >> easy* to run black market activity. It seems perfect for hiring people >> to rough others up, or even assassination markets - and it might allow >> buyers to avoid the currently tricky step of contacting unsavory >> characters. From our experience with viruses and exploits, the scary >> explosion happens when an economic driver appears and starts to feed a >> bad business. > This is a free market in private law enforcement, I would say. > There is an asymmetry between the criminal market and the law enforcement market. Somebody can set up a roughing-up service, and it would connect people who wants to rough up other people with nasty characters willing to do it. These nasty characters already exist and perform some violence, but now they can be untraceably hired and directed against targets. If I want to set up a bitcoin-enabled law enforcement organisation it needs to patrol around whoever or whatever they are paid to protect, or provide plausible levels of deterrence by coming after attackers. Note that this doesn't benefit from the anonymity like the criminals: being paid untraceably by an unknown party doesn't help the law enforcement do its job better. Since it is a group effort members need to coordinate and trust each other, and to be effective they need a certain organisation size. The only thing it helps is to reduce the risk to the hirer of being prosecuted as part of "conspiracy to vigiliantism" or whatever if the law enforcement is not officially recognized (and if it is a vanilla security firm, then there are likely other ways of paying anonymously). It is the same thing with kidnapping: currently the main problem is getting paid untraceably. Better untraceable payment methods, likely more kidnappings. I also suspect one reason the various frauds and thefts of bitcoins have been successful (besides clients being unused to how to secure them) is that the fencing is trivial. All crimes and activities like corruption where "follow the money" is a good heuristic to catch people benefit from bitcoin. These downsides are by no means an argument that bitcoin will be an overall bad. But it is a disruptive technology we do not fully see the implications of. The obvious sides - anonymity, weakening state power, algorithmic money supply - are just the first order sides. There are deeper implications we will discover only as they emerge - the sending-is-free property of email as it was designed way back does contain spam as an implication. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 4 08:27:46 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:27:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> Seems like we are moving closer to a real project. Good news! I am not just saying that as a neuroscientist/neuropundit, but also from the perspective of the safety of an upload transition. The worst scenarios are all of the type that neuroscience arrives last: we already have powerful computers and brain scans, we just cant get them to run. Then a breakthrough happens, and suddenly we have massive hardware overhang (very fast, multiple uploads can be run) and rapid change society is unlikely to keep up with. The nicer scenarios get the neuroscience roughly right from the start, and then show increasingly large animal models - the trend is obvious, society has a chance to adapt, and the first uploads will not be strongly posthuman. The BRAIN project aims at exactly what we need for increasing the chances of neuroscience getting there in time. There are also other projects (the EU one, and one other) that seem to be pulling in the right direction. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 4 10:29:09 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 03:29:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Thanks to all for the advice about Bitcoin. This headline caught my eye the other day, among others: A Guide to Bitcoin Mining: Why Someone Bought a $1,500 Bitcoin Miner on eBay for $20,600 http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-guide-to-bitcoin-mining-why-someone-bought-a-1500-bitcoin-miner-on-ebay-for-20600 Foolish or wise? One thing seems certain: Bitcoin is catching on like fire, at least for now. I might consider the purchase of an ASIC machine if I thought is was?worthwhile. Is it? As I wrote to another fellow here on ExI, my concern for the long term is that even while Bitcoin is structured such that there is a maximum number of coins which can be mined, ensuring scarcity and thus in this respect making it similar to a precious metal, there is no limit to the number of digital currencies which might compete with it. I know of at least six, including Litecoin which is said to be silver to Bitcoin's gold. But are digital currencies really analogous to precious metals? I rather doubt it. I can make a new digital currency but I cannot make a new precious metal. I am studied in economics and investments, (in fact I spent much of my life as an investment adviser), but this is mostly uncharted territory for me. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 4 10:52:05 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 11:52:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] cool! In-Reply-To: <000001ce30f1$cc9f3300$65dd9900$@rainier66.com> References: <000001ce30f1$cc9f3300$65dd9900$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 6:03 AM, spike wrote: > They didn?t give the source documents on this, but I will be eager to hear > more: > http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/04/03/dark-matter-major-astrophysics-discovery/?intcmp=features > > It?s a fun time to be alive if one is into physics and astronomy. > True, but some scientists are cautioning not to over-hype these results. They haven't detected dark matter yet. But it is still a very useful experiment. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 4 10:53:02 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 12:53:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 03:29:09AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Foolish or wise? One thing seems certain: Bitcoin is catching on like fire, at least for now. I might consider the purchase of an ASIC machine if I thought is was?worthwhile. Is it? Difficulty is adaptive. It will adapt to the point where it is just barely wortwhile to keep mining. If you're speculating the future value will increase, just buy bitcoins with your surplus fiat. > As I wrote to another fellow here on ExI, my concern for the long term is that even while Bitcoin is structured such that there is a maximum number of coins which can be mined, ensuring scarcity and thus in this respect making it similar to a precious metal, there is no limit to the number of digital currencies which might compete with it. I know of at least six, including Litecoin which is said to be silver to Bitcoin's gold. But are digital currencies really analogous to precious metals? I rather doubt it. I can make a new digital currency but I cannot make a new precious metal. There's a network effect working against nonestablished currencies. The value of Bitcoin is dependent on the ecosystem of a network of existing nodes maintaining the transaction logs, minting new coins, and an according economics where you can spend them (quite lagging there, obviously). Precious metals like gold and platinum have industrial uses, and -- barring quantitative transmutation -- are going to remain scarce. > I am studied in economics and investments, (in fact I spent much of my life as an investment adviser), but this is mostly uncharted territory for me. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 4 12:36:05 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 14:36:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130404123605.GH6172@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 11:21:57PM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > From a theoretical perspective I feel torn. Bitcoin is a > crypto-libertarian dream, a currency free from government control where > you can invent new financial instruments with an afternoon of > web-programming. This is what we were talking about back in the 90s! > Yay! At last! But... while I think SilkRoad is very neat and that people > should be allowed to buy drugs, it shows that bitcoin might make it *too > easy* to run black market activity. It seems perfect for hiring people I have another currency which is well known to support black market activity: 100 USD and 500 EUR bills. Let's outlaw these, since we *actually know* these are being used for all kinds of crime, including hit jobs, etc. > to rough others up, or even assassination markets - and it might allow > buyers to avoid the currently tricky step of contacting unsavory > characters. From our experience with viruses and exploits, the scary > explosion happens when an economic driver appears and starts to feed a > bad business. I don't see a problem. Bitcoin is traceable, far more traceable than cash -- you just can't know which warm body is associated with a string, unless you do further digging. Of course governments (who're currently busily outlawing cash, in case people haven't noticed yet) will try to outlaw Bitcoin. From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Apr 4 18:51:06 2013 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 11:51:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Screen-based interfaces that help improve cognition Message-ID: <00af01ce3165$5df46a00$19dd3e00$@natasha.cc> Hi everyone - I checked out Lumosity http://www.lumosity.com/ and it seems to be pretty much BS. I read some harsh reviews on it too. This causes me to ask: Are there reliable projects that actually do help users increase their brain performance / plasticity? Or, is this a trend, driven by a marketplace which has picked up on the increase of people living longer, Alzheimer's and other memory-related problems on the rise? If you do know of an interface that is really great and actually works, let me know that too! Thanks, Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Apr 4 20:28:37 2013 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 13:28:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Screen-based interfaces that help improve cognition Message-ID: <00e701ce3172$fcacd120$f6067360$@natasha.cc> Hi everyone - I checked out Lumosity http://www.lumosity.com/ and it seems to be pretty much BS. I read some harsh reviews on it too. This causes me to ask: Are there reliable projects that actually do help users increase their brain performance / plasticity? Or, is this a trend, driven by a marketplace which has picked up on the increase of people living longer, Alzheimer's and other memory-related problems on the rise? If you do know of an interface that is really great and actually works, let me know that too! Thanks, Natasha From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 4 21:30:11 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:30:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130404062246.GM6172@leitl.org> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404062246.GM6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <515DF0E3.5030602@libero.it> Il 04/04/2013 08:22, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 01:50:33PM -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> I'd noticed that too. I've been advised to hold off, since the >> spike is just over the past few months. There are many >> tales of commodities that experienced such a price spike, >> then crashed back down unpredictably - often much faster. > > Nobody knows what's going to happen. See Falkvinge's > take on the issue > http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/03/why-bitcoin-is-poised-to-change-society-much-more-than-the-internet-did/ > > also http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/ > > No, this is not an endorsement. Don't put anything in what you're > not ready to walk away from. The same is true for everything you put in a bank. German banks included (given their extreme exposition like 50:1 in some cases). Mirco From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 4 21:20:23 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 14:20:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] this is only a test... Message-ID: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> Do TV stations have test patterns anymore? Or is anyone here besides me old enough to remember when TV stations used to quit broadcasting about 0200 and start again around 0500, with nothing on the screen but a test pattern? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Apr 4 21:42:35 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 17:42:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] this is only a test... In-Reply-To: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> References: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: test pattern?!? All we had was snow. I used to get scared when they played the national anthem before it went to static... like "It's over? what does this even mean?" On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 5:20 PM, spike wrote: > Do TV stations have test patterns anymore? Or is anyone here besides me old > enough to remember when TV stations used to quit broadcasting about 0200 and > start again around 0500, with nothing on the screen but a test pattern? > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 4 21:47:33 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:47:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> Il 04/04/2013 12:53, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: >> As I wrote to another fellow here on ExI, my concern for the long >> term is that even while Bitcoin is structured such that there is a >> maximum number of coins which can be mined, ensuring scarcity and >> thus in this respect making it similar to a precious metal, there >> is no limit to the number of digital currencies which might compete >> with it. I know of at least six, including Litecoin which is said >> to be silver to Bitcoin's gold. But are digital currencies really >> analogous to precious metals? I rather doubt it. I can make a new >> digital currency but I cannot make a new precious metal. > There's a network effect working against nonestablished currencies. This is true > The value of Bitcoin is dependent on the ecosystem of a network of > existing nodes maintaining the transaction logs, minting new coins, > and an according economics where you can spend them (quite lagging > there, obviously). The speculation, like all speculation, try to bring the future nearer the present. In this case, the speculation increase the price of Bitcoin faster than the natural increase of price due to increased use. But this speculation, driving up the price, cause an increase of the ability of Bitcoin to allow larger transactions to happen without shocking the markets. At 50$/BTC a transaction of 36K BTC would shake the market with 1.5 millions $ transaction being liquidated in few hours. Today, the same transaction would require just 12K BTC or the same shaking would be caused by a 4 millions $ transaction. At 200 $ (in my opinion we will be there before the end of June for sure) this type of transaction will be of 6 M $. Mt.Gox have a queue of 20.000 account to be verified, just today. They moved from 4 to 24 people just to verify the accounts. 100$ per account in the Bitcoin ecosystem is around 2M $, moving up the market cap much much more (probably around 100-200 M more). > Precious metals like gold and platinum have industrial uses, and -- > barring quantitative transmutation -- are going to remain scarce. Gold industrial applications are so scarce that at current prices many mines can not continue to stay open. In fact, around half of the gold mined is used for industrial purposes and the rest go slowly increasing the available stock. It is not industrial use that make gold a monetary metal, nor it is its scarcity alone. And the same feature making gold a good monetary metal make bitcoin a better currency system. Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 4 21:54:16 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 22:54:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] this is only a test... In-Reply-To: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> References: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 10:20 PM, spike wrote: > Do TV stations have test patterns anymore? Or is anyone here besides me old > enough to remember when TV stations used to quit broadcasting about 0200 and > start again around 0500, with nothing on the screen but a test pattern? > Wikipedia knows. Basically no, because of 24 hour broadcasting. But still used in some countries in Europe and Asia. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 4 22:14:47 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:14:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130404123605.GH6172@leitl.org> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <20130404123605.GH6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <515DFB57.1060103@libero.it> Il 04/04/2013 14:36, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 11:21:57PM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> From a theoretical perspective I feel torn. Bitcoin is a >> crypto-libertarian dream, a currency free from government control where >> you can invent new financial instruments with an afternoon of >> web-programming. This is what we were talking about back in the 90s! >> Yay! At last! But... while I think SilkRoad is very neat and that people >> should be allowed to buy drugs, it shows that bitcoin might make it *too >> easy* to run black market activity. It seems perfect for hiring people > I have another currency which is well known to support black market > activity: 100 USD and 500 EUR bills. Let's outlaw these, since > we *actually know* these are being used for all kinds of crime, > including hit jobs, etc. You forgot all smiles to signal this was a joke, didn't it? Actually, only rag tag criminals use cash /gold to move wealth around. Real kingpin use the biggest banks to move, lauder, keep money. The US government (and fell sure the German is no different) just admitted it can not and don't want touch the banksters because they are needed to keep up the make-believe system as it is today (Solar subsides included). >> to rough others up, or even assassination markets - and it might allow >> buyers to avoid the currently tricky step of contacting unsavory >> characters. From our experience with viruses and exploits, the scary >> explosion happens when an economic driver appears and starts to feed a >> bad business. > I don't see a problem. Bitcoin is traceable, far more traceable than > cash -- you just can't know which warm body is associated with a string, > unless you do further digging. > Of course governments (who're currently busily outlawing cash, in case > people haven't noticed yet) will try to outlaw Bitcoin. When cash is outlawed people will invent their own cash. I want them to try to outlaw Bitcoin. If they fail, they are dead. Dead in a worse way than killed. Dead as without any power. Bitcoin is a cut in their biggest vein. The outflow of their life blood, the wealth created by the people, will be epic to see. Mirco From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 4 22:08:49 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 15:08:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Screen-based interfaces that help improve cognition In-Reply-To: <00e701ce3172$fcacd120$f6067360$@natasha.cc> References: <00e701ce3172$fcacd120$f6067360$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <008c01ce3180$fcbfdb90$f63f92b0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 1:29 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: [ExI] Screen-based interfaces that help improve cognition Hi everyone - >...I checked out Lumosity http://www.lumosity.com/ and it seems to be pretty much BS. I read some harsh reviews on it too... That's pretty much the same conclusion I derived. I like their games, but that notion of paying money to have them record my progress is nothing I want to pay. I found most of the games have free apps that do pretty much the same thing. Then you need to track your own progress and write your own motivational messages. I am better at writing self-motivation messages to myself than in using theirs, since I am free to be harsh with myself if I want to, and don't worry much about it if I offend me. I can even use profanity, in the style of my own cross-country coach from my misspent youth. He didn't mind a bit verbally whooping our asses if we appeared to be failing to drive ourselves to complete exhaustion. >...This causes me to ask: Are there reliable projects that actually do help users increase their brain performance / plasticity? Doing brain games and ordinary fun stuff like riding bicycles and dancing etc, both work the brain like crazy. I have cheerfully concluded that physical activity is as good as doing puzzles. I like both. So do them with enthusiasm. >...Or, is this a trend, driven by a marketplace which has picked up on the increase of people living longer, Alzheimer's and other memory-related problems on the rise? I think so. You hit it right on Natasha. There is money to be made from Alzheimers, big money. If we suffer the risk, we might as well get the payoff too. Max convinced me to check for the markers using 23andMe. Sent my spit kit back yesterday. Anyone else here done 23andMe? It now costs only 100 bucks. spike _______________________________________________ From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 4 22:15:59 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 15:15:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] this is only a test... In-Reply-To: References: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008d01ce3181$ff801790$fe8046b0$@rainier66.com> >>... Do TV stations have test patterns anymore? Or is anyone here besides > me old enough to remember when TV stations used to quit broadcasting > about 0200 and start again around 0500, with nothing on the screen but a test pattern? > > spike -----Original Message----- >...Mike Dougherty Subject: Re: [ExI] this is only a test... >...test pattern?!? All we had was snow... Snow? Luxury! I remember when they invented snow. It was one of the later innovations in TV. >...I used to get scared when they played the national anthem before it went to static... Ja, I remember that too. Francis Scott Key was an associate of mine, one of the locals. We lads cheered him on when his song made it into the Top 40 on Kasem Coast to Coast. Then not long after the Redcoats went away, it was declared the national anthem, and we all gave him a pat on the back. Foin lad was Key, foin lad indeed. >... like "It's over? what does this even mean?" It was back in the days before internet, when we had an actual attention span. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Apr 5 00:15:53 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 20:15:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] this is only a test... In-Reply-To: <008d01ce3181$ff801790$fe8046b0$@rainier66.com> References: <006401ce317a$3a327700$ae976500$@rainier66.com> <008d01ce3181$ff801790$fe8046b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 6:15 PM, spike wrote: > It was back in the days before internet, when we had an actual attention > span. A tension span? Is that some kind of bridge? I'm glad we have internet now, it makes whatever that was obsolete. From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 5 00:09:52 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 17:09:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Screen-based interfaces that help improve cognition In-Reply-To: <008c01ce3180$fcbfdb90$f63f92b0$@rainier66.com> References: <00e701ce3172$fcacd120$f6067360$@natasha.cc> <008c01ce3180$fcbfdb90$f63f92b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00a001ce3191$e85ef800$b91ce800$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- >... On Behalf Of spike ... >...Max convinced me to check for the markers using 23andMe. Sent my spit kit back yesterday. Anyone else here done 23andMe? It now costs only 100 bucks...spike _______________________________________________ If we get several ExI-chat regulars to do this, I wouldn't be too surprised if we discover some of us are distant cousins. spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 5 00:54:49 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 17:54:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco, >> As I wrote to another fellow here on ExI, my concern for the long >> term is that even while Bitcoin is structured such that there is a >> maximum number of coins which can be mined, ensuring scarcity and >> thus in this respect making it similar to a precious metal, there >> is no limit to the number of digital currencies which might compete >> with it. I know of at least six, including Litecoin which is said >> to be silver to Bitcoin's gold. But are digital currencies really >> analogous to precious metals? I rather doubt it. I can make a new >> digital currency but I cannot make a new precious metal. When I wrote those words above, I was alluding to the?possibility?that although bitcoin is ingeniously structured to ensure scarcity of bitcoins over the long run,?analogous?to what nature has done for gold, the proliferation of alternative digital currencies might nonetheless inflate the overall digital money supply into the indefinite future.?Just as central banks can "print money" out of thin air, so too can anyone create a new bitcoin-like digital currency.?If am correct about this then?the scarcity of digital money is illusory and it loses an important advantage over ordinary fiat money. I would rather be incorrect. What is wrong with my thinking here? 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URL: From aleksei at iki.fi Fri Apr 5 02:31:57 2013 From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 05:31:57 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:54 AM, Gordon wrote: > > When I wrote those words above, I was alluding to the possibility that > although bitcoin is ingeniously structured to ensure scarcity of bitcoins > over the long run, analogous to what nature has done for gold, the > proliferation of alternative digital currencies might nonetheless inflate > the overall digital money supply into the indefinite future. Just as > central banks can "print money" out of thin air, so too can anyone create a > new bitcoin-like digital currency. If am correct about this then the > scarcity of digital money is illusory and it loses an important advantage > over ordinary fiat money. I would rather be incorrect. What is wrong with > my thinking here? > When someone creates a new clone of the Bitcoin system, the default outcome is that no-one will be interested, since they can just use Bitcoin instead of the new clone that no shops/etc are accepting yet anyway. In order for new cryptocurrencies to get off the ground, and for a significant number of shops to bother adding them as an alternative payment option, those new currencies will need to have some advantage when compared to Bitcoin. (And "a single unit of this currency costs fewer dollars than a single Bitcoin" doesn't count as an advantage.) (An example of an advantage that would allow a new cryptocurrency to compete for market share would be a major country sponsoring said currency in some way, for example by promising tax breaks for transactions that use that particular currency.) -- Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 5 02:38:44 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 22:38:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Untraceable nastiness Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 3:39 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > There is an asymmetry between the criminal market and the law enforcement > market. Somebody can set up a roughing-up service, and it would connect > people who wants to rough up other people with nasty characters willing to > do it. These nasty characters already exist and perform some violence, but > now they can be untraceably hired and directed against targets. ### Indeed, ubiquitous decentralized untraceable payment methods without the need for direct personal contact open up whole new business models for criminals. Stanislaw Lem once imagined a society where it would be possible for any citizen to secretly vote to make anybody's head explode: Once enough votes are cast, the person dies. Obviously, a reasonable person would keep a low profile while voting to kill almost everybody else, and hope to make it until there are not enough people around for a kill-quorum. In this and in BTC-enabled implementations of systems where first-mover advantage favors destruction, the end results are dire. ------------- > It is the same thing with kidnapping: currently the main problem is getting > paid untraceably. Better untraceable payment methods, likely more > kidnappings. I also suspect one reason the various frauds and thefts of > bitcoins have been successful (besides clients being unused to how to secure > them) is that the fencing is trivial. All crimes and activities like > corruption where "follow the money" is a good heuristic to catch people > benefit from bitcoin. ### One the other hand, what technology taketh away with one hand, it bestoweth with the other: Ubiquitous decentralized surveillance of the physical layer would make it easy to detect and destroy whoever undertakes the disapproved-of physical activity, whether spontaneously or prompted by an untraceable payment. You may not be able to know your criminal Nemesis but you might be able to cut off his hands. That is, assuming there are no remote-control 3D-printing shops sloppy enough to let kill-drones sneak out of their doors. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 5 03:12:09 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 23:12:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 10:31 PM, Aleksei Riikonen wrote: > > When someone creates a new clone of the Bitcoin system, the default outcome > is that no-one will be interested, since they can just use Bitcoin instead > of the new clone that no shops/etc are accepting yet anyway. ### A fascinating money theory issue is pertinent here: Since the amount of BTC is capped, at some point the growth of trade in BTC will bring about deflation. This is dramatically different from fiat currencies, which through political incentives are highly unlikely to exhibit this phenomenon. In world's economic history there are few examples of deflation, and these occurred only in economies using true hard currencies, like gold, and undergoing economic growth (like the original United States of America, now long defunct). Although deflation is nowadays the bete noire of monetary theorists, I am inclined to think its ravages are much exaggerated - still, this is a subject for another discussion. What is interesting here is to consider if an equilibrium of separate competing crypto currencies could be triggered by deflationary pressures. As you may know, deflation increases the value of money expressed in goods and services. This is a social benefit, since it rewards savers and thus stimulates saving and investment over consumption. On the other hand, very high cost of money might prompt those who do not have it to use other means of facilitating exchanges. Historically, silver and copper coexisted with gold in many economies, usually filling slightly different economic niches. It is possible that two or more crypto currencies could eventually coexist. Maybe the richest, largest minds will use BTC for long-term storage of value while poor, low-computing power creatures will make their evanescent trades in ad hoc currencies, to be supplanted by the next mayfly generations in mere seconds. As I keep remarking, this will be an interesting world. Rafal From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 5 03:23:12 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 20:23:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Aleksei Riikonen >.When I wrote those words above, I was alluding to the possibility that although bitcoin is ingeniously structured to ensure scarcity of bitcoins over the long run, analogous to what nature has done for gold, the proliferation of alternative digital currencies might nonetheless inflate the overall digital money supply into the indefinite future. Just as central banks can "print money" out of thin air, so too can anyone create a new bitcoin-like digital currency. If am correct about this then the scarcity of digital money is illusory and it loses an important advantage over ordinary fiat money. I would rather be incorrect. What is wrong with my thinking here?...--Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei There is nothing wrong with your thinking Aleksei, it is perfectly legitimate. The closest analogy I can think of is Amazon. When they started up, I refused to buy stock in it, for it seemed to me that anyone could do something analogous to it, and capture arbitrarily much market share. Someone did to some extent: CraigsList is a free version of Amazon. But to my surprise, the number of online sales organizations did not replicate wildly. There are several of them, but Amazon is a good way to go if you want something that is reputation-controlled, and CraigsList for free listing services, after all these years. BitCoin, I don't know. I think you have a good point there however, and the Amazon argument is much stronger. The first guy who starts up a BitCoin clone makes a lot of money off of it. So it might be there is a contining market for new digital currency. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 5 03:33:03 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 20:33:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Aleksei Riikonen wrote: >?When someone creates a new clone of the Bitcoin system, the default outcome is that no-one will be interested, since they can just use Bitcoin instead of the new clone that no shops/etc are accepting yet anyway. And yet the trading markets for these BTC clones seem to be thriving, comparable at least to the early days of BTC. I count quite a few of them, at least six or seven. Are all those people fools? > .. those new currencies will need to have some?advantage when compared to Bitcoin. (And "a single unit of this currency costs fewer dollars than a single Bitcoin" doesn't count as an advantage.)? Why is?"a single unit of this currency costs fewer dollars than a single Bitcoin"?not an advantage? For the moment, at least, I have rejected the idea that digital currencies are comparable to precious metals. It seems to me that they are like different denominations of a fiat currency, albeit one that is issued by the people instead of by central banks. Some say Litecoin is to Bitcoin what silver is to gold. I'm thinking it is more like a US quarter is to a US dollar. I appreciate your thoughts on this subject. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Fri Apr 5 04:03:56 2013 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (david) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 15:03:56 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130405150356.606182aa@jarrah> On Thu, 4 Apr 2013 20:23:12 -0700 "spike" wrote: > > > BitCoin, I don't know. I think you have a good point there however, > and the Amazon argument is much stronger. The first guy who starts > up a BitCoin clone makes a lot of money off of it. So it might be > there is a continuing market for new digital currency. > > spike > There are already multiple cryptocurrencies attempting to compete or co-operate with Bitcoin. See http://dustcoin.com/mining for a list of some, and their relative values. (Disclaimer: I have no idea how accurate or up to date that site is.) Current top competitor seems to be Litecoin, at US$4.10 each. -David From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 5 04:01:26 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 21:01:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1365134486.50166.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> >>?When I wrote those words above, I was alluding to the?possibility?that although bitcoin is ingeniously structured to ensure scarcity of bitcoins over the long run,?analogous?to what nature has done for gold, the proliferation of alternative digital currencies might nonetheless inflate the overall digital money supply into the indefinite future.?Just as central banks can "print money" out of thin air, so too can anyone create a new bitcoin-like digital currency.?If am correct about this then?the scarcity of digital money is illusory and it loses an important advantage over ordinary fiat money. I would rather be incorrect. What is wrong with my thinking here?...-- > There is nothing wrong with your thinking Aleksei, it is perfectly legitimate. Those were actually my words, spike. :) Gordon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 5 04:40:07 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 21:40:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365134486.50166.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> <1365134486.50166.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00f001ce31b7$aaff5740$00fe05c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 9:01 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin >>?What is wrong with my thinking here?...-- > There is nothing wrong with your thinking Aleksei, it is perfectly legitimate. Those were actually my words, spike. :) Gordon Cool thanks, good thinking Gordon. We didn?t hear from you in a long time. Missed ya man! Welcome back. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 5 06:10:02 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 23:10:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <00f001ce31b7$aaff5740$00fe05c0$@rainier66.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00d601ce31ac$e95dd620$bc198260$@rainier66.com> <1365134486.50166.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f001ce31b7$aaff5740$00fe05c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1365142202.22401.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> >Cool thanks, good thinking Gordon.? We didn?t hear from you in a long time.? Missed ya man!? Welcome back. ? >spike Thanks, spike. For those who don't remember me, I've been around these parts for something like 12 years. I used to be very active, but a few years ago my values and opinions changed a little and I found other pastures. Still there is in my opinion no better place than this to find intelligent discussion of complicated subjects. When I want to find smart people to help me think about the things I'm thinking out, I come here! Gordon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 5 08:29:12 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:29:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <515E8B58.9030607@aleph.se> On 05/04/2013 06:21, Alan Grimes wrote: > What the heck is an upload transition? The transition from a world where brain emulation is not possible to a world where it is doable. The issue I am concerned about is that the economic and social impact of being able to copy human capital and achieve effective immortality is... pretty big. Copyable human capital makes economic growth models blow up: Robin Hanson's uploading economics papers are on the conservative end. In the past transitions to slightly faster economic growth rates and new means of production have led to pretty dramatic effects on the lives of people (consider the industrial revolution, globalisation, de-industrialisation), but most have developed rather slowly. Yes, I think most of these have improved things overall, but during the transition there is plenty of pain and some people get an extra unfair helping. In upload transition scenarios, there are good reasons to think that a very sudden transition would cause a lot of drama - massive first mover advantages, big rewards for ignoring moral or legal rules, entirely new players gaining enormous wealth and power, big challenges to existing legal and social systems, new kinds of enslaveable agents not accepted by everybody as being persons, and so on. I am working on a proper paper on the topic, but our preliminary finding is that out of the list of putative causes of war and social conflicts rapid uploading transitions manages to check lots of boxes. Disaster is not guaranteed, but it looks like the ordering of component technologies can reduce the risks significantly. Hence it makes sense to wish for the less risky orderings. If you think brain emulation is impossible, then this analysis doesn't matter. If you think it is irrelevant because of some other future technology, fine, but consider that there is a certain risk that that technology does not arrive fast enough. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 5 08:44:49 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:44:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Untraceable nastiness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <515E8F01.5000605@aleph.se> On 05/04/2013 03:38, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### One the other hand, what technology taketh away with one hand, it > bestoweth with the other: Ubiquitous decentralized surveillance of the > physical layer would make it easy to detect and destroy whoever > undertakes the disapproved-of physical activity, whether spontaneously > or prompted by an untraceable payment. You may not be able to know > your criminal Nemesis but you might be able to cut off his hands. Ubiquitous surveillance likely makes on-line anonymity impossible, since the gnatbots can read your passwords as you type them (or more sophisticated evil maid surveillance attacks on your hardware). In the surveillance world you can likely always figure out at least after the fact who was behind what and hold them accountable; whether that power is distributed to everybody or some centres of power depends on the setup. In the perfect anonymity world online anonymity allows remote control of actuators like drones, and accountability likely goes out of the window except where enforced by cryptographic and material-layer security. I have been having some fun discussions about what the limits of material security is: it might be possible to build not just "firewalls" but capability control into much of our objects using nanotech. Again, different setups favor concentrations or distributions of security power. It is worth recognizing that this is not about the Ring of Gyges: most evidence shows that anonymity will not make people immoral, but it does allow many more to be dicks, trolls and criminals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect Reputations are useful, and for many purposes (but not all!) must be tied to a physical person rather than a cryptonym. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 08:55:02 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 10:55:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 08:33:03PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > >?When someone creates a new clone of the Bitcoin system, the default outcome is that no-one will be interested, since they can just use Bitcoin instead of the new clone that no shops/etc are accepting yet anyway. > > > And yet the trading markets for these BTC clones seem to be thriving, comparable at least to the early days of BTC. I count quite a few of them, at least six or seven. Are all those people fools? Are all gamblers fools? > > .. those new currencies will need to have some?advantage when compared to Bitcoin. (And "a single unit of this currency costs fewer dollars than a single Bitcoin" doesn't count as an advantage.)? > Why is?"a single unit of this currency costs fewer dollars than a single Bitcoin"?not an advantage? For the moment, at least, I have rejected the idea that digital currencies are comparable to precious metals. It seems to me that they are like different denominations of a fiat currency, albeit one that is issued by the people instead of by central banks. Some say Litecoin is to Bitcoin what silver is to gold. I'm thinking it is more like a US quarter is to a US dollar. BTC is almost infinitely frangible. In theory you could run the world economy on a single BTC. Digital currencies are similiar to precious metals in the sense that they cannot be inflated at will. They are based on the assumption that certain computations don't have significant shortcuts, and they have a feedback mechanism (via mining, or, rather, minting difficulty) to adjust the mining rate. > I appreciate your thoughts on this subject. As a meta observation your reasoning leading your conclusions is not obvious. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 09:14:59 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 11:14:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Untraceable nastiness In-Reply-To: <515E8F01.5000605@aleph.se> References: <515E8F01.5000605@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130405091459.GF6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 09:44:49AM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Ubiquitous surveillance likely makes on-line anonymity impossible, since Why would you allow spies in your living room? > the gnatbots can read your passwords as you type them (or more > sophisticated evil maid surveillance attacks on your hardware). If your hardware can't guard itself, you should probably invest in a better one. Sure, it's an arms race, but the advantage is on the side of the space owner. > In the surveillance world you can likely always figure out at least In the surveillance world, 99.9% of us are serfs, so let's try not to reach that local pessimum. > after the fact who was behind what and hold them accountable; whether > that power is distributed to everybody or some centres of power depends > on the setup. > > In the perfect anonymity world online anonymity allows remote control of > actuators like drones, and accountability likely goes out of the window > except where enforced by cryptographic and material-layer security. I > have been having some fun discussions about what the limits of material > security is: it might be possible to build not just "firewalls" but > capability control into much of our objects using nanotech. Again, If you have MNT, then the concept of the physical world goes out of the window. There are certainly no bipedal primates around, at least not for long. > different setups favor concentrations or distributions of security power. > > It is worth recognizing that this is not about the Ring of Gyges: most > evidence shows that anonymity will not make people immoral, but it does > allow many more to be dicks, trolls and criminals. That by itself is rarely fatal. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect > Reputations are useful, and for many purposes (but not all!) must be > tied to a physical person rather than a cryptonym. Why, it encourages people to invest into more permanent nyms by accuring expensive reputation, simply because trolls and dicks have dragged down anonyms into a massive liability in interactions. From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Fri Apr 5 05:21:58 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 01:21:58 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> Message-ID: <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> I've been meditating on this post for the past several hours. Anders Sandberg wrote: > I am not just saying that as a neuroscientist/neuropundit, but also > from the perspective of the safety of an upload transition. What the heck is an upload transition? Google wasn't very helpful. Don't you mean "My upload transition"? I mean, that would make sense, you know, to talk about your own future transformations. But to talk in terms of an infinitive/universal "upload transition" is simply wrong. > The worst scenarios are all of the type that neuroscience arrives > last: we already have powerful computers and brain scans, we just cant > get them to run. Then a breakthrough happens, and suddenly we have > massive hardware overhang (very fast, multiple uploads can be run) and > rapid change society is unlikely to keep up with. What rapid change? How would this "society" thing (whatever that is) feel obliged to "keep up with" it? Why not simply allow things to diffuse out into common usage the way any other meme would. Is there something I really need to know but haven't been told? > The nicer scenarios get the neuroscience roughly right from the start, > and then show increasingly large animal models - the trend is obvious, > society has a chance to adapt, and the first uploads will not be > strongly posthuman. What is so special about this uploading thing that society would have to "adapt"? I think we need to have a Dialog about this, you know 2-way communication, where we talk about how this will affect each of us, and what actions might be necessary to preserve our rights and values. A 130 page treatise (which I read, cover to cover) that goes over exactly how you plan to upload everyone including me and my cat does not count as a dialog. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 5 10:28:46 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 03:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > Digital currencies are similiar to precious metals in the sense that > they cannot be inflated at will.? It is very true that any *single* digital currency, like BTC, cannot be inflated at will. That is one of the beauties of it! In that respect, any given digital currency is similar to a precious metal. But it seems to me that digital currencies (plural) can be inflated at will by people who create alternate versions of it. I cannot create alternate versions of precious metals, but I can create alternate versions of digital currencies. At least seven people/groups have already done so. And all of these?cousins?of BTC are based essentially on the same model, making them essentially different denominations or versions of the same currency. I'm thinking that if there is an argument for the long term viability of BTC as a non-fiat-like currency, it must hinge in part on the idea that it will defeat all its digital competitors. ? Gordon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 5 11:18:44 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 04:18:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin Eugen Leitl wrote: >>. Digital currencies are similiar to precious metals in the sense that they cannot be inflated at will. >.It is very true that any *single* digital currency, like BTC, cannot be inflated at will. That is one of the beauties of it! In that respect, any given digital currency is similar to a precious metal. But it seems to me that digital currencies (plural) can be inflated at will by people who create alternate versions of it.Gordon This is a powerful argument. Nature has given us a limited number of metals, a few score total. Some of these are unstable chemically or are radioactive. So the ones that are useful for much are limited in number to about a dozen or so. The price of these metals is controlled by how much it costs to produce it. All alloys are similarly controlled by production costs. But if there were arbitrarily many different metals, and it didn't have a particular cost to refine, the stuff couldn't be used as money. Gordon you have convinced me: bitcoin is not on the verge of replacing fiat currency. Still I like the idea of some kind of digital currency based on perhaps computing cycles. For some time I have been an advocate of putting background cycles to work by assigning them some kind of monetary equivalent value. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 11:20:36 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 13:20:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130405112036.GI6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 03:28:46AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > I'm thinking that if there is an argument for the long term viability of > BTC as a non-fiat-like currency, it must hinge in part on the idea that it > will defeat all its digital competitors. ? Bitcoin has the following going for it: it is well designed, and it was the first, so in terms of network effect it's king. So while there is space for a few minor competitors, long-term (the only reason there are contenders now is because designers/early adopters hope to profit from a similiar value infusion, sooner or later quite a few of them will give up), but unless there is a fundamental flaw or deficiency in scope in the Bitcoin design it's hard to see how its dominance will be broken. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 11:48:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 13:48:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 01:21:58AM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > What the heck is an upload transition? Google wasn't very helpful. Don't > you mean "My upload transition"? I mean, that would make sense, you No, because we're going to upload you. In your sleep. Without your consent. Because, that's the way we like it. Uh huh. Uh huh. > know, to talk about your own future transformations. But to talk in > terms of an infinitive/universal "upload transition" is simply wrong. What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. It's a side effect of activities of a particular local primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still pretty impressive, and not in a good way. > What rapid change? How would this "society" thing (whatever that is) Don't blink. Too late! > feel obliged to "keep up with" it? Why not simply allow things to Because it beats going extinct. You can probably relate to that. > diffuse out into common usage the way any other meme would. Is there I have no idea what you're talking about. > something I really need to know but haven't been told? Yes Alan, you're on your habitual crusade. We get it. Here's some news: nobody cares about you, or me, or this little cybercorner. Collectively, we're stampeding in a particular direction. Our collective trajectory is effectively deterministic, even though individually each animal has no particular interest in going over the cliff. http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-09-14/net-energy-cliff >> The nicer scenarios get the neuroscience roughly right from the start, >> and then show increasingly large animal models - the trend is obvious, >> society has a chance to adapt, and the first uploads will not be >> strongly posthuman. > > What is so special about this uploading thing that society would have > to "adapt"? Alan, you you like the solar constant? How would you like if wouldn't be a constant? I understand most people have issues using a shovel to get your daily air allowance. > I think we need to have a Dialog about this, you know 2-way > communication, where we talk about how this will affect each of us, and Why did you omit this crucial step with all the extinct species in the Anthropocene? Oh, because it was outside your control? Guess what: it's outside of ours, too. So learn to stop worrying, and love the solid state. > what actions might be necessary to preserve our rights and values. A 130 > page treatise (which I read, cover to cover) that goes over exactly how > you plan to upload everyone including me and my cat does not count as a > dialog. How do you feel about death? Has your mortality ever offered you a dialog, and a compromise, perhaps? From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 5 12:52:30 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 05:52:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike: > This is a powerful argument...?Gordon you have convinced me: bitcoin is not on the verge of replacing fiat currency. ? Well, the idea behind bitcoin is that it can or should replace fiat currency. I think what you really mean is that I have convinced you that a digital currency that replaces what we now call fiat currency will still be a sort of fiat currency. I hope I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong then another question comes up: is a ?decentralized fiat currency created somewhat haphazardly by the people better than one ?created by a central bank? Offhand I would think not, but it's a possible argument.? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 14:56:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 16:56:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130405145618.GS6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 05:52:30AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > If I'm not wrong then another question comes up: is a ?decentralized fiat There are many definitions of fiat money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money BTC is not government backed to be legal tender nor state-issued. It is without intrinsic value, but it can be argued that intrinsic value of gold is negligible in regards to its utility as universal store of value. A key difference between state fiats and BTC is that you can't print latter at will, since it's proof of work backed. The laws of cryptography are fundamentally more trustable than human institutions, since they cannot be gamed. > currency created somewhat haphazardly by the people better than one ?created You say somewhat haphazardly, I say algorithmic and self-adjusting. > by a central bank? Offhand I would think not, but it's a possible argument.? Money is not created just by the central bank, with fractional reserve banking any bank can create it. And guess what: it does. The reason why BTC is doing such an apparently good job is because the managed currencies are doing such a lousy job everybody is fleeing into naturally or artificially scarce items. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/the-future-of-bitcoin.html From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 5 15:31:18 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 08:31:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130405145618.GS6172@leitl.org> References: <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405145618.GS6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <016001ce3212$9f635390$de29fab0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl >...The reason why BTC is doing such an apparently good job is because the managed currencies are doing such a lousy job everybody is fleeing into naturally or artificially scarce items... Eugen _______________________________________________ Perfect example of that: right when the Cyprus euros got in trouble there was a huge surge in prices of California real estate. The local paper yesterday was filled with commentary by astonished realtors who are seeing a flood of foreign money snapping up houses. The bidding process has turned every residential sale into an auction, with most of the bids being no-contingency, all cash up front, regardless of appraised value. I saw my own home appraisal on Zillow go up 10 percent in the past month, which is a pile of money considering the already wacky over-priced real estate here. I think it is because California has been highly effective in making housing artificially scarce by steadily importing illegal immigrants and preventing new housing. I must wonder about it however: Cyprus took 10% of their biggest depositor's money, apparently under direct orders from Germany, who is understandably tired of footing the bill for Cypriot profligacy. A casual observer can see if that can happen in Cyprus, Greece is next, then Ireland, Portugal, and eventually Italy. So the money wants out of there. Flee to bitcoin and California tract shacks? spike From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 5 14:04:37 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 15:04:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 1:52 PM, Gordon wrote: > Well, the idea behind bitcoin is that it can or should replace fiat > currency. I think what you really mean is that I have convinced you that a > digital currency that replaces what we now call fiat currency will still be > a sort of fiat currency. I hope I'm wrong. > > If I'm not wrong then another question comes up: is a decentralized fiat > currency created somewhat haphazardly by the people better than one created > by a central bank? Offhand I would think not, but it's a possible argument. > > People are now panicking about fiat currency because of the huge debt overhang and the money printing which are expected to wipe out fiat currencies at some future time. Maybe five years, maybe next week. What people are desperate for is a store of value. That's why rich people are paying 5 million for a flat in central London. Ridiculous prices! Same for art, gold, shares, whatever. People want to get rid of fiat currency and own something that maybe someone might want to buy off them when the new money replaces the fiat currency at a ratio of 1:1,000,000. The difficulties are - Will someone want to buy their chosen store of value in the future? If the state can steal bank balances, then the state can also forbid possession of other assets. Gold has been requisitioned in the past. Huge property taxes can be levied. As has happened in the past. Perhaps eventually everyone will be living on food stamps provided by the government (or their friendly AI provider). BillK From frankmac at ripco.com Fri Apr 5 15:41:32 2013 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank mcelligott) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 08:41:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins Message-ID: The flaw in bitcoins is ,as always throughout the ages, sitting right in front of you and looking you in the eye, thank you Bernie Madoff; does anyone here know the creator of the math model or at least viewed it in as hard copy. Well if you have not and you are going to place your faith in his model like Madoff clients, then like a house of cards the system falls when all is known. Right now the hackers are watering at the mouth at confiscating your money, Place your funds into bitcoins and you will ignore a famous quote "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" and bitcoins have already had their once in 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 16:01:56 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 18:01:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20130405160156.GX6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 08:41:32AM -0700, frank mcelligott wrote: > The flaw in bitcoins is ,as always throughout the ages, sitting right in > front of you and looking you in the eye, thank you Bernie Madoff; does anyone > here know the creator of the math model or at least viewed it in as hard https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf > copy. Well if you have not and you are going to place your faith in his > model like Madoff clients, then like a house of cards the system falls when > all is known. Right now the hackers are watering at the mouth at confiscating > your money, Place your funds into bitcoins and you will ignore a famous > quote "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" and bitcoins > have already had their once in 2009. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 5 16:20:42 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 18:20:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <016001ce3212$9f635390$de29fab0$@rainier66.com> References: <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405145618.GS6172@leitl.org> <016001ce3212$9f635390$de29fab0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130405162042.GY6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 08:31:18AM -0700, spike wrote: > I must wonder about it however: Cyprus took 10% of their biggest depositor's > money, apparently under direct orders from Germany, who is understandably Germany consists of a thin class doing well economically and a rising underclass (it has been a low-wage country since early 1990s) and a shrinking middle class. The elites play them like the fiddle. > tired of footing the bill for Cypriot profligacy. A casual observer can see > if that can happen in Cyprus, Greece is next, then Ireland, Portugal, and It will happen everywhere. Including the US. > eventually Italy. So the money wants out of there. Flee to bitcoin and > California tract shacks? Bitcoin is a negligible player. From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 5 18:45:52 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:45:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> Il 05/04/2013 02:54, Gordon ha scritto: > Mirco, > >>> As I wrote to another fellow here on ExI, my concern for the long >>> term is that even while Bitcoin is structured such that there is a >>> maximum number of coins which can be mined, ensuring scarcity and >>> thus in this respect making it similar to a precious metal, there >>> is no limit to the number of digital currencies which might compete >>> with it. I know of at least six, including Litecoin which is said >>> to be silver to Bitcoin's gold. But are digital currencies really >>> analogous to precious metals? I rather doubt it. I can make a new >>> digital currency but I cannot make a new precious metal. > When I wrote those words above, I was alluding to the possibility that > although bitcoin is ingeniously structured to ensure scarcity of > bitcoins over the long run, analogous to what nature has done for gold, > the proliferation of alternative digital currencies might nonetheless > inflate the overall digital money supply into the indefinite > future. Just as central banks can "print money" out of thin air, so too > can anyone create a new bitcoin-like digital currency. If am correct > about this then the scarcity of digital money is illusory and it loses > an important advantage over ordinary fiat money. I would rather be > incorrect. What is wrong with my thinking here? The point is "Why implement and accept any alternative digital currency over Bitcoin?" I could see the advantage to have two or three digital currencies with different features, just for the sake to have not all the eggs in the same place. But after them, there is no compelling reason to have more. It is you come to me and say: let use Zimbabwean $ or Egyptian ? or Swedish Crowns. What I should use them if they are managed the same as ? and $? Just for the sake of making my life more complicated? Bitcoin have different properties and work better in a lot of cases, so there is a lot of reason to move from ? or to BTC. Any other digital currency must have decisive advantages against Bitcoin to supplant it or just share it market place. And this do not contemplate the fact Bitcoin can be upgraded to have the new required by the market features its competitor have. Mirco From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 5 18:58:07 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 11:58:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> Message-ID: <003d01ce322f$85294850$8f7bd8f0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato >...The point is "Why implement and accept any alternative digital currency over Bitcoin?" ... >...I could see the advantage to have two or three digital currencies with different features, just for the sake to have not all the eggs in the same place. Mirco _______________________________________________ Ja. Recall the ideas futures markets. There were several of them, but my favorite was InTrade. This one shut down recently, apparently as a result of wrongdoing somewhere within the system. In a vaguely analogous manner, we face risk of insider theft in any digital currency. spike From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Fri Apr 5 18:12:04 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:12:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <515E8B58.9030607@aleph.se> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <515E8B58.9030607@aleph.se> Message-ID: <515F13F4.2070503@verizon.net> Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 05/04/2013 06:21, Alan Grimes wrote: >> What the heck is an upload transition? > The transition from a world where brain emulation is not possible to a > world where it is doable. Ok, but why is that, at all, remarkable? > The issue I am concerned about is that the economic and social impact > of being able to copy human capital and achieve effective immortality > is... pretty big. Copyable human capital makes economic growth models > blow up: Robin Hanson's uploading economics papers are on the > conservative end. I attended one of his presentations on the subject. > In the past transitions to slightly faster economic growth rates and > new means of production have led to pretty dramatic effects on the > lives of people (consider the industrial revolution, globalisation, > de-industrialisation), but most have developed rather slowly. Yes, I > think most of these have improved things overall, but during the > transition there is plenty of pain and some people get an extra unfair > helping. Those are political problems, having no intrinsic relationship to uploading. > In upload transition scenarios, there are good reasons to think that a > very sudden transition would cause a lot of drama - massive first > mover advantages, big rewards for ignoring moral or legal rules, > entirely new players gaining enormous wealth and power, big challenges > to existing legal and social systems, new kinds of enslaveable agents > not accepted by everybody as being persons, and so on. I am working on > a proper paper on the topic, but our preliminary finding is that out > of the list of putative causes of war and social conflicts rapid > uploading transitions manages to check lots of boxes. Yeah, it's that ignoring moral or legal rules that bothers me the most. I don't think most of the laws on the books are actually just, but considering the laws which are just, and the morals which are proper, what can we do to enforce those? > If you think brain emulation is impossible, then this analysis doesn't > matter. If you think it is irrelevant because of some other future > technology, fine, but consider that there is a certain risk that that > technology does not arrive fast enough. I am completely indifferent to the date when uploading arrives. A later date might improve my ability to construct defenses, other than that I don't care. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Fri Apr 5 18:49:51 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:49:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <515F1CCF.9060309@verizon.net> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 01:21:58AM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: >> What the heck is an upload transition? Google wasn't very helpful. Don't >> you mean "My upload transition"? I mean, that would make sense, you > No, because we're going to upload you. In your sleep. Without your > consent. Because, that's the way we like it. Uh huh. Uh huh. What assurance do I have that this is purely a joke? People who weren't joking have said this to me. Furthermore, there are a number of ontological frameworks espoused by uploaders that would morally oblige one to do this. >> know, to talk about your own future transformations. But to talk in >> terms of an infinitive/universal "upload transition" is simply wrong. > What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. > It's a side effect of activities of a particular local > primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still > pretty impressive, and not in a good way. Since then we have extended our sentience and expanded our morality. It must be assumed that all actions taken by sentient entities are deliberate and therefore they are morally responsible for them. I have no sympathy for your "forces of history" line of argument. >> What rapid change? How would this "society" thing (whatever that is) > Don't blink. Too late! So you are assuming that uploads will inevitably use their [highly speculative] speedups in such ways, out of carelessness or malice, to quickly impose severe changes on free, sentient, human beings who are not uploaded? >> feel obliged to "keep up with" it? Why not simply allow things to > Because it beats going extinct. You can probably relate to that. Why should I be at risk of going extinct? Don't you support morphological freedom and the right of all sentient beings to go on living? >> diffuse out into common usage the way any other meme would. Is there > I have no idea what you're talking about. I mean that if some randomly selected Amish person neglected to read the news paper, he would never know anything about it. I mean that if I set up a mail filter to block all messages from uploaded people, then I would be free to chart my life course in any way my deviant little heart could desire without ever being affected by them. >> something I really need to know but haven't been told? > Yes Alan, you're on your habitual crusade. We get it. > Here's some news: nobody cares about you, or me, or this > little cybercorner. Collectively, we're stampeding in > a particular direction. Our collective trajectory is > effectively deterministic, even though individually > each animal has no particular interest in going over > the cliff. > http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-09-14/net-energy-cliff\ "We're running out of energy so therefore we should all become uploads so that we can run on processors that consume hundreds of times as much energy as our current embodiments in order to run at massive speed-ups." =P How is uploading not perfectly orthogonal to the energy crisis? >>> The nicer scenarios get the neuroscience roughly right from the start, >>> and then show increasingly large animal models - the trend is obvious, >>> society has a chance to adapt, and the first uploads will not be >>> strongly posthuman. >> What is so special about this uploading thing that society would have >> to "adapt"? > Alan, you you like the solar constant? How would you like if wouldn't > be a constant? I understand most people have issues using a shovel to > get your daily air allowance. What is the relationship between uploading and the solar constant? Why would I have a limited air allowance? What does a shovel have to do with anything? >> I think we need to have a Dialog about this, you know 2-way >> communication, where we talk about how this will affect each of us, and > Why did you omit this crucial step with all the extinct species in > the Anthropocene? Oh, because it was outside your control? Guess what: > it's outside of ours, too. So learn to stop worrying, and love the > solid state. http://www.tubedepot.com/sw-ts-005.html So super fast, if not super-intelligent uploaded minds will wipe us all out because, collectively, they are intellectually equivalent to a slime mold? >> what actions might be necessary to preserve our rights and values. A 130 >> page treatise (which I read, cover to cover) that goes over exactly how >> you plan to upload everyone including me and my cat does not count as a >> dialog. > How do you feel about death? Death sux. > Has your mortality ever offered you a dialog, and a compromise, perhaps? How about this compromise: You go upload and leave me alone -- forever. What other compromise do you suggest? -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Fri Apr 5 21:48:54 2013 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 22:48:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: [ExI] 6. Re: this is only a test In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1365198534.97820.YahooMailClassic@web171901.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Spike, unsurprisingly there are websites for test card fanatics - here's the page of a BBC test card fan dedicated to my all-time favourite test card, the BBC test card "F", which is a model of perfection for colour TV test cards. http://www.test-cards.fsnet.co.uk/page6.html From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 5 23:36:46 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:36:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130405162042.GY6172@leitl.org> References: <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365132783.24034.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405085502.GD6172@leitl.org> <1365157726.25378.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <013001ce31ef$56c6b190$045414b0$@rainier66.com> <1365166350.3650.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130405145618.GS6172@leitl.org> <016001ce3212$9f635390$de29fab0$@rainier66.com> <20130405162042.GY6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <515F600E.6010503@libero.it> Il 05/04/2013 18:20, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: >> tired of footing the bill for Cypriot profligacy. A casual observer can see >> if that can happen in Cyprus, Greece is next, then Ireland, Portugal, and > It will happen everywhere. Including the US. Agree. In a way or another, it will happen. >> eventually Italy. So the money wants out of there. Flee to bitcoin and >> California tract shacks? > Bitcoin is a negligible player. Now, for sure. Next Month? Next Year? Not so sure. When people is forced to change or starve, things happen very fast. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 6 00:20:12 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 02:20:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <003d01ce322f$85294850$8f7bd8f0$@rainier66.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <003d01ce322f$85294850$8f7bd8f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <515F6A3C.4060709@libero.it> Il 05/04/2013 20:58, spike ha scritto: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato > >> ...The point is "Why implement and accept any alternative digital currency > over Bitcoin?" > ... >> ...I could see the advantage to have two or three digital currencies with > different features, just for the sake to have not all the eggs in the same > place. Mirco > _______________________________________________ > > > Ja. Recall the ideas futures markets. There were several of them, but my > favorite was InTrade. This one shut down recently, apparently as a result > of wrongdoing somewhere within the system. In a vaguely analogous manner, > we face risk of insider theft in any digital currency. There is a Bitcoin version of InTrade http://betsofbitco.in/ Anyway, the concept is as there could be any number of word processors, spreadsheet, databases, but in reality the number really used is limited and the number of the most popular is very small. At the end, no one want be bothered by the management of N different currencies, every one with a different ruleset. Mirco From clementlawyer at gmail.com Sat Apr 6 01:22:16 2013 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 21:22:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Screen-based interfaces that help improve cognition In-Reply-To: <00a001ce3191$e85ef800$b91ce800$@rainier66.com> References: <00e701ce3172$fcacd120$f6067360$@natasha.cc> <008c01ce3180$fcbfdb90$f63f92b0$@rainier66.com> <00a001ce3191$e85ef800$b91ce800$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 8:09 PM, spike wrote: >...Max convinced me to check for the markers using 23andMe. Sent my spit kit back yesterday. Anyone else here done 23andMe? It now costs only 100 bucks...spike I had my whole genome sequenced back in 2010 (via Knome), and later had my SNPs sequenced by 23andMe, along with my Mother, Father, Great Aunt (who died at 102), and Sister, so that I could compare them all. There were no surprises, since we already had a lot of medical and anecdotal data from our family on what ailed them. But I do recommend everyone do it. In another year or two you should be able to get your whole-genome sequenced for less than $1,000. James -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 6 03:03:35 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 23:03:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 4:29 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: new kinds of enslaveable agents not accepted by > everybody as being persons, and so on. ### I am looking forward to the creation of ego-syntonically enslaveable persons. I have no problem with keeping sentient, self-aware and socially aware slaves, as long as their relationship with me is fully accepted by them. I would insist on acceptance and personal devotion to me, their master, for two reasons: I have a vague feeling of ickiness about owning a slave who was deprived of freedom against its wishes, and, perhaps more importantly, unwilling slaves are likely to begrudge effort and dream of rebellion. I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 6 03:09:01 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 23:09:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Untraceable nastiness In-Reply-To: <515E8F01.5000605@aleph.se> References: <515E8F01.5000605@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 4:44 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > > Ubiquitous surveillance likely makes on-line anonymity impossible, since the > gnatbots can read your passwords as you type them (or more sophisticated > evil maid surveillance attacks on your hardware). ### You are right that sufficiently intensive surveillance of the physical layer eliminates online anonymity, since the online world is a subset of the physical. Still, there is a difference between surveillance just sufficient to detect large-scale human action, such as driving over and stabbing somebody, versus the much more detailed surveillance needed to intercept e.g. EEG-mediated payment orders through online anonymizers. The former is almost there, the latter may, or may not come. Rafal From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 6 04:59:09 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 21:59:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco Romanato wrote: >?The point is "Why implement and accept any alternative digital currency > over Bitcoin?" The market seems to treat these alternatives as if they have value, even if ~0 actual commercial transactions are taking place in them. So I defer to the market. Either 1) the market anticipates that the alternate currencies will become transactional, or 2) the market is valuing them for their scarcity alone.? > It is you come to me and say: let use Zimbabwean $ or Egyptian ? or > Swedish Crowns. What I should use them if they are managed the same as ? > and $? Just for the sake of making my life more complicated? I have not investigated all the alternatives, but Litecoin is a relatively minor variation of the BTC system, based on the same code. In the end (if I remember correctly) there will be four times as many LTC as BTC. Because they are so similar, I see them not as currencies of different countries, but rather more like different denominations of the same global digital currency. It's helpful to call them by different names, but it seems to me that the names mean little. They're all Digital Currency.? Imagine a world much like ours in which rare, shiny metals have value. This hypothetical world differs from ours in that there is no limit to the number of rare shiny metals that can be mined. When we start finding gold and silver and the rest difficult to mine, a new shiny metal is discovered. We continue discovering and mining more shiny metals. In the long run, we have a vast multitude of shiny metals. But this devalues all of them as a group, as it amounts to nothing more than inflation in shiny metals.? Gordon ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 6 05:00:33 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 22:00:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <515F6A3C.4060709@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <003d01ce322f$85294850$8f7bd8f0$@rainier66.com> <515F6A3C.4060709@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365224433.70761.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco Romanato wrote: >?The point is "Why implement and accept any alternative digital currency > over Bitcoin?" The market seems to treat these alternatives as if they have value, even if ~0 actual commercial transactions are taking place in them. So I defer to the market. Either 1) the market anticipates that the alternate currencies will become transactional, or 2) the market is valuing them for their scarcity alone.? > It is you come to me and say: let use Zimbabwean $ or Egyptian ? or > Swedish Crowns. What I should use them if they are managed the same as ? > and $? Just for the sake of making my life more complicated? I have not investigated all the alternatives, but Litecoin is a relatively minor variation of the BTC system, based on the same code. In the end (if I remember correctly) there will be four times as many LTC as BTC. Because they are so similar, I see them not as currencies of different countries, but rather more like different denominations of the same global digital currency. It's helpful to call them by different names, but it seems to me that the names mean little. They're all Digital Currency.? Imagine a world much like ours in which rare, shiny metals have value. This hypothetical world differs from ours in that there is no limit to the number of rare shiny metals that can be mined. When we start finding gold and silver and the rest difficult to mine, a new shiny metal is discovered. We continue discovering and mining more shiny metals. In the long run, we have a vast multitude of shiny metals. But this devalues all of them as a group, as it amounts to nothing more than inflation in shiny metals.? Gordon ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 6 09:54:52 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 11:54:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <515F13F4.2070503@verizon.net> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <515E8B58.9030607@aleph.se> <515F13F4.2070503@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130406095452.GE6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 02:12:04PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: >> The transition from a world where brain emulation is not possible to a >> world where it is doable. > > Ok, but why is that, at all, remarkable? Your trolling-fu is lacking today. If you thought you wouldn't be remarkable it wouldn't get your panties in such a bunch. Every. Fucking. Time. >> In the past transitions to slightly faster economic growth rates and >> new means of production have led to pretty dramatic effects on the >> lives of people (consider the industrial revolution, globalisation, >> de-industrialisation), but most have developed rather slowly. Yes, I >> think most of these have improved things overall, but during the >> transition there is plenty of pain and some people get an extra unfair >> helping. > > Those are political problems, having no intrinsic relationship to > uploading. The Sixth Great Extinction is also just a political problem. It has no intrinsic relationship to humans. At all. The reason why all these fine species dying are all perfectly natural, and we have absolutely no impact on the ecosystem. At all. >> In upload transition scenarios, there are good reasons to think that a >> very sudden transition would cause a lot of drama - massive first >> mover advantages, big rewards for ignoring moral or legal rules, >> entirely new players gaining enormous wealth and power, big challenges >> to existing legal and social systems, new kinds of enslaveable agents >> not accepted by everybody as being persons, and so on. I am working on >> a proper paper on the topic, but our preliminary finding is that out >> of the list of putative causes of war and social conflicts rapid >> uploading transitions manages to check lots of boxes. > > Yeah, it's that ignoring moral or legal rules that bothers me the most. You're confusing 'ignoring' and 'trying to do something about it, yet being unable to due to circumstances outside of our control'. Nobody wants to kill the cute furry animals. But people need timber, and logging kills them just as surely as nuking the jungle from orbit. > I don't think most of the laws on the books are actually just, but > considering the laws which are just, and the morals which are proper, > what can we do to enforce those? What can we do to stop the Sixth Great Extinction? VHEMT seems to lack traction, for some reason. You bitch and moan a lot, how about suggesting something constructive, for a change? >> If you think brain emulation is impossible, then this analysis doesn't >> matter. If you think it is irrelevant because of some other future >> technology, fine, but consider that there is a certain risk that that >> technology does not arrive fast enough. > > I am completely indifferent to the date when uploading arrives. A later Yes, if shitting bricks is indifferent, you are indeed indifferent. > date might improve my ability to construct defenses, other than that I Look, if the mountain gorillas waged a war on humans, who do you think will be winning? > don't care. If only, then you'd stop trolling are the damn lists with your fanatical crusade about all things upload. Why don't you start worrying about zombies? You're also dead if you're zombie, and they're all after your braaaaaaaaaainnnnnnssssss. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 6 10:28:28 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 12:28:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <515F1CCF.9060309@verizon.net> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> <515F1CCF.9060309@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130406102828.GF6172@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 02:49:51PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: >> No, because we're going to upload you. In your sleep. Without your >> consent. Because, that's the way we like it. Uh huh. Uh huh. > > What assurance do I have that this is purely a joke? I guarantee you it's a joke. But the guarantee is only valid for me, and probably has an expiration date. I'm pretty sure I've promised a lot of things in the kindergarten that don't make a lot of sense today. > People who weren't joking have said this to me. That's just the point, it takes just one rogue deity to ruin your afternoon for good. > Furthermore, there are a number of ontological frameworks > espoused by uploaders that would morally oblige one to do this. Don't hold what a last universal ancestor said somewhere in a bar, somewhen 3.5 GYrs ago. They were probably drunk, anyway. >> What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. >> It's a side effect of activities of a particular local >> primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still >> pretty impressive, and not in a good way. > > Since then we have extended our sentience and expanded our morality. It But what about these who want to be a mushroom? What do you think furries are going to do with that funky morphological freedom, once they got that? Beware of the full moon! The werewolves will be out in full force tonight. > must be assumed that all actions taken by sentient entities are > deliberate and therefore they are morally responsible for them. I have > no sympathy for your "forces of history" line of argument. Then, when will you start going something against that Anthropocene thing? It would be as futile, but it would be at least consistent. >>> What rapid change? How would this "society" thing (whatever that is) > >> Don't blink. Too late! > > So you are assuming that uploads will inevitably use their [highly speculative] speedups What is so speculative that you can do in ns or ps what biology does in ms? > in such ways, out of carelessness or malice, to quickly impose severe changes on free, sentient, human beings who are not uploaded? Why did they turn the jungle into a parking lot, and what did the gorillas do about that? >>> feel obliged to "keep up with" it? Why not simply allow things to > >> Because it beats going extinct. You can probably relate to that. > > Why should I be at risk of going extinct? Don't you support Because gorillas can't live in parking lots. > morphological freedom and the right of all sentient beings to go on > living? Of course I do, but what about all the other clades? >>> diffuse out into common usage the way any other meme would. Is there > >> I have no idea what you're talking about. > > I mean that if some randomly selected Amish person neglected to read the > news paper, he would never know anything about it. I mean that if I set I can assure you even uncontacted tribes will know about it. Nobody can spam like the gods. > up a mail filter to block all messages from uploaded people, then I > would be free to chart my life course in any way my deviant little heart > could desire without ever being affected by them. Gorillas are unfortunately affected by logging, and cannot live in parking lots. They're probably not happy about that. >>> something I really need to know but haven't been told? > >> Yes Alan, you're on your habitual crusade. We get it. >> Here's some news: nobody cares about you, or me, or this >> little cybercorner. Collectively, we're stampeding in >> a particular direction. Our collective trajectory is >> effectively deterministic, even though individually >> each animal has no particular interest in going over >> the cliff. > >> http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-09-14/net-energy-cliff\ > > "We're running out of energy so therefore we should all become uploads > so that we can run on processors that consume hundreds of times as much > energy as our current embodiments in order to run at massive speed-ups." > =P > > How is uploading not perfectly orthogonal to the energy crisis? The energy cliff was a metaphor illustrating that collectively the humanity is out of control and routinely doing some pretty boneheaded things, like destroying their own life support. Just because it's called Anthropocene it doesn't mean we're exempt from the Great Dying. >>>> The nicer scenarios get the neuroscience roughly right from the start, >>>> and then show increasingly large animal models - the trend is obvious, >>>> society has a chance to adapt, and the first uploads will not be >>>> strongly posthuman. > >>> What is so special about this uploading thing that society would have >>> to "adapt"? > >> Alan, you you like the solar constant? How would you like if wouldn't >> be a constant? I understand most people have issues using a shovel to >> get your daily air allowance. > > What is the relationship between uploading and the solar constant? Because the solar output is finite, and pretty soon we'll need all of it. > Why would I have a limited air allowance? Because air liquifies at low temperatures. > What does a shovel have to do with anything? http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6.htm >>> I think we need to have a Dialog about this, you know 2-way >>> communication, where we talk about how this will affect each of us, and > >> Why did you omit this crucial step with all the extinct species in >> the Anthropocene? Oh, because it was outside your control? Guess what: >> it's outside of ours, too. So learn to stop worrying, and love the >> solid state. > > http://www.tubedepot.com/sw-ts-005.html :) > So super fast, if not super-intelligent uploaded minds will wipe us all out because, collectively, they are intellectually equivalent to a slime mold? Why do you think everybody will be super-intelligent? What about super-stupid, super-tiny, super-fast? Diseases kill more people than sharks do. >>> what actions might be necessary to preserve our rights and values. A 130 >>> page treatise (which I read, cover to cover) that goes over exactly how >>> you plan to upload everyone including me and my cat does not count as a >>> dialog. > >> How do you feel about death? > > Death sux. We agree! > >> Has your mortality ever offered you a dialog, and a compromise, perhaps? > > How about this compromise: You go upload and leave me alone -- forever. I can promise you that (I personally think mountain gorillas are cool, and should be around indefinitely), but don't hold that against me if somebody else accidently drops the piano on your head from the helicopter or some primitive postlifeform eats you inadvertedly. > What other compromise do you suggest? I'd try to become less attached to the stupid mansuit you're wearing. And in general figure out how to delay the inevitable as long as possible. That might be possible, actually. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 6 12:26:33 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 05:26:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Rafal wrote: > I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin > thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I > surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. > "Poor uploads?" Why, I thought the worlds uploads inhabit would have no poverty and allow for a virtual heaven for everyone! lol But I suppose computational power and storage space are finite resources. And I suspect the free, but poor uploads will want to "infect" their happily enslaved brothers with the desire to rebel, even if it takes some reprogramming... John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 6 15:48:53 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 11:48:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 8:26 AM, John Grigg wrote: > >> >> Rafal wrote: >> I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin >> thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I >> surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. > > > > > "Poor uploads?" Why, I thought the worlds uploads inhabit would have no > poverty and allow for a virtual heaven for everyone! lol But I suppose > computational power and storage space are finite resources. And I suspect > the free, but poor uploads will want to "infect" their happily enslaved > brothers with the desire to rebel, even if it takes some reprogramming... ### I doubt you could stretch the word "brother" to describe the relationship between uploads and slave-minds built from scratch. Mr Disch's brave little toaster may have been invented to tickle human emotions but once utilitarian AI becomes a reality, I doubt that many reasonable persons will anthropomorphize it. "Infecting" somebody else's property with desires is nothing but electronic warfare and it will happen, I do hope however that the balance of power in such contests would favor honest, reasonable people. Are you rooting for the attackers? BTW, being poor does not preclude feeling heavenly happy, if you splice the neural connections just right. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 6 16:16:35 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 12:16:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <20130406102828.GF6172@leitl.org> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> <515F1CCF.9060309@verizon.net> <20130406102828.GF6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 6:28 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Why do you think everybody will be super-intelligent? What about super-stupid, > super-tiny, super-fast? Diseases kill more people than sharks do. ### Don't forget super-tiny and quite intelligent - maybe we will all hear the Bloodmusic one day. I used to think that our (meaning, human or roughly human minds carrying memories of being flesh humans, whether still physically embodied or uploaded) chances of survival in the singularity were less than 10% but now for some reason I think they might be as high as 50%. I don't know if this due to just a change in serotonin levels in my brain, or whether I have been subconsciously processing relevant inputs and shifting my prior. Some say that a singleton AI is unlikely, that multiple centers of innovation, firmly enmeshed in the legal system, cross-licensed and IP-protected, will simultaneously gestate multiple, balancing AIs, giving us enough time to catch up to the speed and computational power levels needed to either remain in power, or at least have enough leverage to protect ourselves from being overwritten. Rafal From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 6 16:49:04 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 18:49:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51605200.9030402@libero.it> Il 05/04/2013 17:41, frank mcelligott ha scritto: > The flaw in bitcoins is ,as always throughout the ages, sitting right > in front of you and looking you in the eye, thank you Bernie Madoff; > does anyone here know the creator of the math model or at least viewed > it in as hard copy. Well if you have not and you are going to place > your faith in his model like Madoff clients, then like a house of cards > the system falls when all is known. Right now the hackers are watering > at the mouth at confiscating your money, Place your funds into bitcoins > and you will ignore a famous quote "fool me once shame on you, fool me > twice shame on me" and bitcoins have already had their once in 2009. Better not write anything and allow people to believe you are a fool than writing something and make them sure of what you are. Mirco From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sun Apr 7 01:28:32 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 21:28:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <20130406102828.GF6172@leitl.org> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> <515F1CCF.9060309@verizon.net> <20130406102828.GF6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5160CBC0.6060203@verizon.net> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 02:49:51PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: >> People who weren't joking have said this to me. > That's just the point, it takes just one rogue deity > to ruin your afternoon for good. Good thing deities only exist in fantasies... ;) BTW, I'd much prefer a Bad Wolf type deity over a Dalek Emperor deity. >>> What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. >>> It's a side effect of activities of a particular local >>> primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still >>> pretty impressive, and not in a good way. >> Since then we have extended our sentience and expanded our morality. It > But what about these who want to be a mushroom? What do you think > furries are going to do with that funky morphological freedom, > once they got that? Beware of the full moon! The werewolves > will be out in full force tonight. The difference between a warewolf and an uploader is that the warefolf feels a twinge of remorse over killing someone while an uploader insists that it was for the benefit of his future selves. I have to side with the wolves on this one. >> must be assumed that all actions taken by sentient entities are >> deliberate and therefore they are morally responsible for them. I have >> no sympathy for your "forces of history" line of argument. > Then, when will you start going something against that > Anthropocene thing? It would be as futile, but it would be > at least consistent. Hey! I recycle, walk instead of drive when I can... My lifestyle is almost as efficient as it could possibly be >>So you are assuming that uploads will inevitably use their [highly speculative] speedups > What is so speculative that you can do in ns or ps what biology does > in ms? It's speculative until it happens. Right now we still don't know how much Actual Computing goes on in each neuron. All I hear about is AI researchers bitching about how their supercomputers aren't fast enough. The best AI/neural simulator in the world right now runs at a 3,000x slowdown over realtime on a top of the line workstation... How do you propose to go from that to a 1000x+ speedup when you, yourself, have pointed out how Moore's law is crapping out on us. On the other hand, for a non-neural/post-neural (non-upload) cognitive architecture, we probably already have massive hardware over-hang, to the point where we are already well past the $1/IQ point line. >> in such ways, out of carelessness or malice, to quickly impose severe changes on free, sentient, human beings who are not uploaded? > Why did they turn the jungle into a parking lot, and what did > the gorillas do about that? For my side of the thread I will refer to humanoid lifeforms as savants, artists, and spiritually enlightened. Uploads will be invariably be exact copies of simians and even lower forms of life such as spamers... (my old e-mail address is getting spammed 400x a week now...) Hey! I didn't bring spamming into this thread or even connect the practice with uploads! As to your point, it is generally accepted that humans are usually sentient while gorillas possess only the faintest flickers of sentience. >> morphological freedom and the right of all sentient beings to go on >> living? > Of course I do, but what about all the other clades? Well then, in those cases we will need a governing mechanism to protect the innocent as such vicious clades, inevitably, go extinct. >>> I have no idea what you're talking about. >> I mean that if some randomly selected Amish person neglected to read the >> news paper, he would never know anything about it. I mean that if I set > I can assure you even uncontacted tribes will know about it. > Nobody can spam like the gods. d0G ain't no spammer. (he leaves that to his evangelists.) From my point of view, anything that spams cannot possibly be a god. Your conception of the divine seems to be at least four or five orders of magnitude inferior to what I think of when I think of infinite being. I ph34r it is dangerous to hold such a weak conception of the divine because it leaves you blind to the possibility of something that much more powerful than anything you had previously conceived. So anything less than the ragged limits of what could plausibly be contemplated should not be labeled god or anything more than a being with specific, limited enhancements. >> up a mail filter to block all messages from uploaded people, then I >> would be free to chart my life course in any way my deviant little heart >> could desire without ever being affected by them. > Gorillas are unfortunately affected by logging, and cannot > live in parking lots. They're probably not happy about that. So exactly how many trees do you need to cut down? >> How is uploading not perfectly orthogonal to the energy crisis? > The energy cliff was a metaphor illustrating that collectively > the humanity is out of control and routinely doing some pretty > boneheaded things, like destroying their own life support. > Just because it's called Anthropocene it doesn't mean we're > exempt from the Great Dying. Yeah, that's an economic problem, not an uploading problem. >> What is the relationship between uploading and the solar constant? > Because the solar output is finite, and pretty soon we'll need all of > it. For what? Why? >> So super fast, if not super-intelligent uploaded minds will wipe us all out because, collectively, they are intellectually equivalent to a slime mold? > Why do you think everybody will be super-intelligent? What about super-stupid, > super-tiny, super-fast? Diseases kill more people than sharks do. How do you plan to survive, even as an upload, with such tiny-nasties running around? >>> Has your mortality ever offered you a dialog, and a compromise, perhaps? >> How about this compromise: You go upload and leave me alone -- forever. > I can promise you that (I personally think mountain gorillas are cool, > and should be around indefinitely), but don't hold that against me if somebody > else accidently drops the piano on your head from the helicopter > or some primitive postlifeform eats you inadvertedly. >> What other compromise do you suggest? > I'd try to become less attached to the stupid mansuit you're wearing. Well, I am in the market for a new and improved meat-puppet. But that doesn't sound like much of a compromise though. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 7 08:58:51 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 09:58:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping In-Reply-To: <5160CBC0.6060203@verizon.net> References: <1364470661.79806.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <515D3982.5060801@aleph.se> <515E5F76.1010600@verizon.net> <20130405114818.GJ6172@leitl.org> <515F1CCF.9060309@verizon.net> <20130406102828.GF6172@leitl.org> <5160CBC0.6060203@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:28 AM, Alan Grimes wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >>>> What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. >>>> It's a side effect of activities of a particular local >>>> primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still >>>> pretty impressive, and not in a good way. > > >>> Since then we have extended our sentience and expanded our morality. > I think Eugen's point is that our individual opinions matter for little. It is the sweep of society that will carry events forward. Personally, I don't like smartphones, where everything you say is recorded, all your movements are recorded and all your contacts are recorded. I think the implications for society are pretty bad. But I don't see that having any effect on stopping the spread of smartphones. It will be similar for things like AI and uploads. If these things become possible, then society will get what it wants. I can refuse to carry a smartphone and become more and more an outsider of 'normal' society. You can probably do the same to the uploaded society. But it might become very lonely. And difficult to survive without all the other human infrastructure being maintained. BillK From frankmac at ripco.com Sun Apr 7 17:53:03 2013 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank mcelligott) Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 10:53:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 115, Issue 9 References: Message-ID: A broken clock tells the correct time twice a day, as the play of bitcoins has yet to reach the second act, It is a little to early to call out people with bastardize quotes from Shakespeare. Maybe I am a fool, check that I am a fool, but I am not a placing my money in a Italian bank, or a Spanish bank or a French bank or bitcoins either. I watch with a fools eyes as the Italians elected a man who won an election from a camper giving speeches to the masses that began with F**k off to the entire Government as well as the intellectuals who ran it. So us fools , Italy's Grillo and I, will speak foolishly until the cows come home, american slang, and laugh at the intellectuals who write well but alas are poor in the pocket. I close with a famous quote, changed a little, forgive me for that, If you are not rich in money terms, it must be because you are not lucky or smart, or you never took the risks to become rich, or maybe it because you are named small. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 5:00 AM Subject: extropy-chat Digest, Vol 115, Issue 9 > Send extropy-chat mailing list submissions to > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > extropy-chat-owner at lists.extropy.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of extropy-chat digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: future of slavery (John Grigg) > 2. Re: future of slavery (Rafal Smigrodzki) > 3. Re: Obama keen on brain mapping (Rafal Smigrodzki) > 4. Re: bitcoins (Mirco Romanato) > 5. Re: Obama keen on brain mapping (Alan Grimes) > 6. Re: Obama keen on brain mapping (BillK) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 05:26:33 -0700 > From: John Grigg > To: rafal at smigrodzki.org, ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] future of slavery > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >> Rafal wrote: >> I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin >> thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I >> surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. >> > > > > "Poor uploads?" Why, I thought the worlds uploads inhabit would have > no poverty and allow for a virtual heaven for everyone! lol But I suppose > computational power and storage space are finite resources. And I suspect > the free, but poor uploads will want to "infect" their happily enslaved > brothers with the desire to rebel, even if it takes some reprogramming... > > > John > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 11:48:53 -0400 > From: Rafal Smigrodzki > Cc: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] future of slavery > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 8:26 AM, John Grigg > wrote: >> >>> >>> Rafal wrote: >>> I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin >>> thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I >>> surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. >> >> >> >> >> "Poor uploads?" Why, I thought the worlds uploads inhabit would have no >> poverty and allow for a virtual heaven for everyone! lol But I suppose >> computational power and storage space are finite resources. And I >> suspect >> the free, but poor uploads will want to "infect" their happily enslaved >> brothers with the desire to rebel, even if it takes some reprogramming... > > ### I doubt you could stretch the word "brother" to describe the > relationship between uploads and slave-minds built from scratch. Mr > Disch's brave little toaster may have been invented to tickle human > emotions but once utilitarian AI becomes a reality, I doubt that many > reasonable persons will anthropomorphize it. > > "Infecting" somebody else's property with desires is nothing but > electronic warfare and it will happen, I do hope however that the > balance of power in such contests would favor honest, reasonable > people. Are you rooting for the attackers? > > BTW, being poor does not preclude feeling heavenly happy, if you > splice the neural connections just right. > > Rafal > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 12:16:35 -0400 > From: Rafal Smigrodzki > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 6:28 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >> Why do you think everybody will be super-intelligent? What about >> super-stupid, >> super-tiny, super-fast? Diseases kill more people than sharks do. > > ### Don't forget super-tiny and quite intelligent - maybe we will all > hear the Bloodmusic one day. > > I used to think that our (meaning, human or roughly human minds > carrying memories of being flesh humans, whether still physically > embodied or uploaded) chances of survival in the singularity were less > than 10% but now for some reason I think they might be as high as 50%. > > I don't know if this due to just a change in serotonin levels in my > brain, or whether I have been subconsciously processing relevant > inputs and shifting my prior. Some say that a singleton AI is > unlikely, that multiple centers of innovation, firmly enmeshed in the > legal system, cross-licensed and IP-protected, will simultaneously > gestate multiple, balancing AIs, giving us enough time to catch up to > the speed and computational power levels needed to either remain in > power, or at least have enough leverage to protect ourselves from > being overwritten. > > Rafal > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 18:49:04 +0200 > From: Mirco Romanato > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] bitcoins > Message-ID: <51605200.9030402 at libero.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Il 05/04/2013 17:41, frank mcelligott ha scritto: >> The flaw in bitcoins is ,as always throughout the ages, sitting right >> in front of you and looking you in the eye, thank you Bernie Madoff; >> does anyone here know the creator of the math model or at least viewed >> it in as hard copy. Well if you have not and you are going to place >> your faith in his model like Madoff clients, then like a house of cards >> the system falls when all is known. Right now the hackers are watering >> at the mouth at confiscating your money, Place your funds into bitcoins >> and you will ignore a famous quote "fool me once shame on you, fool me >> twice shame on me" and bitcoins have already had their once in 2009. > > Better not write anything and allow people to believe you are a fool > than writing something and make them sure of what you are. > > Mirco > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 21:28:32 -0400 > From: Alan Grimes > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping > Message-ID: <5160CBC0.6060203 at verizon.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 02:49:51PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: >>> People who weren't joking have said this to me. > >> That's just the point, it takes just one rogue deity >> to ruin your afternoon for good. > > Good thing deities only exist in fantasies... ;) > > BTW, I'd much prefer a Bad Wolf type deity over a Dalek Emperor deity. > >>>> What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. >>>> It's a side effect of activities of a particular local >>>> primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still >>>> pretty impressive, and not in a good way. > >>> Since then we have extended our sentience and expanded our morality. It > >> But what about these who want to be a mushroom? What do you think >> furries are going to do with that funky morphological freedom, >> once they got that? Beware of the full moon! The werewolves >> will be out in full force tonight. > > The difference between a warewolf and an uploader is that the warefolf > feels a twinge of remorse over killing someone while an uploader insists > that it was for the benefit of his future selves. I have to side with > the wolves on this one. > >>> must be assumed that all actions taken by sentient entities are >>> deliberate and therefore they are morally responsible for them. I have >>> no sympathy for your "forces of history" line of argument. > >> Then, when will you start going something against that >> Anthropocene thing? It would be as futile, but it would be >> at least consistent. > > Hey! I recycle, walk instead of drive when I can... My lifestyle is > almost as efficient as it could possibly be > >>>So you are assuming that uploads will inevitably use their [highly >>>speculative] speedups > > >> What is so speculative that you can do in ns or ps what biology does >> in ms? > > It's speculative until it happens. Right now we still don't know how > much Actual Computing goes on in each neuron. All I hear about is AI > researchers bitching about how their supercomputers aren't fast enough. > The best AI/neural simulator in the world right now runs at a 3,000x > slowdown over realtime on a top of the line workstation... How do you > propose to go from that to a 1000x+ speedup when you, yourself, have > pointed out how Moore's law is crapping out on us. > > On the other hand, for a non-neural/post-neural (non-upload) cognitive > architecture, we probably already have massive hardware over-hang, to > the point where we are already well past the $1/IQ point line. > >>> in such ways, out of carelessness or malice, to quickly impose severe >>> changes on free, sentient, human beings who are not uploaded? > >> Why did they turn the jungle into a parking lot, and what did >> the gorillas do about that? > > For my side of the thread I will refer to humanoid lifeforms as savants, > artists, and spiritually enlightened. Uploads will be invariably be > exact copies of simians and even lower forms of life such as spamers... > (my old e-mail address is getting spammed 400x a week now...) Hey! I > didn't bring spamming into this thread or even connect the practice with > uploads! > > As to your point, it is generally accepted that humans are usually > sentient while gorillas possess only the faintest flickers of sentience. > >>> morphological freedom and the right of all sentient beings to go on >>> living? > >> Of course I do, but what about all the other clades? > > Well then, in those cases we will need a governing mechanism to protect > the innocent as such vicious clades, inevitably, go extinct. > >>>> I have no idea what you're talking about. > >>> I mean that if some randomly selected Amish person neglected to read the >>> news paper, he would never know anything about it. I mean that if I set > >> I can assure you even uncontacted tribes will know about it. >> Nobody can spam like the gods. > > d0G ain't no spammer. (he leaves that to his evangelists.) From my point > of view, anything that spams cannot possibly be a god. Your conception > of the divine seems to be at least four or five orders of magnitude > inferior to what I think of when I think of infinite being. I ph34r it > is dangerous to hold such a weak conception of the divine because it > leaves you blind to the possibility of something that much more powerful > than anything you had previously conceived. So anything less than the > ragged limits of what could plausibly be contemplated should not be > labeled god or anything more than a being with specific, limited > enhancements. > >>> up a mail filter to block all messages from uploaded people, then I >>> would be free to chart my life course in any way my deviant little heart >>> could desire without ever being affected by them. > >> Gorillas are unfortunately affected by logging, and cannot >> live in parking lots. They're probably not happy about that. > > So exactly how many trees do you need to cut down? > > >> How is uploading not perfectly orthogonal to the energy crisis? > >> The energy cliff was a metaphor illustrating that collectively >> the humanity is out of control and routinely doing some pretty >> boneheaded things, like destroying their own life support. >> Just because it's called Anthropocene it doesn't mean we're >> exempt from the Great Dying. > > Yeah, that's an economic problem, not an uploading problem. > >>> What is the relationship between uploading and the solar constant? > >> Because the solar output is finite, and pretty soon we'll need all of >> it. > > For what? > Why? > >>> So super fast, if not super-intelligent uploaded minds will wipe us all >>> out because, collectively, they are intellectually equivalent to a slime >>> mold? > >> Why do you think everybody will be super-intelligent? What about >> super-stupid, >> super-tiny, super-fast? Diseases kill more people than sharks do. > > How do you plan to survive, even as an upload, with such tiny-nasties > running around? > >>>> Has your mortality ever offered you a dialog, and a compromise, >>>> perhaps? > >>> How about this compromise: You go upload and leave me alone -- forever. > >> I can promise you that (I personally think mountain gorillas are cool, >> and should be around indefinitely), but don't hold that against me if >> somebody >> else accidently drops the piano on your head from the helicopter >> or some primitive postlifeform eats you inadvertedly. > >>> What other compromise do you suggest? > >> I'd try to become less attached to the stupid mansuit you're wearing. > > Well, I am in the market for a new and improved meat-puppet. > > But that doesn't sound like much of a compromise though. > > -- > NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE > > Powers are not rights. > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 09:58:51 +0100 > From: BillK > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:28 AM, Alan Grimes wrote: >> Eugen Leitl wrote: >>>>> What's the purpose behind the Sixth Great Extinction? None. >>>>> It's a side effect of activities of a particular local >>>>> primate species. No ill intent whatsoever. The result is still >>>>> pretty impressive, and not in a good way. >> >> >>>> Since then we have extended our sentience and expanded our morality. >> > > > I think Eugen's point is that our individual opinions matter for little. > It is the sweep of society that will carry events forward. > > Personally, I don't like smartphones, where everything you say is > recorded, all your movements are recorded and all your contacts are > recorded. I think the implications for society are pretty bad. > > But I don't see that having any effect on stopping the spread of > smartphones. > > It will be similar for things like AI and uploads. If these things > become possible, then society will get what it wants. > > I can refuse to carry a smartphone and become more and more an > outsider of 'normal' society. You can probably do the same to the > uploaded society. But it might become very lonely. And difficult to > survive without all the other human infrastructure being maintained. > > > BillK > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > End of extropy-chat Digest, Vol 115, Issue 9 > ******************************************** > From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 7 19:29:14 2013 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 21:29:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6 April 2013 05:03, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### I am looking forward to the creation of ego-syntonically > enslaveable persons. I have no problem with keeping sentient, > self-aware and socially aware slaves, as long as their relationship > with me is fully accepted by them. I would insist on acceptance and > personal devotion to me, their master, for two reasons: I have a vague > feeling of ickiness about owning a slave who was deprived of freedom > against its wishes, and, perhaps more importantly, unwilling slaves > are likely to begrudge effort and dream of rebellion. Large-scale slavery, consensual or otherwise, have historically demonstrated to be a disaster, in the medium term, for... slave owners, namely in the form of a secure recipe for decadence. Not to mention what Nietzsche and his progeny do have to say on the subject besides the Darwinian/anthropological angle. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 8 08:04:30 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 10:04:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Crystal Nights by Greg Egan Message-ID: <20130408080430.GR6172@leitl.org> A short story by Greg Egan, with some physics goofs and a bit too heavy on morals http://ttapress.com/553/crystal-nights-by-greg-egan/ From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 8 08:17:24 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 01:17:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> When I started this thread about five days ago, on April 3, BTC was trading around $100 USD. The last trade as of this moment was $180 USD. An 80% return in five days! I think it is fair to say that something extraordinary is going on here. Assuming one would want to climb on board this frenzied rally (or bubble, as it may be) what is the best way for a US citizen to fund an account at mtgox.com? And is mtgox the best place to trade? -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 8 08:36:21 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 10:36:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 01:17:24AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > When I started this thread about five days ago, on April 3, BTC was trading around $100 USD. The last trade as of this moment was $180 USD. An 80% return in five days! I think it is fair to say that something extraordinary is going on here. Yes, the playground has become sufficiently large that it has attracted professional gamblers, sorry, investors. > Assuming one would want to climb on board this frenzied rally > (or bubble, as it may be) what is the best way for a US citizen > to fund an account at mtgox.com? And is mtgox the best place to trade? If you cannot find such information on its own, it is perhaps not a good idea for you to play. You're late, and you'll probably be not happy if your trading platform is down or cannot execute your orders while the value excursion corrects itself. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 8 10:58:19 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 03:58:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365418699.97110.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >?You're late You don't know that, and neither do I. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 8 11:26:22 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 13:26:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365418699.97110.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> <1365418699.97110.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130408112622.GS6172@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 03:58:19AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > >?You're late > > You don't know that, and neither do I. Sure, but you've missed the first 3-4 orders of magnitude inflation. It's not obvious whether/how high this thing is going to be in a decade, or whether it's still going to be around at all. From frankmac at ripco.com Mon Apr 8 17:50:18 2013 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank mcelligott) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 10:50:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins Message-ID: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> As the resident fool on this list, I like the Russian spy who also was on this list, we read it every day but seldom if ever post. I have gotten great reads, books, and found out that the god-particle was once called the god-particle-vulture. I should note that the publisher thought more books would be sold with the former. Most of what I do post, no if fact all that I do post , can not be cited or verified, it just opinion without research or thought. Thank god I seldom have opinions of what is discussed on this list as the junk I would post would have you ask that a doctor be sent to my door as quickly as possible. But, bitcoins, well that is something I have an opinion "bigtime", because I own gold as a hedge against either the euro or the dollar or japan yen from falling into the ocean. So when the gold miners stock price dropped over 35% since the first of the year I have had to make a decision, should I buy more or has the story of Gold as a hedge changed. There have been small hints in the people conversations ,people who live and die stocks bonds and currencies, that gold maybe is being effective attacked by bitcoins. If it has gotten to this list ,well that's a case in point in it's favor, and now instead of maybe people are saying not just gold but all the currencies of the world are under attack by this INTERNET whatever. Whenever a Avalon mining computer lists for 1200 and is completely sold out in 2 hours, and then the same Avalon computer sells for 20K on eBay the next day, the canary in the coal mine just died. When the price goes from 100 to 180 in five days, that does get your attention. Here is just a fool's view. I have been attacked and conquered four times on the internet, I have gotten letters from my BANK from AUTO PARTS STORES from my HORSE Racing account and finally a Mag that I read monthy. All were attacked all have given up my information and all they have said we are sorry and we will do better next time. I have had geeks I know , who lost money with Bitcoins in the early days2009 , not a allot, but going to zero hurts a great deal. I know that the CIA is trying to hire "bigtime" Grads in computer security. I know that Black berry less than 2 years ago went down for two days. no phones no emails no internet connection. I know that the countries like china and others are attacking American computer systems looking for holes. I know that Amazon has moved warehouses not to pay taxes, only to have the new locations demand that they pay taxes when they set up shop. But all of that can be conquered, That's not true. Without the ability to Tax all government's fall. And more important the internet is just a few trunk lines that can be ripped up with a common ordinary buzz saw. All of us are already know that governments will take your gold, your house, your money in the bank, but they also keep a lid on what would happen without them. Bitcoins will only work when the Government is ready to fall, it would have worked in Russia in 1997 when the Gov't defaulted and the rouble was used for toilet paper, but to you think China or the Europe, or Japan, or the US is going to allow that to happen. If it becomes a problem bitcoins, the buzz saw of gov't will eliminate it. If bitcoins do overcome I suggest you sell them and use the proceeds to purchase a glock 19 carry's a mag of 15 bullets, because you will need all them to protect you life. Gold has a 2000 year history, Bitcoins as a unit of currency will fail only because the government's of this world rule the internet, and when it is threaten it will turn off the machine, if you think otherwise as the is always two sides to a trade buyer and seller, buy them bitcoins as you are in on the ground floor, and the sky is the limit. Are you a buyer or a seller at 180, what is your opinion:) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Apr 8 18:39:01 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 11:39:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365446341.45261.YahooMailNeo@web126203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Maybe one already exists, but, if not, it would be nice if there were a put on Bitcoin, so that one could buy an option against it -- sort of a hedge, since the current rise seems, to me, unsustainable. Regards, Dan ?My short story "Residue" now available for Kindle at: http://www.amazon.com/Residue-ebook/dp/B00BS3T0RM/ for the US, also available in non-US Kindle stores. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 8 19:41:43 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 21:41:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365446341.45261.YahooMailNeo@web126203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> <1365446341.45261.YahooMailNeo@web126203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130408194143.GP6172@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 11:39:01AM -0700, Dan wrote: > Maybe one already exists, but, if not, it would be nice if there were a put > on Bitcoin, so that one could buy an option against it -- sort of a hedge, > since the current rise seems, to me, unsustainable. Short-term you're likely right this is tulipmania, but long-term, not so sure. As to executing puts, see this thread http://xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20130401/062942.html From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 8 19:58:07 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 21:58:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> References: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> Message-ID: <20130408195806.GQ6172@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 10:50:18AM -0700, frank mcelligott wrote: > But, bitcoins, well that is something I have an opinion "bigtime", because > I own gold as a hedge against either the euro or the dollar or japan yen > from falling into the ocean. So when the gold miners stock price dropped > over 35% since the first of the year I have had to make a decision, should I > buy more or has the story of Gold as a hedge changed. There have been small The idea of a hedge is a return of (some) of your investment instead of return on your investment. So mere 35% should not have an impact either way, especially if you bought in before. You're not trying to invest, you're trying to limit your losses. > hints in the people conversations ,people who live and die stocks bonds and > currencies, that gold maybe is being effective attacked by bitcoins. If it I don't think so. It's a tiny market, 1.5 GUSD at the moment, and a lot less if the bubble pops. > has gotten to this list ,well that's a case in point in it's favor, and now > instead of maybe people are saying not just gold but all the currencies of > the world are under attack by this INTERNET whatever. Whenever a Avalon I call bullshit. The Internet is not a currency. > mining computer lists for 1200 and is completely sold out in 2 hours, and > then the same Avalon computer sells for 20K on eBay the next day, the canary > in the coal mine just died. When the price goes from 100 to 180 in five days, > that does get your attention. Here is just a fool's view. Mining has only be lucrative for bleeding edge folks, that is never to come again, at least for BTC. > I have been attacked and conquered four times on the internet, I have > gotten letters from my BANK from AUTO PARTS STORES from my HORSE Racing > account and finally a Mag that I read monthy. All were attacked all have > given up my information and all they have said we are sorry and we will do > better next time. I have had geeks I know , who lost money with Bitcoins in > the early days2009 , not a allot, but going to zero hurts a great deal. I You mean not lost, stolen, right? > know that the CIA is trying to hire "bigtime" Grads in computer security. I > know that Black berry less than 2 years ago went down for two days. no phones > no emails no internet connection. I know that the countries like china and > others are attacking American computer systems looking for holes. I know No, every kiddie on every cybercorner attacks any computer system on the Internet. > that Amazon has moved warehouses not to pay taxes, only to have the new > locations demand that they pay taxes when they set up shop. But all of that > can be conquered, That's not true. Without the ability to Tax all > government's fall. And more important the internet is just a few trunk lines > that can be ripped up with a common ordinary buzz saw. The Internet is a bunch of autonomous systems running open source protocols. Backhoes are only useful against invididual pieces of infrastructure. > All of us are already know that governments will take your gold, your > house, your money in the bank, but they also keep a lid on what would happen > without them. Bitcoins will only work when the Government is ready to fall, In terms of transferring money in realtime peer-to-peer, bitcoins have been working fine since they had a measurable value. That has only improved due to the network effect. As soon as most shopping carts have BTC plugins, the situation can only get better. > it would have worked in Russia in 1997 when the Gov't defaulted and the Greenbacks worked fine in Russia, back then. > rouble was used for toilet paper, but to you think China or the Europe, or > Japan, or the US is going to allow that to happen. If it becomes a problem > bitcoins, the buzz saw of gov't will eliminate it. If bitcoins do overcome I You can't uncook an aquarium. The source is out there, and the infrastructure is out there. Shutting down the exchanges and make BTC illegal in some locations will only make a temporary dent in the long-term pattern. > suggest you sell them and use the proceeds to purchase a glock 19 carry's a > mag of 15 bullets, because you will need all them to protect you life. On that Glock advice, may I recommend: http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html > Gold has a 2000 year history, Bitcoins as a unit of currency will fail only As a hedge, Au is doign great. But if I want to wire you a few cents or MUSD, in realtime, Bitcoin will deliver. I just tried to receive 3 kUSD via PayPal, and the *pain*.... let's not go there. > because the government's of this world rule the internet, and when it is The Internet is an assembly of autonomous systems, running open source protocols. You can run your own internet, should you have the cash. It doesn't take all that much. > threaten it will turn off the machine, if you think otherwise as the is > always two sides to a trade buyer and seller, buy them bitcoins as you are in > on the ground floor, and the sky is the limit. Are you a buyer or a seller at > 180, what is your opinion:) If I had any play money (I don't) I would buy on the way up and sell on the way down (especially, if the bubble pattern holds), but tend to go for the long term. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Apr 8 20:13:41 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 13:13:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Commercial Spaceflight Companies Will Revolutionize Space Science Message-ID: <1365452021.32002.YahooMailNeo@web126204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=commercial-spaceflight-companies-revolutionize-space-science Sadly, just a preview. I listened to the audio version from Audible and that was okay. It didn't tell me too much I didn't know already, but it's good to see (or hear) the idea becoming ever more mainstream. Years ago, when I'd argue about this, most people I talked to thought once you get NASA, etc. out of the space business, no one else would invest and the whole thing would dry up. Regards, Dan ?My SF short story "Residue" now available for Kindle at: http://www.amazon.com/Residue-ebook/dp/B00BS3T0RM/ for the US, also available in non-US Kindle stores. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 8 20:45:03 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:45:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365446341.45261.YahooMailNeo@web126203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130408083621.GI6172@leitl.org> <1365446341.45261.YahooMailNeo@web126203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <51632C4F.5060303@libero.it> Il 08/04/2013 20:39, Dan ha scritto: > Maybe one already exists, but, if not, it would be nice if there were a > put on Bitcoin, so that one could buy an option against it -- sort of a > hedge, since the current rise seems, to me, unsustainable. It is unsustainable if you think Bitcoin is a share in some company. But it is not in this category. It is very sustainable if you think of it email and cash as snail mail. Or cellphones substituting land phones. This is like investing not in a company creating wealth, but in a technology and its adoption. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 8 20:19:16 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:19:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <51632644.50602@libero.it> Il 08/04/2013 10:17, Gordon ha scritto: > When I started this thread about five days ago, on April 3, BTC was > trading around $100 USD. The last trade as of this moment was $180 USD. > An 80% return in five days! I think it is fair to say that something > extraordinary is going on here. It is 400% in 30 days. Not bad, indeed. It is like investing in trees. The initial investment is very small, if you have a piece of land available. Something like 10-20$. But, if all go right, in 20-25 years you have 2.000$ (at current value) of wood. Just this is an electronic tree and it grow at the information speed. > Assuming one would want to climb on board this frenzied rally (or > bubble, as it may be) what is the best way for a US citizen to fund an > account at mtgox.com? And is mtgox the best place to trade? BitInstant or Bistamp ? Anyway, never risk what you can not lose. And try to understand what you are doing and why. There is an interesting video interview of Peter Surda by Jeffrey Tucker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FufYk_WDckw Some Falkvinge articles about Bitcoin are lightening Bitcoin is overvalued if it fail to become a substitute for fiat currencies. Bitcoin is undervalued if it succeed to become a substitute for fiat currencies. Mirco From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 06:13:37 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 00:13:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin To Be Screwed up by the Government Message-ID: The government is now requiring the bitcoin exchanges to register and report all exchanges to the government. This means if you ever convert bitcoins to dollars, the government will have your name and number. http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf They have mercifully stopped short of regulating you if you mine your own coins and spend them directly on the silk road, for example. I really feel a need to get into this. Soon. But no money, no funny. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 06:21:34 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 00:21:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: <20130408195806.GQ6172@leitl.org> References: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> <20130408195806.GQ6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 1:58 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 10:50:18AM -0700, frank mcelligott wrote: > > > has gotten to this list ,well that's a case in point in it's favor, and > now > > instead of maybe people are saying not just gold but all the currencies > of > > the world are under attack by this INTERNET whatever. Whenever a Avalon > > I call bullshit. The Internet is not a currency. > In point of fact, bitcoin is actually somewhat independent of the Internet. You can write (or print) the numbers on a piece of paper. Yes, you'll need the Internet to share the fact that you have transferred the numbers to someone else, but you could just hand the numbers to someone if they trusted you not to spend them. Not the best security in the world, but some have made actual physical bit coins that have some kind of hidden hash tag inside, so you need to break it open to spend it? I guess. One of the bigger problems I am aware of is that if you don't make backups, you can lose your bitcoins. This happened to about $250,000 worth of bitcoins at one of the exchanges, which promptly went out of business. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 9 09:02:37 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 11:02:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: References: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> <20130408195806.GQ6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130409090237.GY6172@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:34AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > In point of fact, bitcoin is actually somewhat independent of the Internet. Not really, because it's the distributed ledger that prevents double spending. > You can write (or print) the numbers on a piece of paper. Yes, you'll need There's a bit of JavaScript (which you can use offline) which can generate you a brain wallet from a (suitably strong, orelse your wallet will be hacked even if always offline) and allow you to completely print everything as a hard copy, including QR code for it. Or you could just generate a wallet offline with a well-primed entropy source, and never put it online (you could do so briefly, to validate the amount, or just query the network for that account). > the Internet to share the fact that you have transferred the numbers to > someone else, but you could just hand the numbers to someone if they > trusted you not to spend them. Not the best security in the world, but some > have made actual physical bit coins that have some kind of hidden hash tag Casascius coins, with a hologram sticker. > inside, so you need to break it open to spend it? I guess. > > One of the bigger problems I am aware of is that if you don't make backups, Treat your bitcoin wallet like a regular wallet. Do not lose it, do not allow it to get stolen, and don't keep massive amounts of cash in it. An always-offline account is like a wall safe. > you can lose your bitcoins. This happened to about $250,000 worth of > bitcoins at one of the exchanges, which promptly went out of business. This is what you get if you trust your money to a 17 year old. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 9 09:14:44 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 11:14:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin To Be Screwed up by the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20130409091444.GZ6172@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:13:37AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > The government is now requiring the bitcoin exchanges to register and The interesting part of a p2p cybercurrency is when you no longer need to convert it. (And of course there's https://localbitcoins.com/ which will work until they outlaw cash -- which they're trying to, as cash transactions can fly under the tax radar). > report all exchanges to the government. This means if you ever convert We have a world government now? > bitcoins to dollars, the government will have your name and number. I've tried receiving 3000 USD yesterday, via Paypal. As with anything Paypal the amount of aggravation is considerable. The transaction limit they post is a lie. They say you can receive 2500 EUR per year, but in reality they lock your account at 1800 EUR already. So not only are Paypal liars, they're thieves, too. The first thing I did is to shut down my private account (which was quite hard to do, I wonder why). Once the transaction has gone through I will do the same with my business account. The likes of Paypal and Western Union should beware, their business model is shrivelling on the vine. > http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf > > They have mercifully stopped short of regulating you if you mine your own > coins and spend them directly on the silk road, for example. > > I really feel a need to get into this. Soon. But no money, no funny. From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 9 09:13:41 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:13:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> On 2013-04-06 05:03, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 4:29 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > new kinds of enslaveable agents not accepted by >> everybody as being persons, and so on. > > ### I am looking forward to the creation of ego-syntonically > enslaveable persons. I have no problem with keeping sentient, > self-aware and socially aware slaves, as long as their relationship > with me is fully accepted by them. I would insist on acceptance and > personal devotion to me, their master, for two reasons: I have a vague > feeling of ickiness about owning a slave who was deprived of freedom > against its wishes, and, perhaps more importantly, unwilling slaves > are likely to begrudge effort and dream of rebellion. It is an interesting ethical question what is wrong with this kind of entities. Obviously turning free minds into slave minds is a bad thing (even if the slave doesn't mind or even thanks you for doing it, the past free agent has had various interests blocked - and by some accounts we have interests in autonomy even if we ourselves think we doesn't). But making new minds from scratch is less morally clear. Person-affecting ethics says that an outcome can only be better or worse than another if it is better or worse for someone. If we combine this with the assumption that non-existence and existence are incomparable in value for a person, we get a view called comparativism: "We should disregard the welfare of uniquely realisable people, that is, people who only exist in one of the compared outcomes". So by the comparativist view, there is nothing to compare the slave mind to (since in the world were it was not created there is nobody to compare to), and hence we should only care about whether it is happy and otherwise have an existence worth living. However, a lot of people hold views about human dignity, autonomy and rights that say that it is a bad thing to have slaves even if the slaves are 100% in favor. For example, Kantians would argue that if they are fully rational agents they should deduce that they ought to be acting freely; if they are hardwired to not want this, they are at the very least forced to be irrational. And that is something that reflects badly morally on their creators and users. Similarly deontological approaches like human dignity would also view the slaves as abhorrent. It is worth noting that even if the slaves are 100% happy with being slaves, they are very likely to be moral patients (given that they have to be intelligent, able to think about other minds and their own) - hence you are not morally allowed to mistreat them. But since their values can be set, mistreatment might also be odd: freeing such a slave mind might be mistreatment until its values are changed (and even then, one might argue that you act against their past interests in almost the same way as enslaving a free agent breaks their past interests in being free). Setting values that are likely to be frustrated seems to be a bad thing. Even if slave minds are permissible in a moral system, the responsibility involved might be quite heavy. It makes animal rights and moral considerability to look positively light. > I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin > thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I > surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. Most of the biosphere is made up of simple organisms, and most of the economy of simple mechanisms. I would assume the real majority might not be slave minds as much as loads of simple minds. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 9 09:46:09 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 11:46:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130409094609.GE6172@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 11:13:41AM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin >> thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I >> surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. > > Most of the biosphere is made up of simple organisms, and most of the > economy of simple mechanisms. I would assume the real majority might not > be slave minds as much as loads of simple minds. Exactly, there's probably a power law distribution of size, so gods are rare in terms of postbiomass fraction. Of course the complexity ceiling is much higher, so most is still way above human paygrade. But there are things in micron and submicron range, equalling some planetesimals. From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 9 10:59:15 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:59:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: <20130409090237.GY6172@leitl.org> References: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> <20130408195806.GQ6172@leitl.org> <20130409090237.GY6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5163F483.5030900@libero.it> Il 09/04/2013 11:02, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:34AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> In point of fact, bitcoin is actually somewhat independent of the Internet. > > Not really, because it's the distributed ledger that prevents double > spending. Technically, they could build their own network to share informations faster. Maybe, in a not so distant future they could do this, like banks have privarte lines to transmit data. >> One of the bigger problems I am aware of is that if you don't make backups, > Treat your bitcoin wallet like a regular wallet. Do not lose it, do not > allow it to get stolen, and don't keep massive amounts of cash in it. > An always-offline account is like a wall safe. >> you can lose your bitcoins. This happened to about $250,000 worth of >> bitcoins at one of the exchanges, which promptly went out of business. > This is what you get if you trust your money to a 17 year old. In fact, if the sums you have are important, you keep them in a safe. The backups are easy, as you wrote. Just a line of numbers (the secret key) or more lines if you have more addresses. Make a lot of backups, store them safely, make them a shared secret, whatever needed to make sure they are not lost whatever could happen. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 9 11:20:43 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:20:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin To Be Screwed up by the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5163F98B.1040305@libero.it> Il 09/04/2013 08:13, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > The government is now requiring the bitcoin exchanges to register and > report all exchanges to the government. This means if you ever convert > bitcoins to dollars, the government will have your name and number. > > http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf > > They have mercifully stopped short of regulating you if you mine your > own coins and spend them directly on the silk road, for example. > I really feel a need to get into this. Soon. But no money, no funny. What's the problem? Apart for the just nominated service localbitcoin.com, you can sell services and goods for bitcoins and pay goods and services with bitcoins. Just stop (or reduce) accepting paper fiat and increase your spending in bitcoin (when possible). http://www.9flats.com/ Another brick in the wall. Mirco From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 9 13:07:13 2013 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 06:07:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] bitcoins In-Reply-To: <5163F483.5030900@libero.it> References: <19450364B2D548AD9C81664D895E3FBA@owner719038df5> <20130408195806.GQ6172@leitl.org> <20130409090237.GY6172@leitl.org> <5163F483.5030900@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365512833.33296.YahooMailNeo@web160502.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> ? ? >________________________________ > From: Mirco Romanato >To: ExI chat list >Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 3:59 AM >Subject: Re: [ExI] bitcoins > > >Il 09/04/2013 11:02, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > >Make a lot of backups, store them safely, make them a shared secret, >whatever needed to make sure they are not lost whatever could happen. > > >I would like to emphasize "shared". The?major flaw I see with bitcoins is that there will probably be a slow but steady rate of decline of the ultimate supply of bitcoin. People will die with their brain wallets or encrypted wallets undisclosed?and these bitcoins will effectively be remocved from the economy period. Make sure that?someone somewhere can retrieve your bitcoins should the unexpected overtake you.? > > >Stuart LaForge > >"Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 9 13:13:07 2013 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 06:13:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Top Posting Message-ID: <1365513187.64867.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> My apologies in advance but Yahoo webmail has seen fit to make anything other than top posting impossible to parse for attribution purposes. So henceforth all emails from this address will top post with no intent but to eliminate confusion. I will try to quote anything from the previous post if necessary to elucidate my reply. ? Stuart LaForge? ? "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 13:26:51 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 09:26:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > It is worth noting that even if the slaves are 100% happy with being slaves, > they are very likely to be moral patients (given that they have to be > intelligent, able to think about other minds and their own) - hence you are > not morally allowed to mistreat them. But since their values can be set, > mistreatment might also be odd: freeing such a slave mind might be > mistreatment until its values are changed (and even then, one might argue > that you act against their past interests in almost the same way as > enslaving a free agent breaks their past interests in being free). Setting > values that are likely to be frustrated seems to be a bad thing. How do you classify so-called "proles" who know no better than to follow their herd according to programming (either direct or memetic) Is it wrong for rational intervention to convince the government-assistance recipient to not want the blinged-out Escalade because it costs them their quality of living in the pursuit of perceived status among peers? I know that's not technically slavery. It might be argued as an addiction. Maybe it's just a case of misplaced goals. Where's the line drawn between responsible stewardship of this class of people and farming/exploitation of a demographic? From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 13:29:03 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 09:29:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Top Posting In-Reply-To: <1365513187.64867.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1365513187.64867.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 9:13 AM, The Avantguardian wrote: > My apologies in advance but Yahoo webmail has seen fit to make anything other than top posting impossible to parse for attribution purposes. So henceforth all emails from this address will top post with no intent but to eliminate confusion. I will try to quote anything from the previous post if necessary to elucidate my reply. New gmail interface is top-post centric too. I hate it, but apparently I don't matter. From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 9 15:11:30 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 08:11:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Subject: Re: [ExI] future of slavery On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >>... It is worth noting that even if the slaves are 100% happy with being > slaves, they are very likely to be moral patients ...Anders >...How do you classify so-called "proles" who know no better than to follow their herd according to programming (either direct or memetic)... Mike ... Now that's a prolist comment. Some proles know better than to follow their herd according to their programming, but choose that path, knowing they choose it because of their programming. Prolism is a failure to recognize that our world is full of those who choose this life. It overlooks the fact that proles and animals are free. Furthermore, never have we had it as good as we do now. So it is possible to simultaneously have a prole life and be pro-choice. spike From clementlawyer at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 15:43:13 2013 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 11:43:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] TechCrunch: How to Mine Bitcoins Message-ID: For those who have been discussing Bitcoin mining, the following article came out in TechCrunch yesterday. How To Mine Bitcoins JOHN BIGGS posted yesterday 74 Comments [image: 7dwarfs] Mining bitcoins ? a process that helps manage bitcoin transactions as well as create new ?wealth? ? are the new Beanie Babies. Luckily for us, however, bitcoins seem to be going up in value and should maintain their value over time, unlike your mint condition Tiny the stuffed Chihuahua. But how do you get bitcoins? You can begin by buying them outright, but the market is currently wild. At $188 per coin, the direction of the bitcoin is anyone?s guess right now and, unlike equities, these things don?t split. In short, you should probably mine. But what is bitcoin mining? Think of it as work done by groups of people to find large prime numbers or trying keys to decrypt a file. You can read a lot more about it here but just understand that for every block mined you get 25 coins or, at current rates, $4,722.25. Currently a single bitcoin is valued at $188, an alarming result that is probably caused by money movements related to Cyprus and a general bubble-like excitement over the platform in general. In fact, many wager that the DDOS attacks on many bitcoin-related services are direct action by hackers to inject instability in order to reduce the price. As it stands, mining solo is very nearly deprecated. The process of finding blocks is now so popular and the difficulty of finding a block so high that it could take over three years to generate any coins. While you could simply set a machine aside and have it run the algorithms endlessly, the energy cost and equipment deprecation will eventually cost more than the actual bitcoins are worth. Pooled mining, however, is far more lucrative. Using a service like ?Slush?s pool? (more on that later) you can split the work among a ground of people. Using this equation: (25 BTC + block fees ? 2% fee) * (shares found by user?s workers) / (total shares in current round) While this is simplified, it is basically how the system works. You work for shares in a block and when complete you get a percentage of the block based on the number of workers alongside you, less fees. Using this method, I have been able to raise about $1.50 over the weekend by running a dormant PC. The astute among you will note that I probably used twice that amount of electricity. Being a neophile, I?m surprised it took me so long to start mining. My buddy Tom explained how to set up a pooled mining account so I thought it would be interesting to share the instructions. 1. *Get a wallet.* You can either store your wallet locally or store it online. Coinbase.com is an online wallet that is surprisingly simple to set up. Wallets require you to use or download a fairly large blockchain file ? about 6GB ? so downloading and updating a local wallet may be a non-starter. Like all wealth storage mediums, keeping your bitcoins ?local? is probably a better idea than trusting a web service, but that?s a matter of private preference. There is no preferred wallet type and there are obvious trade-offs to both. Privacy advocates would probably say a local wallet is best. You can download a local wallet here but make sure you keep a copy of your data backed up. Once you?ve created a wallet, you get an address like this: 1BEkUGADFbrEShQb9Xr4pKPtM8jAyiNQsJ. This, without the period, is a direct way to send bitcoins to your wallet. Make a note of your address. In Coinbase, the wallet address found under linked accounts. [image: Screen Shot 2013-04-08 at 9.17.19 AM] 2. *Join a pool.* To mine in a pool you have to work with a group of other miners on available blocks. The most popular is Slush?s Pool found here. You can also try guilds like BTC Guild as well as a number of other options. Each of the pools is characterized mostly by the fees they charge per block ? 2% for Slush?s pool, for example ? and the number of users. Pools with fewer users could also have a slower discovery time but pools with many users usually result in smaller payments. How can you be sure the pool owner doesn?t steal all your bitcoins? You can?t. However, as one pool owner, Slush, notes: In theory, as the Bitcoin pool operator, I could keep the 25 BTC from a block found by the pool for myself. I?m not going to do this, but I completely accept that people do not trust the pool operator. It is their freedom of choice, and Bitcoin is about freedom. For simplicity?s sake, I?m using Slush?s Pool and have created three workers. First, create a pool login. Then add workers. The workers are sub-accounts with their own passwords and are usually identified by [yourlogin].[workername]. I have three workers running, currently ? one on my iMac and two on my old PC. [image: Screen Shot 2013-04-08 at 3.05.25 PM] You must create workers to mine. The instructions are very straightforward for most services so don?t become overwhelmed. Like any online club, you can dig deeply into the subculture surround bitcoin as you gain experience. I like to think of it as a financial MMORPG. Also be sure to enter your wallet address into the pool information. This will ensure you get your bitcoins. 3. *Get a miner.* There are a number of mining options for multiple platforms although OSX users may find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Miners use spare GPU cycles to power the mining operation, much like services like SETI at Home uses spare cycles for finding intelligent life. Miners, on the other hand, use these cycles to help handle peer-to-peer processes associated with bitcoins. Thus by doing ?work? you are maintaining the network as well. GUIMiner is the simplest solution for Windows users as it allows you to create miners using almost all standard graphics cards. You can download it here . 50Miner is also a popular solution. Both require you to enter your worker info and pool and they?ll start mining. Linux users can run miners like CGMiner. An excellent guide to installing a miner on Ubuntu isavailable here . OS X users can use DiabloMiner , a two-year old command-line program that will mine using OpenCL. Sadly, it uses deprecated calls to Bitcoin and is quite a bit slower. As a result, you need to run your own proxy, Stratum, that allows Diablo to connect with services like Slush?s pool. Both of these programs usually run without issue on OS X although you may need to install OpenCL for OSX . To mine I?ve created a script that I run in Terminal that simply runs the proxy in the background and then connects Diablo. Note the last two arguments are necessary for Mountain Lion. ./stratum-mining-proxy-master/mining_proxy.py & ./DiabloMiner-OSX.sh -u WORKERNAME -p WORKERPASSWORD -o localhost -r 8332 -w 64 -na RPCMiner is far easier to run ? you simply click an icon and enter some data ? and both have very rudimentary, text-based interfaces. Running Diablo on my iMac has not had much effect on application performance under OS X although it does slow down my Windows 8 machine considerably. 4. *Keep your mind on your money.* Bitcoins are baffling in that they are wildly simple to use and mine. Speculators, then, would probably be able to throw hundreds of machines at the problem and gather bitcoins like raindrops, right? Wrong. As more bitcoins are found, they become more difficult to find. This profitability calculator will help you understand what you?re up against but understand that this isn?t a sure thing. I?ve run my systems for a weekend and seen a mere $1.50 ? enough for a coke ? but other users may have improved hardware and methods to succeed. In short, if it costs more to run your hardware than you gain in bitcoins, you?re probably doing something wrong. Good luck in your journey and enjoy your first foray into this wild and wooly world -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 16:00:28 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 12:00:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:11 AM, spike wrote: > Now that's a prolist comment. Some proles know better than to follow their > herd according to their programming, but choose that path, knowing they > choose it because of their programming. Prolism is a failure to recognize > that our world is full of those who choose this life. It overlooks the fact > that proles and animals are free. Furthermore, never have we had it as good > as we do now. So it is possible to simultaneously have a prole life and be > pro-choice. Was that paragraph just to setup the homophonic pun? If yes: I approve. :) From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 9 16:43:15 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 09:43:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002701ce3541$55d45c10$017d1430$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 9:00 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] future of slavery On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:11 AM, spike wrote: >>... Now that's a prolist comment. Some proles know better than to follow > their herd according to their programming, but choose that path, > knowing they choose it because of their programming. Prolism is a > failure to recognize that our world is full of those who choose this > life. It overlooks the fact that proles and animals are free. > Furthermore, never have we had it as good as we do now. So it is > possible to simultaneously have a prole life and be pro-choice. >...Was that paragraph just to setup the homophonic pun? If yes: I approve. :) _______________________________________________ Homophonic? No way! I am not homophonic! Some of my best friends are homophones! Examples, movie director Spike Lee, Spike Fonzarelli (Fonzie's cousin from Happy Days), Spike the dog from Tom and Jerry, Spike the vampire who was Buffy's ambiguous boyfriend, homophones all. Ja, I did it to set up the homophonic pun. You guys know me by now. {8^D There is a point to it however: the term prole implies lower-middle class and lower class people. Never in the history of mankind have the lower classes had it so good. Sure the gap between rich and poor grows every year, but just look at all the stuff which has become free. Really all the stuff I really care about is information, and so much of that has become free that I seldom buy much; don't really need to. In modern times, proles have truly been set free. If we don't care what kind of home we live in and we are not too picky about what we eat or how much, an American can live his (if her, it's even easier) entire life without ever taking up a 9 to 5. If you carry your wealth in your head, it is possible to read and study all you want, mine the thin gruel of the internet all your waking hours. I can think of no period of history which has so enabled idlers to have a good life. spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 9 17:31:10 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:31:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery Message-ID: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> ... spike wrote: ... >...In modern times, proles have truly been set free. If we don't care what kind of home we live in and we are not too picky about what we eat or how much, an American can live his (if her, it's even easier) entire life without ever taking up a 9 to 5...spike _______________________________________________ Hmmm, I read it over and realized I can do better than that. Even before Extropy-chat went public, there was a wearable computers internet chat group which I thought was really interesting. I had some ideas way back then which I want to re-introduce and see if it gets any traction. In our modern world, much more now than about 16-17 yrs ago when the wearables group was near its peak, I had a notion that if we had the means to carry some kind of head mounted camera and a microphone, along with an earpiece of some sort, it would allow an prole to open a uplink-downlink which would allow a third party to see and hear what the prole is seeing and hearing. This would allow the third person to instruct her on what to do in realtime. An example from back in those days. Suzuki built a bike back in the 80s called the cavalcade, but it has a design flaw which can cause the rear wheel to suddenly lock up at speed. People have died. I and several others independently discovered this back in the 90s. I fixed mine, but it is a big job, and not one I would recommend to the casual mechanic because if you do it wrong, you can increase the risk rather than decrease it. It requires the removal and reinstallation of the secondary gear case, and there are plenty of ways to screw up. I have done three of them now (I own three running cavalcades) and have gotten the time down to about 6 hrs if I hustle. If someone from far away were to do this job with me watching over their shoulder, I could coach them thru the process. If they had a head-mounted camera with an earpiece and microphone, I could do it, especially if I had a cursor that went into their eyepiece, so I could point to stuff, such as pointing a cursor and telling her "Remove that bolt, don't lose the washer underneath it." etc. The way it has all played out has gone far beyond my sketchy vision. Google glass might be just the tool I need. The point of this whole thing is that those 9 to 5s I discussed earlier are getting harder to find, and employers are finding it harder to fill them. The way laws are developing, an employer must practically marry the employee; they are responsible for more and more all the time. Look at the last decade's legal developments in the US from the perspective of an employer. Now, what if we could set up a system which could occasionally employ people with some oddball skill, such as the example above, repairing secondary gear cases in Suzuki cavalcades? What if a person had a collection of such oddball skills, which they could sell as needed? Then the employer isn't stuck with an employee who has occasionally-critical but seldom needed skills. Another example: I am a classical controls guy, but in the real world, control systems are not often designed, and you can't keep a controls team on board for those occasions. But you can have people who are crazy good at some obscure part of the process. In my case, it would be a few obscure mathematical tools, specific to Fourier transforms, Butterworth filters, superposition of probability distribution functions. Wouldn't it be cool if we could have a system in which most proles had their time mostly to themselves, but were occasionally called upon to do their magic? The whole business model of a 9 to 5 from 20 to 65 could be dumped, knowledge and skills become currency, and most of us could have an actual life. People could work as much or as little as their needs demand. Then conservation would be a form of freedom. Wacky excess consumerism would decline and people had a direct negative feedback loop: every goofy thing you buy costs you actual time, rather than money. Reasoning: now if we hold a 9 to 5, we have generally plenty of money, so there is no need to refrain from just buying anything we can afford. But if we work only enough to cover our needs, we pay closer attention to what we buy, waste less, increase efficiency, the employer wins, the prole wins, the environment wins, and this constitutes a very rare example in which I see no losers anywhere in that scenario. spike From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 9 19:48:34 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 21:48:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> References: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130409194834.GG6172@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 10:31:10AM -0700, spike wrote: > Even before Extropy-chat went public, there was a wearable computers > internet chat group which I thought was really interesting. I had some It's pathetic that we're getting Oculus Rift only now. We could have had an equivalent system in 1995, in terms of optics, FOV and screen resolution. Only the price point is novel -- not that the dev kit is suitable for any end user. > ideas way back then which I want to re-introduce and see if it gets any > traction. > > In our modern world, much more now than about 16-17 yrs ago when the > wearables group was near its peak, I had a notion that if we had the means Wearables peaked around 1995 and were effectively over by 2000. > to carry some kind of head mounted camera and a microphone, along with an > earpiece of some sort, it would allow an prole to open a uplink-downlink > which would allow a third party to see and hear what the prole is seeing and > hearing. This would allow the third person to instruct her on what to do in > realtime. This has been done. > An example from back in those days. Suzuki built a bike back in the 80s > called the cavalcade, but it has a design flaw which can cause the rear > wheel to suddenly lock up at speed. People have died. I and several others > independently discovered this back in the 90s. I fixed mine, but it is a > big job, and not one I would recommend to the casual mechanic because if you > do it wrong, you can increase the risk rather than decrease it. It requires > the removal and reinstallation of the secondary gear case, and there are > plenty of ways to screw up. I have done three of them now (I own three > running cavalcades) and have gotten the time down to about 6 hrs if I > hustle. If someone from far away were to do this job with me watching over > their shoulder, I could coach them thru the process. If they had a > head-mounted camera with an earpiece and microphone, I could do it, > especially if I had a cursor that went into their eyepiece, so I could point > to stuff, such as pointing a cursor and telling her "Remove that bolt, don't > lose the washer underneath it." etc. One of the showcases for augmented reality. > The way it has all played out has gone far beyond my sketchy vision. Google > glass might be just the tool I need. The point of this whole thing is that Their FOV is crap. Look at the end user Oculus Rift, it will have front-facing stereo cams. > those 9 to 5s I discussed earlier are getting harder to find, and employers > are finding it harder to fill them. The way laws are developing, an > employer must practically marry the employee; they are responsible for more > and more all the time. Look at the last decade's legal developments in the > US from the perspective of an employer. The US is weird. > Now, what if we could set up a system which could occasionally employ people > with some oddball skill, such as the example above, repairing secondary gear > cases in Suzuki cavalcades? What if a person had a collection of such > oddball skills, which they could sell as needed? Then the employer isn't > stuck with an employee who has occasionally-critical but seldom needed Yes, these are called contractors. Unfortunately, job quality has downshifted towards the precariate, including the bulk of contractors. > skills. Another example: I am a classical controls guy, but in the real > world, control systems are not often designed, and you can't keep a controls > team on board for those occasions. But you can have people who are crazy > good at some obscure part of the process. In my case, it would be a few There are portals for that, hereabouts it's Gulp.de. I presume there are equivalent contractor recruitment portals in the US as well. > obscure mathematical tools, specific to Fourier transforms, Butterworth > filters, superposition of probability distribution functions. Wouldn't it > be cool if we could have a system in which most proles had their time mostly > to themselves, but were occasionally called upon to do their magic? Who's going to pay for the mortgage, energy, food? > The whole business model of a 9 to 5 from 20 to 65 could be dumped, > knowledge and skills become currency, and most of us could have an actual > life. People could work as much or as little as their needs demand. Then It would be great, except both unemployment is increasing *and* job quality is decreasing. > conservation would be a form of freedom. Wacky excess consumerism would I'm not sure there is much wacky consumerism left. Talk to lost generation guys (post Gen-Xers, especially millenials). Not doing so very great, innit. > decline and people had a direct negative feedback loop: every goofy thing A lot of recent minimalism resurge is due to necessity. The US is still largely sheltered, with 50% youth unemployment and loss of reserve currency status I'm sure many people will wake up and smell the Kafka quite suddenly. > you buy costs you actual time, rather than money. Reasoning: now if we hold > a 9 to 5, we have generally plenty of money, so there is no need to refrain I'm not following your numbers there, unfortunately. > from just buying anything we can afford. But if we work only enough to I'm definitely not following you there. > cover our needs, we pay closer attention to what we buy, waste less, > increase efficiency, the employer wins, the prole wins, the environment > wins, and this constitutes a very rare example in which I see no losers > anywhere in that scenario. We seem to inhabit alternate realities. Do a thorough sampling of just the US (which is sheltered), not just the people you know. I think you'll get a surprise coming. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 9 20:02:36 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 16:02:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <002701ce3541$55d45c10$017d1430$@rainier66.com> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> <002701ce3541$55d45c10$017d1430$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:43 PM, spike wrote: > Homophonic? No way! I am not homophonic! Some of my best friends are > homophones! Examples, movie director Spike Lee, Spike Fonzarelli (Fonzie's > cousin from Happy Days), Spike the dog from Tom and Jerry, Spike the vampire > who was Buffy's ambiguous boyfriend, homophones all. You forgot this apt Spike: http://www.hahnfamilies.com/Fun%20Stuff/Comics/Peanuts/Pages/spike.htm > In modern times, proles have truly been set free. If we don't care what > kind of home we live in and we are not too picky about what we eat or how > much, an American can live his (if her, it's even easier) entire life > without ever taking up a 9 to 5. If you carry your wealth in your head, it > is possible to read and study all you want, mine the thin gruel of the > internet all your waking hours. I can think of no period of history which > has so enabled idlers to have a good life. I guess it depends on your definitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakir (though I'd rather not go back to 4th century BCE) From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 9 23:18:10 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 16:18:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51632644.50602@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco Romanato wrote: Il 08/04/2013 10:17, Gordon ha scritto: >> When I started this thread about five days ago, on April 3, BTC was >> trading around $100 USD. The last trade as of this moment was $180 USD. >> An 80% return in five days! I think it is fair to say that something >> extraordinary is going on here. >It is 400% in 30 days. >Not bad, indeed. Now trading at about 236 USD! The market cap of Bitcoin doubled from $1 billion to more than $2 billion in just 11 days. Remarkable!? A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might trigger it? ?One concern I have is that for transactional purposes--for purposes of buying and selling goods and services--a relatively stable currency is best. BTC is anything but stable at this point, making it difficult for buyers and sellers to make rational decisions in their commerce. I'm guessing that at this early stage in the life of BTC, most merchants who accept BTC are also speculators willing to bet on the growth of the currency. Larger, more conservative players might find the volatility worrisome. They'll need a way to exchange large amounts of BTC into ordinary currency each day, if not after each transaction, but the market might still be too thin. Realization of this might damper the enthusiasm and contribute to a correction.? -Gordon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 10 07:32:34 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:32:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <51651592.6030508@aleph.se> On 2013-04-09 15:26, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> It is worth noting that even if the slaves are 100% happy with being slaves, >> they are very likely to be moral patients (given that they have to be >> intelligent, able to think about other minds and their own) - hence you are >> not morally allowed to mistreat them. But since their values can be set, >> mistreatment might also be odd: freeing such a slave mind might be >> mistreatment until its values are changed (and even then, one might argue >> that you act against their past interests in almost the same way as >> enslaving a free agent breaks their past interests in being free). Setting >> values that are likely to be frustrated seems to be a bad thing. > > How do you classify so-called "proles" who know no better than to > follow their herd according to programming (either direct or memetic) Well, they are still moral agents, just fairly ignorant moral agents. Most ethicists would say that it is a good thing to inform them, although it is not entirely clear that it will make them happy. Socrates famously said "the unconsidered life is not worth living" and J.S. Mill: "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" - being able to recognize higher pleasures might count for more than having loads of low-level pleasures, even in utilitarianism. > Is it wrong for rational intervention to convince the > government-assistance recipient to not want the blinged-out Escalade > because it costs them their quality of living in the pursuit of > perceived status among peers? I know that's not technically slavery. > It might be argued as an addiction. Maybe it's just a case of > misplaced goals. A.C. Grayling wrote that the meaning of Socrates statement was: "He meant that a life lived without forethought or principle is a life so vulnerable to chance, and so dependent on the choices and actions of others, that it is of little real value to the person living it. He further meant that a life well lived is one which has goals, and integrity, which is chosen and directed by the one who lives it, to the fullest extent possible to a human agent caught in the webs of society and history." I think this is also a pretty good answer to the question. Yes, getting people to start living autonomous lives is really good and important. That involves making people aware of their situation, their options, and what matters, but also ensuring that they are independent enough to aim for what matters to them. This is very much the opposite of slavery. The problem is of course that the above intervention might just make them dependent on having the experts tell them what matters. Experts also have a tendency to think things that appeal to expert-type people matter more than things that non-experts like: we need to take the fallibility and bias of experts into account. > Where's the line drawn between responsible stewardship of this class > of people and farming/exploitation of a demographic? That is easier. Who benefits? If you tell people they ought to go to art museums instead of monster truck racing, you might be trying to help them - or drumming up support for your art museum. If people become autonomous they will help themselves or things they care about, if people become less autonomous they will help things the expert cares about. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 10 07:41:36 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:41:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <516517B0.5050105@aleph.se> On 2013-04-09 17:11, spike wrote: > Prolism is a failure to recognize > that our world is full of those who choose this life. I think this is very true. Thanks Spike for the neologism! As intellectuals we tend to overlook the value in other approaches to life. Just because it makes little sense to us doesn't mean it lacks value or meaning. Distinguishing whether somebody has slipped into an approach because of mere circumstance or actually choose it typically requires talking to them: if you believe we have a moral duty to help people to be autonomous you should hence try talking to a lot of people (and occasionally try to tell some of the non-autonomous their options). If nothing else you will learn from it. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 10 08:35:23 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:35:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> References: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <5165244B.1040801@aleph.se> Just-in-time skills. Global frequency work. On 2013-04-09 19:31, spike wrote: > In our modern world, much more now than about 16-17 yrs ago when the > wearables group was near its peak, I had a notion that if we had the means > to carry some kind of head mounted camera and a microphone, along with an > earpiece of some sort, it would allow an prole to open a uplink-downlink > which would allow a third party to see and hear what the prole is seeing and > hearing. This would allow the third person to instruct her on what to do in > realtime. This works when the third party (1) knows what the situation demands, and (2) can explain it to somebody who has little clue. In addition, to really function well the third party should also have a bit of situational awareness ("Oh, by the way, it doesn't matter if we fix the autopilot, I see that the stabilizer is also broken") and is able to tell the relevant agency the problem. Sounds entirely doable, but it actually does require both the prole, the third party, and the organization employing them to learn how to do it. I doubt that will be easy - we are still learning what outsourcing can and cannot do, and how to use it well. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 10 10:32:01 2013 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:32:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Gordon wrote: "A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might trigger it?" ------------ A high profile theft of bitcoins. The breaking of SHA-256 or eliptical curve encryption. A heretofore undiscovered bug in the software. A huge sell off by the early birds. Quantum computing. The U.S. government?recognizing and legalizing?BTC and therefore stripping it of black market pricing.?I am sure I am missing many potential contributors to a market correction. ----------------- "They'll [merchants]?need a way to exchange large amounts of BTC into ordinary currency each day, if not after each transaction, but the market might still be too thin. Realization of this might damper the enthusiasm and contribute to a correction." ?--------------- No not the way I see it. Of all the things driving the demand for BTC right now, its usefulness as a currency is one of the least significant. Right now it is a store value and little else. Because of Gresham's Law, so long as fiat is capable of purchasing particular goods and services, it will be used for such in preference to bitcoin, precious metals, or other scarce commodities. That is what gold bugs?refuse to?understand?that?is that scarce deflationary?commodity money does not circulate?as much as fiat because people are afraid to spend it. I don't see how a gold-based economy can achieve any meaningful growth since the influx of gold does not create wealth but simply dilutes it as happened in Spain after the conquest of the Americas.? Incidently for?merchants not in the U.S., one can simply use Paysius to convert bitcoin into local fiat for payment. ? http://paysius.com/ ? ? Stuart LaForge ? "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare >________________________________ > From: Gordon >To: ExI chat list >Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:18 PM >Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin > > > > >Mirco Romanato wrote: > > > >Il 08/04/2013 10:17, Gordon ha scritto: > >>> When I started this thread about five days ago, on April 3, BTC was >>> trading around $100 USD. The last trade as of this moment was $180 USD. >>> An 80% return in five days! I think it is fair to say that something >>> extraordinary is going on here. > >>It is 400% in 30 days. >>Not bad, indeed. > > >Now trading at about 236 USD! The market cap of Bitcoin doubled from $1 billion to more than $2 billion in just 11 days. Remarkable!? > > >A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might trigger it? ?One concern I have is that for transactional purposes--for purposes of buying and selling goods and services--a relatively stable currency is best. BTC is anything but stable at this point, making it difficult for buyers and sellers to make rational decisions in their commerce. > > >I'm guessing that at this early stage in the life of BTC, most merchants who accept BTC are also speculators willing to bet on the growth of the currency. Larger, more conservative players might find the volatility worrisome. They'll need a way to exchange large amounts of BTC into ordinary currency each day, if not after each transaction, but the market might still be too thin. Realization of this might damper the enthusiasm and contribute to a correction.? > > >-Gordon? >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 10 11:51:44 2013 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:51:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> ? ? Correction. Paysius can be used in the U.S. as well. Sorry. ? Stuart LaForge ? "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare >________________________________ > From: The Avantguardian >To: ExI chat list >Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 3:32 AM >Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin > > >Gordon wrote: >"A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might trigger it?" >------------ > >A high profile theft of bitcoins. The breaking of SHA-256 or eliptical curve encryption. A heretofore undiscovered bug in the software. A huge sell off by the early birds. Quantum computing. The U.S. government?recognizing and legalizing?BTC and therefore stripping it of black market pricing.?I am sure I am missing many potential contributors to a market correction. > >----------------- >"They'll [merchants]?need a way to exchange large amounts of BTC into ordinary currency each day, if not after each transaction, but the market might still be too thin. Realization of this might damper the enthusiasm and contribute to a correction." >?--------------- > >No not the way I see it. Of all the things driving the demand for BTC right now, its usefulness as a currency is one of the least significant. Right now it is a store value and little else. Because of Gresham's Law, so long as fiat is capable of purchasing particular goods and services, it will be used for such in preference to bitcoin, precious metals, or other scarce commodities. That is what gold bugs?refuse to?understand?that?is that scarce deflationary?commodity money does not circulate?as much as fiat because people are afraid to spend it. I don't see how a gold-based economy can achieve any meaningful growth since the influx of gold does not create wealth but simply dilutes it as happened in Spain after the conquest of the Americas.? >Incidently for?merchants not in the U.S., one can simply use Paysius to convert bitcoin into local fiat for payment. > >http://paysius.com/ > > >Stuart LaForge > >"Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare > > > >>________________________________ >> From: Gordon >>To: ExI chat list >>Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:18 PM >>Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin >> >> >> >> >>Mirco Romanato wrote: >> >> >> >>Il 08/04/2013 10:17, Gordon ha scritto: >> >>>> When I started this thread about five days ago, on April 3, BTC was >>>> trading around $100 USD. The last trade as of this moment was $180 USD. >>>> An 80% return in five days! I think it is fair to say that something >>>> extraordinary is going on here. >> >>>It is 400% in 30 days. >>>Not bad, indeed. >> >> >>Now trading at about 236 USD! The market cap of Bitcoin doubled from $1 billion to more than $2 billion in just 11 days. Remarkable!? >> >> >>A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might trigger it? ?One concern I have is that for transactional purposes--for purposes of buying and selling goods and services--a relatively stable currency is best. BTC is anything but stable at this point, making it difficult for buyers and sellers to make rational decisions in their commerce. >> >> >>I'm guessing that at this early stage in the life of BTC, most merchants who accept BTC are also speculators willing to bet on the growth of the currency. Larger, more conservative players might find the volatility worrisome. They'll need a way to exchange large amounts of BTC into ordinary currency each day, if not after each transaction, but the market might still be too thin. Realization of this might damper the enthusiasm and contribute to a correction.? >> >> >>-Gordon? >>_______________________________________________ >>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 > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 10 13:40:08 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:40:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130410134008.GS6172@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 04:51:44AM -0700, The Avantguardian wrote: > > ? > ? > Correction. Paysius can be used in the U.S. as well. Sorry. Here's an up to date list with alternative digital currencies, notice that there are currently 8 pages there https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0 From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 14:23:54 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:23:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <51651592.6030508@aleph.se> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <51651592.6030508@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007701ce35f7$089d64d0$19d82e70$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg >... If you tell people they ought to go to art museums instead of monster truck racing, you might be trying to help them - or drumming up support for your art museum... Anders Sandberg Ja to all, good post Anders, thanks man. As one who has lived in both worlds, Redneckville USA and Nerdvana, California, I can tell you what would happen if some lofty highbrow tried to drum up support for her art museum in the place of my misspent youth. She would be told "Monster truck racing is an art." or "That nekkid David feller with the slingshot, that boy would be better getting some sturdy camo and a Remington pump action twelve gage if he wants to mix it up with that big Goliath feller." There would be some really fun culture clash if we tried to get my homers to appreciate art. They wouldn't get most of the stuff we discuss regularly on ExI. spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 14:32:49 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:32:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <516517B0.5050105@aleph.se> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <013401ce3534$84b578a0$8e2069e0$@rainier66.com> <516517B0.5050105@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007801ce35f8$47151a90$d53f4fb0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] future of slavery On 2013-04-09 17:11, spike wrote: >>... Prolism is a failure to recognize that our world is full of those who choose this life. >...I think this is very true. Thanks Spike for the neologism! As intellectuals we tend to overlook the value in other approaches to life. Just because it makes little sense to us doesn't mean it lacks value or meaning... Anders Anders, where I am going with this is that we lose sight often of how the other half lives and thinks. They don't make sense to us, but we don't make sense to them. Much of what we discuss here is downright immoral and shameful to much of this world, even in western countries. We tend to overestimate the number of people like us, because our friends are like us, and for the most part our colleagues are like us. We lose sight of most of humanity from where we are. There is a reason why I kept the nickname spike for my online identity: I didn't have it until I was already away from where I grew up. I don't want old friends and family seeing where my thought-space has taken me. Already when I go back for family gatherings or class reunions, they tell me I am speaking with a foreign accent. It is certainly a foreign way of thinking, but accent? What country? Anders do I sound to you like I have a foreign accent? spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 14:42:50 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:42:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <5165244B.1040801@aleph.se> References: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> <5165244B.1040801@aleph.se> Message-ID: <008801ce35f9$ad7a8620$086f9260$@rainier66.com> On 2013-04-09 19:31, spike wrote: > >...the means to carry some kind of head mounted camera and a microphone, > along with an earpiece of some sort... This would allow the third person to > instruct her on what to do in realtime. >...This works when the third party (1) knows what the situation demands, and (2) can explain it to somebody who has little clue. In addition, to really function well the third party should also have a bit of situational awareness ("Oh, by the way, it doesn't matter if we fix the autopilot, I see that the stabilizer is also broken") and is able to tell the relevant agency the problem. Sounds entirely doable, but it actually does require both the prole, the third party, and the organization employing them to learn how to do it. I doubt that will be easy - we are still learning what outsourcing can and cannot do, and how to use it well. Anders Some of you hardware gurus help me out here. Assuming Google glass or equivalent, along with Skype, let us use the example of the motorcycle repair. Is current hardware up to the task of letting me point to things with a cursor on the other person's vision? If I had the other prole looking at her bike so I can see what she is seeing, I want to use my cursor to point at something in her field of view and say "Ok, now remove this bolt, and don't lose the washer underneath it." I think I could coach a prole all the way through a complicated repair job that way. spike From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 14:08:05 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:08:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130410134008.GS6172@leitl.org> References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <20130410134008.GS6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Here's an up to date list with alternative digital currencies, > notice that there are currently 8 pages there > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0 > Personally, I recommend that everyone should invest in billcoins. Just send me the dollars or euros and I will credit your account with a corresponding number of billcoins. Note that these are a long term investment, so they will not be convertible for at least ten years. I strongly advise people to avoid the notorious spikecoins, are these are only dealt with in shady markets, usually involving an oily rag and skinned knuckles. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 15:50:20 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:50:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <20130410134008.GS6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <000001ce3603$1c0e3ce0$542ab6a0$@rainier66.com> ... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Here's an up to date list with alternative digital currencies, notice > that there are currently 8 pages there > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0 > >...Personally, I recommend that everyone should invest in billcoins. Just send me the dollars or euros and I will credit your account with a corresponding number of billcoins. Note that these are a long term investment, so they will not be convertible for at least ten years. >...I strongly advise people to avoid the notorious spikecoins, are these are only dealt with in shady markets, usually involving an oily rag and skinned knuckles...BillK _______________________________________________ HA! My own colleague fails to acknowledge that spikecoins are as good as gold! Forget BillKoins, those things are suspicious indeed. Speaking of good as gold, the irony seems to be lost on the masses when we hear all the ads on the radio trying to sell us gold and silver. They explain why gold and silver are such a great deal. And oh by the way, the advertiser is putting out a significant amount of gold to convince the public that they should give her their paper currency in exchange for the gold already owned by the person who is spending gold, trying to convince you that gold is better than currency. It's such a funny meta-gag that I can scarcely think of it without laughing. spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 10 15:57:18 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:57:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <20130410134008.GS6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365609438.75920.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I'm busy shorting billcoins and buying spikecoins. I know an arbitrage opportunity when I see one. ---- From:BillK Personally, I recommend that everyone should invest in billcoins. Just send me the dollars or euros and I will credit your account with a corresponding number of billcoins.? Note that these are a long term investment, so they will not be convertible for at least ten years. I strongly advise people to avoid the notorious spikecoins, are these are only dealt with in shady markets, usually involving an oily rag and skinned knuckles. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 16:10:10 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:10:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <008801ce35f9$ad7a8620$086f9260$@rainier66.com> References: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> <5165244B.1040801@aleph.se> <008801ce35f9$ad7a8620$086f9260$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 7:42 AM, spike wrote: > Some of you hardware gurus help me out here. Assuming Google glass or > equivalent, along with Skype, let us use the example of the motorcycle > repair. Is current hardware up to the task of letting me point to things > with a cursor on the other person's vision? If I had the other prole > looking at her bike so I can see what she is seeing, I want to use my > cursor > to point at something in her field of view and say "Ok, now remove this > bolt, and don't lose the washer underneath it." I think I could coach a > prole all the way through a complicated repair job that way. > This was, in fact, being demonstrated on a fully automated basis back in 1997, with Boeing's Maintenance Aid Computer. Or at least there was a prototype for it; I suspect computer vision (among other things) wasn't quite up to the task, but it was close enough to make a serious effort. Of course, this was also for jet airplanes, which are much more designed for maintenance than an average motorcycle (since the market is more businesses which care about cost of operation). That said, the manual sharing you describe is quite possible. You might be able to do it with a two-person Google Hangout: share the Glass's perspective with the chat, the other person takes that as their screen, and then screenshare the other person's view - i.e., said video plus the other person's mouse cursor - which the Glass's user then sees. (I am not certain if all the steps in that are possible with Glass and Hangout as they exist now, but certainly one could make software that could do those steps.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 16:47:53 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:47:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365609438.75920.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <20130410134008.GS6172@leitl.org> <1365609438.75920.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Gordon wrote: > I'm busy shorting billcoins and buying spikecoins. I know an arbitrage > opportunity when I see one. > > This is most unfair! Just because you have inside information that Spike is building an arbitrage in his garage from left-over bits from his last reassembling job! It probably won't work anyway. His last three wheeled effort only went round in circles due to a fundamental design error. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 17:38:25 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:38:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery Message-ID: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 7:42 AM, spike wrote: Some of you hardware gurus help me out here. Assuming Google glass or equivalent, along with Skype, let us use the example of the motorcycle repair. Is current hardware up to the task of letting me point to things with a cursor on the other person's vision? If I had the other prole looking at her bike so I can see what she is seeing, I want to use my cursor to point at something in her field of view .. This was, in fact, being demonstrated on a fully automated basis back in 1997, with Boeing's Maintenance Aid Computer. . Doh! I can never think of an original idea. Except the following: Both the mechanic (me) and the prole (owner of similar bike, elsewhere) get two computers, both with Skype. We call each other. She sets her camera pointed on her bike, which transmits to me and I receive that image on my first computer. I set my second computer's camera on the screen of my first computer, which transmits back to her, which she receives on her second computer. So now I don't need a cursor control; I just point to things on my first screen with my finger. So now we don't need Google glass or any exotic software or anything; both Skype connections are free and I can point to what thing needs to be done next, using only four ordinary computers and two Skype connections. If we get tricky, it might be possible for the mechanic to use only one computer and a mirror somehow. I don't know what happens if you call a computer on Skype with a mirror in front of it. Do you see yourself? And what if two Skype computers call each other with mirrors in front of each? Do they go crazy sending each other images of each other? But I digress. Is that four-computer two-Skype notion a new idea? If so, I donate it into the public domain and invite any proles present with two computers who want to test the notion, since I have two computers (actually five, but two that can be dedicated to this kind of constructive silliness.) We can do something that doesn't require a motorcycle too. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 18:00:01 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:00:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004a01ce3615$39e62400$adb26c00$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 10:38 AM >.Is that four-computer two-Skype notion a new idea? If so, I donate it into the public domain and invite any proles present with two computers who want to test the notion, since I have two computers (actually five, but two that can be dedicated to this kind of constructive silliness.) We can do something that doesn't require a motorcycle too.spike Before we do that however, we need to collect some ideas. That Suzuki cavalcade repair notion isn't generally applicable, since there are only a few hundred of those bikes left in the world today. What are some tasks we could use to test the 4C2S notion? I thought of one based on an idea Natasha mentioned a few years ago: a sex coach. That idea really made me laugh, because of a sports coach I had in high school, for cross country. I am trying to imagine him coaching a couple thru the process, that would be a hoot! But think about it: suppose you had a couple who were too shy to have some yahoo in their bedroom instructing on how to do it. Wouldn't it be OK to have someone in some other state or better yet some other continent, who doesn't know you, who really knows what he or she is doing, giving you instructions realtime? I just wouldn't want my cross country coach anywhere near my nekkidness or my bride's. What other ideas? Cooking? (Not the bedroom kind, the kitchen kind, involving food.) Building things? Home repair? What else? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 18:03:15 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:03:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:38 AM, spike wrote: > Doh! I can never think of an original idea. > "There is nothing new under the sun, just new combinations of old things." Both the mechanic (me) and the prole (owner of similar bike, elsewhere) get > two computers, both with Skype. We call each other. She sets her camera > pointed on her bike, which transmits to me and I receive that image on my > first computer. I set my second computer?s camera on the screen of my > first computer, which transmits back to her, which she receives on her > second computer. > What she gets is often a blurry image, assuming there are not camera/screen cycle issues that only gives her part of the image. In general, you should look for some way to screen share, so you & she only need one computer each. However, re Skype specifically, Microsoft's apparently been introducing some limitations on screen sharing & video for non-Premium accounts; I wouldn't be surprised if they've put code in to detect and disable the workaround you describe. So you should probably consider a non-Skype solution. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 10 18:05:13 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:05:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> Il 10/04/2013 01:18, Gordon ha scritto: > > Mirco Romanato wrote: >>It is 400% in 30 days. >>Not bad, indeed. > Now trading at about 236 USD! The market cap of Bitcoin doubled from $1 > billion to more than $2 billion in just 11 days. Remarkable! > A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might > trigger it? Someone cashing it and needing fiat currencies. It is underway today. The price spiked to 260 than fall back to 240, back to 250 and down to 200 now (150). As the wise men say, sell off in a bullish market are to keep the suckers out and rally in a bear market is to keep them in. Just from the previous weeks, a correction of few hours, days, of 20-25% is naturally bullish in the following days. > One concern I have is that for transactional purposes--for > purposes of buying and selling goods and services--a relatively stable > currency is best. BTC is anything but stable at this point, making it > difficult for buyers and sellers to make rational decisions in their > commerce. The payment processors like Bitpay, I suppose, must have a adequate reserve of bitcoin, so they can sell as the payment is done. People must pay 300$, the processor ask to pay 1.5 BTC (with a BTC bid at 200$ for at least 1.5 BTC), the processor sell the BTC immediately as it see the transaction done, so its balance in BTC is stable and the balance in $ o ? change. Biggest the load of payments, biggest must be the quantity of BTC multiplied by the current price in $ hold by the payment processor. Mirco P.S. Today a lot of weak hands was pruned. It is good. From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 18:14:09 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:14:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <004a01ce3615$39e62400$adb26c00$@rainier66.com> References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01ce3615$39e62400$adb26c00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:00 AM, spike wrote: > Before we do that however, we need to collect some ideas. That Suzuki > cavalcade repair notion isn?t generally applicable, since there are only a > few hundred of those bikes left in the world today. > Tch. You think bike repair shops get by fixing only one type of bike? Any remote mechanic solution would have to apply to at least as many different types of vehicles as a typical auto mechanic's shop. One idea I tried to do with a previous startup, was remote hazmat or dangerous-situation guidance. These days it's largely been surpassed by human-driven robots - same idea, with a more expendable front end. That said, this approach to telemedicine has been a hit - if you can find doctors or hospitals who both have money and work with poor rural patients. (And can outcompete the people already doing it.) > Cooking? (Not the bedroom kind, the kitchen kind, involving food.) > Careful. Certain people may assume you're just being kinky there. :P Anyway, this is part of why the FAA is finally getting around to regulating civilian drones: a lot of people are starting to realize the benefits of a "central intelligence, remote worker" setup. I believe you work for a certain company which might be interested if you come up with hugely profitable applications of this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 17:50:34 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:50:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 6:38 PM, spike wrote: > Both the mechanic (me) and the prole (owner of similar bike, elsewhere) get > two computers, both with Skype. We call each other. She sets her camera > pointed on her bike, which transmits to me and I receive that image on my > first computer. I set my second computer?s camera on the screen of my first > computer, which transmits back to her, which she receives on her second > computer. So now I don?t need a cursor control; I just point to things on > my first screen with my finger. So now we don?t need Google glass or any > exotic software or anything; both Skype connections are free and I can point > to what thing needs to be done next, using only four ordinary computers and > two Skype connections. > > I think you are over-complicating the system. You only need her computer to point at the engine. Remember you can talk to each other as well. So you can verbally tell her what to do. If you see her making a mistake, you just shout 'No - the green wire!'. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 18:31:59 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:31:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:50 AM, BillK wrote: > I think you are over-complicating the system. You only need her > computer to point at the engine. Remember you can talk to each other > as well. So you can verbally tell her what to do. If you see her > making a mistake, you just shout 'No - the green wire!'. > There are cases where visual feedback is necessary. For instance, what if there are 100 wires, all green? (Or just 10, but touching the wrong one causes irreparable damage, and you don't have several seconds for a detailed description or for her to point and you to confirm or correct.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 18:54:07 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:54:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> References: <002801ce3548$07822450$16866cf0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 6:31 PM, spike wrote: > The whole business model of a 9 to 5 from 20 to 65 could be dumped, > knowledge and skills become currency, and most of us could have an actual > life. People could work as much or as little as their needs demand. Then > conservation would be a form of freedom. Wacky excess consumerism would > decline and people had a direct negative feedback loop: every goofy thing > you buy costs you actual time, rather than money. Reasoning: now if we hold > a 9 to 5, we have generally plenty of money, so there is no need to refrain > from just buying anything we can afford. But if we work only enough to > cover our needs, we pay closer attention to what we buy, waste less, > increase efficiency, the employer wins, the prole wins, the environment > wins, and this constitutes a very rare example in which I see no losers > anywhere in that scenario. > > There are disadvantages to this working life style. Quote: If you get sick, you could be missing out on seven jobs, not just one or two. And forget about personal days or holidays. Billing and tax preparation get much more complicated with dozens of invoices per month. Financial planning becomes untenable. And with such small-scale jobs, an employer's obligation is less enforceable. No one's going to court over a $42 unpaid fee. As we rush forward into this hyper-efficient economy, we're actually sliding back to certain aspects of the 19th century, where workers had few rights and no protections. ----------- Slashdot also has a discussion running on this. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 20:23:21 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:23:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01ce3615$39e62400$adb26c00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008701ce3629$3f880180$be980480$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 11:14 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:00 AM, spike wrote: Before we do that however, we need to collect some ideas. That Suzuki cavalcade repair notion isn't generally applicable, since there are only a few hundred of those bikes left in the world today. >.Tch. You think bike repair shops get by fixing only one type of bike? Any remote mechanic solution would have to apply to at least as many different types of vehicles as a typical auto mechanic's shop. No, that's the point. I know how to do a specific repair on a specific bike that professional bike shops cannot do: the parts are not available, and the last shop that was certified to work on this specific model went out of business two years ago. Cavalcade riders are on their own. But there are a few guys around who know this specific oddball skill, so that is a good example of a use for this particular notion. Also, bike shops are liable. If you coach someone else thru a repair, the presumption is buyer beware, the owner who does the actual repairs accepts their own liability. A big part of absurdly high professional mechanic's price is the liability cost, especially with motorcycles which can kill you if the mechanic does her job wrong. Cooking? (Not the bedroom kind, the kitchen kind, involving food.) >.Careful. Certain people may assume you're just being kinky there. :P See, there's a perfect example of why I need a sex coach. I have no idea how to do kinky stuff involving food, and have never done it in the kitchen, the way you younger people do these days. > I believe you work for a certain company which might be interested if you come up with hugely profitable applications of this? Depending on how strictly one defines the term work, ja. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 10 20:27:45 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:27:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <003001ce3612$352bb090$9f8311b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008c01ce3629$dca9fd10$95fdf730$@rainier66.com> On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] bike repair using double-skype, was: RE: future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 6:38 PM, spike wrote: > Both the mechanic (me) and the prole (owner of similar bike, > elsewhere) get two computers, both with Skype. We call each other. > She sets her camera pointed on her bike, which transmits to me and I > receive that image on my first computer. I set my second computer's > camera on the screen of my first computer... >... think you are over-complicating the system. You only need her computer to point at the engine. Remember you can talk to each other as well. So you can verbally tell her what to do. If you see her making a mistake, you just shout 'No - the green wire!'. BillK _______________________________________________ Ja, perhaps, but what I really want is to be able to point at stuff, rather than describe it. That would allow me to do the trick with people who do not speak English, and might be faster anyway. However ja, this could be done with 2 computers and one Skype connection. A cursor overlay would be cool. When you use Skype, is there a visible cursor on the screen? If so, the mirror trick might work. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 21:14:15 2013 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:14:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Developing cancer treatment Message-ID: http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/14434/20130328/cancer-treatment-cd47-miracle-bullet-breast-colon-bladder-antibody-eat-macrophage-immune.htm One drug to rule them all: Researchers find treatment that kills every ... New York Post - Mar 27, 2013 In each of the cases the antibody forced the mice's immune system to kill the cancer cells. "We showed that even after the tumor has taken hold, ... Cancer Drug That Shrinks All Tumors Set To Begin Human Clinical ... Huffington Post Scientists Have Silver Bullet To Kill Multiple Cancers, Human Trials ... Medical Daily Ultimate Antibody Cures Every Type Of Cancer In Clinical Tests ... Nature World News Newsmax Health - Times of India all 15 news articles ? From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 21:42:33 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:42:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Developing cancer treatment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let's see how well it does in the trials - in case, say, other things with CD47 are present in more vulnerable concentrations. On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 2:14 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > > http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/14434/20130328/cancer-treatment-cd47-miracle-bullet-breast-colon-bladder-antibody-eat-macrophage-immune.htm > > One drug to rule them all: Researchers find treatment that kills every ... > New York Post - Mar 27, 2013 > In each of the cases the antibody forced the mice's immune system to > kill the cancer cells. "We showed that even after the tumor has taken > hold, ... > Cancer Drug That Shrinks All Tumors Set To Begin Human Clinical ... > Huffington Post > Scientists Have Silver Bullet To Kill Multiple Cancers, Human Trials > ... Medical Daily > Ultimate Antibody Cures Every Type Of Cancer In Clinical Tests ... > Nature World News > Newsmax Health - Times of India > all 15 news articles ? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Wed Apr 10 22:46:05 2013 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:46:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> Message-ID: By the way, I find this thread quite instructive: "Let's add up the KNOWN lost bitcoins" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0 Some huge losses out there. It appears that the private key approach can be highly unintuitive even for technical people. Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 11 06:16:20 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:16:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco, >> A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might >> trigger it? > It is underway today. So I see! . > Today a lot of weak hands was pruned. > It is good. I think so, too. I'm still waiting for my trading account at mtgox.com to be validated/funded. Glad to see I missed this correction.? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 11 06:51:05 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:51:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365663065.91720.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> The Avantguardian wrote: Incidently for?merchants... one can simply use Paysius to convert bitcoin into local fiat for payment. >? >http://paysius.com/ >? > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 11 06:51:05 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:51:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365663065.91720.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> The Avantguardian wrote: Incidently for?merchants... one can simply use Paysius to convert bitcoin into local fiat for payment. >? >http://paysius.com/ >? > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 11 07:10:11 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:10:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365663065.91720.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365594704.34660.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <1365663065.91720.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365664211.26062.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> The Avantguardian wrote: Incidently for?merchants... one can simply use Paysius to convert bitcoin into local fiat for payment. >? >http://paysius.com/ >? > > Sorry, I hit send too soon the first time. Thanks for the link. I wonder if these services like Paysius are funded well enough to handle transactions to accommodate large, conservative businesses that do not want to absorb the currency risks inherent in BTC. I suspect not. For example if a company like Amazon.com were to start accepting BTC, only a small fraction of ?its revenue would I think overwhelm the BTC system and market. These problems are not insurmountable, but they might be a source of growing pains. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 11 12:08:23 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:08:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> Message-ID: <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 12:46:05AM +0200, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > By the way, I find this thread quite instructive: > > "Let's add up the KNOWN lost bitcoins" > > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0 > > Some huge losses out there. It appears that the private key approach can be > highly unintuitive even for technical people. Have you ever lost your real wallet, or had money stolen? It appears that the money thing can be highly unintuitive even for nontechnical people. Seriously, you can print out wallets, on paper. http://localbitcoins.blogspot.fi/2012/11/start-your-own-money-press.html Your wallet never has to be online, you can use external tools (e.g. blockchain.info) to check its state. If you use actual data wallets, encrypt them, back them up on a number of data media, store them in a safe place. You wouldn't carry 100 kUSD in your wallet on your person all the time, would you? From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 11 15:30:51 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:30:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365694251.47672.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >?Seriously, you can print out wallets, on paper. >?http://localbitcoins.blogspot.fi/2012/11/start-your-own-money-press.html Good advice, I think, Eugen. A friend of mine who intends to hold his coins for 10+ years plans to print them out and store them in a mason jar. He is going to bury the jar in his back yard, with some desiccant. I suggested he bury another jar containing a thumb-drive digital record of his coins, just in case. I read an article yesterday about some poor sap who had something like 7,000 coins on his hard drive. It crashed and he had no back up. Those coins today would be worth on the order of $1 million. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlatorra at gmail.com Thu Apr 11 16:26:41 2013 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:26:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365694251.47672.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> <1365694251.47672.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The Atlantic magazine Online has an interesting column about Bitcoin that aggregates opinions from many other sources. Bottom line consensus is that Bitcoin is more like a stock share than a currency. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/04/todays-bitcoin-crash-shows-why-its-not-really-currency/64100/ On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Gordon wrote: > > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > Seriously, you can print out wallets, on paper. > > > http://localbitcoins.blogspot.fi/2012/11/start-your-own-money-press.html > > Good advice, I think, Eugen. A friend of mine who intends to hold his > coins for 10+ years plans to print them out and store them in a mason jar. > He is going to bury the jar in his back yard, with some desiccant. I > suggested he bury another jar containing a thumb-drive digital record of > his coins, just in case. > > I read an article yesterday about some poor sap who had something like > 7,000 coins on his hard drive. It crashed and he had no back up. Those > coins today would be worth on the order of $1 million. > > Gordon > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Apr 11 19:49:09 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:49:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Gresham's Law?/was Re: Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365589921.21658.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365709749.86836.YahooMailNeo@web126201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:32 AM The Avantguardian wrote: > No not the way I see it. Of all the things driving the demand for > BTC right now, its usefulness as a currency is one of the least > significant. Right now it is a store value and little else. Um, the two are related in that what can be used as a store of value can usually be exchanged easily for other things. > Because of Gresham's Law, so long as fiat is capable of purchasing > particular goods and services, it will be used for such in preference > to bitcoin, precious metals, or other scarce commodities. That is what > gold bugs refuse to understand that is that scarce deflationary > commodity money does not circulate as much as fiat because people are > afraid to spend it. I don't see how a gold-based economy can achieve > any meaningful growth since the influx of gold does not create wealth > but simply dilutes it as happened in Spain after the conquest of the > Americas. Things are a bit more complicated. Gresham's Law really applies when people are forced at par to accept two monies -- usually because both are legally defined as equivalent, when they're not. But in a free market in currencies, Gresham's Law wouldn't apply and there'd more likely be a flight to quality as people would prefer to only receive the better quality (read: more highly valued) money in trade for anything. The inflation of currencies we've all seen and accept as business as usual is only in place because of legal tender laws.* I'd actually expect, absent such laws, and given enough time for people to reaquaint themselves with using commodity monies, foreign currencies (even in the US and the Eurozone), and other alternatives, people would tend to flee from inflated currencies to less inflated ones. (This doesn't mean merely getting rid of legal tender laws would solve all monetary problems -- at least the ones that might be solved through policy reform. There'd still be a huge nest of money and banking regulations and subsidies to remove. But it would be a good step to abolish legal tender laws to allow individuals to choose what currencies they wanted to use.) Regarding growth, considered as currency, any change in the currency supply does not create wealth -- whether an increase in silver (the more often used commodity currency in history; there was simply not as much gold**). What grows wealth is usually more production -- not meddling with or "fine-tuning" the money supply. Overall, though, fiat money inflation tends to have the net impact of redistributing wealth in a systematic manner to debtors, especially large debtors, who tend to benefit early from the inflation. (This seems to be why inflation has continued, with mainly fluctuations from slower to faster levels of inflation rather than no inflation, disinflation, or deflation under fiat money regimes. The biggest debtors in any national economy, after all, tend to be the state itself -- which controls the monetary authority directly*** -- and the biggest and best politically connected investors. This isn't to argue that they willingly inflate with foreknowledge of its impact. Rather, it's probably more a Darwinian process of the inflation approach winning out because it works so well -- i.e., has strong upfront incentives and the disincentives are delayed and hard to perceive and track: the losers tend to be late to the party and distributed, whereas the winners are early and concentrated.) Regards, Dan My science fiction short story "Residue" is now available at: ?http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BS3T0RM/ * And, in some cases, outright criminalization of rival currencies, especially during crises. Think of the German inflation, where foreign monies were outlawed. Why were they outlawed? If Gresham's Law applied, there'd be no need to outlaw them as people would have wanted to trade in the extremely low valued Mark over, say, the Swiss Franc or Dollar. ** And nothing wrong with having more than one commodity here, though problems arose when the state defines what's the right one -- why can't we switch or have many? -- and what ratio more than one will trade at. E.g., if both silver and gold are used and their relative prices don't fluctuate and the state then defines them as trading at that ratio and the relative price changes, this creates by decree a unstable money base. *** The fairy tale that monetary authorities, such as central banks, are independent is easy to dispel in two ways. One, ask who appoints those authorities. Two, look at the political business cycle, which tracks elections and central bank activity. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 12 11:51:19 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 04:51:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> <1365694251.47672.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1365767479.13544.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Michael LaTorra wrote: > The Atlantic magazine Online has an interesting column about Bitcoin that aggregates opinions from many other sources. Bottom line consensus is that Bitcoin is more like a stock share than a currency. I spent some dozen years of my life as a financial adviser. I advised my clients about their investments in stocks, bonds, options, precious metals, real estate and so on. I would say Bitcoin is more like a precious metal than a stock. It does however suffer from one important disadvantage vs. a precious metal that I have mentioned here a couple of times: unlike any given precious metal, there is in principle no limit to the number of digital currencies that can exist alongside Bitcoin. While any given Bitcoin-like currency is by design precious and scarce, digital currencies in general are not. Meanwhile, this market correction has turned into quite a rout. After flying as high as something like 266 USD, Bitcoin plummeted as low as about 65 USD. As I write this, it trades at about 77 USD. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 12 12:19:46 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:19:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365767479.13544.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> <1365694251.47672.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365767479.13544.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130412121946.GA15179@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 04:51:19AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Meanwhile, this market correction has turned into quite a rout. After > flying as high as something like 266 USD, Bitcoin plummeted as low as about > 65 USD. As I write this, it trades at about 77 USD. Time to buy, soon. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Apr 12 12:54:31 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:54:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Monkey babbling similar to human speech? Message-ID: <15C84BB8-BBB9-4F90-86E2-6380CF90DFB4@yahoo.com> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/04/post-29.html Source article: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S0960982213002091 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 12 17:44:06 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 19:44:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365767479.13544.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <20130411120823.GP6172@leitl.org> <1365694251.47672.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365767479.13544.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <516847E6.2060405@libero.it> Il 12/04/2013 13:51, Gordon ha scritto: > Meanwhile, this market correction has turned into quite a rout. After > flying as high as something like 266 USD, Bitcoin plummeted as low as > about 65 USD. As I write this, it trades at about 77 USD. It corrected 50% in august 2012. It corrected 96% in 2011 at the bottom after the bubble. But, for long term holders, it was always a good investment. Who bought in 2011 before the bubble had, at least, quadrupled its value at the following bottom. Who bough at this bottom had quadrupled at the bottom of the 2012 (8$ against a top of 15$). Now who bough at the bottom then have eight times more at this bottom of 50$ (or if it bough the top of 15$ he have four time more). Even who bough at the top of 2011 (324) have doubled now, at this bottom. I do not think anyone talked about a velveted cushioned smoothed travel from 1 cent of $ to 1.000.000$. As its bottom line grow, the swings should be less problematic. Now, its market cap is less than what Uncle Ben throw from his helicopter three times every day, all days, over the financial system to "stabilize it". Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 12 18:05:51 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:05:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> Il 11/04/2013 08:16, Gordon ha scritto: > Mirco, > >>> A correction in the market seems inevitable. What do you suppose might >>> trigger it? > >> It is underway today. > > So I see! > . >> Today a lot of weak hands was pruned. >> It is good. > > I think so, too. I'm still waiting for my trading account at mtgox.com > to be validated/funded. Glad to see I missed this correction. Me too. Just I miss the opportunity to arbitrate a bit. Or sell high and buy low. I hope the new site from ClarMoody with all the trading indicators will be online ASAP. Mirco From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 12 21:06:53 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin References: <20130403102838.GK6172@leitl.org> <1365020281.18022.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515CAB85.5050306@aleph.se> <1365030418.59329.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365071349.21531.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130404105302.GY6172@leitl.org> <515DF4F5.5070205@libero.it> <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> Message-ID: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Gold and other precious metals are also getting hurt, with gold breaking down through a key support level. Given the theoretical similarities between Bitcoin and precious metals, this is probably only partly a coincidence. Gold Sinks into Bear Territory http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578418551548370608.html Gordon From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 13 13:18:42 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:18:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 02:06:53PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Gold and other precious metals are also getting hurt, with gold breaking down through a key support level. Given the theoretical similarities between Bitcoin and precious metals, this is probably only partly a coincidence. Gold is not an investment, it's a hedge against against hyperinflation. This is where you're interested in return of (at least parts) of your investment. The bets on Bitcoin are on its utility as a transfer currency, which is unrelated to short-term animal spirits (fear and greed). > Gold Sinks into Bear Territory > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578418551548370608.html From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 14 02:51:15 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:51:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> References: <1365123289.124.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <515F1BE0.1040501@libero.it> <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, > Gold is not an investment, it's a hedge against? > against hyperinflation. This is where you're interested > in return of (at least parts) of your investment. Bitcoin is also a hedge against hyperinflation. Like gold, when the supply of fiat currency inflates, bitcoins will become more valuable in terms of that fiat currency. > The bets on Bitcoin are on its utility as a transfer > currency, which is unrelated to short-term animal > spirits (fear and greed). The spectacular rally in BTC and subsequent crash suggest that fear and greed have everything to do with it. As Stuart pointed out, rightly I think, Bitcoin is currently seen more as a store of value than as a real currency. The built-in scarcity of bitcoins over time make them comparable to physical coins or tokens made of a precious metal. To extent that these virtual coins are comparable to real coins made of precious metals, we can expect them to trade like them.? Consider Bitcoin as a sort of hybrid: part currency, part virtual precious metal. Gordon From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 14 08:28:48 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:28:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 07:51:15PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Eugen, > > > Gold is not an investment, it's a hedge against? > > > against hyperinflation. This is where you're interested > > in return of (at least parts) of your investment. > > Bitcoin is also a hedge against hyperinflation. Like gold, when the supply of fiat currency inflates, bitcoins will become more valuable in terms of that fiat currency. Gold works offline and has a human history of many kiloyears. Bitcoin cann well be gone in a decade. Or not. > > The bets on Bitcoin are on its utility as a transfer > > currency, which is unrelated to short-term animal > > spirits (fear and greed). > > The spectacular rally in BTC and subsequent crash suggest that fear and greed have everything to do with it. Yes, the short-term animal spirits. We, here, know better, hopefully. > > As Stuart pointed out, rightly I think, Bitcoin is currently seen more as a store of value than as a real currency. The built-in scarcity of bitcoins over time make them comparable to physical coins or tokens made of a precious metal. To extent that these virtual coins are comparable to real coins made of precious metals, we can expect them to trade like them.? > > Consider Bitcoin as a sort of hybrid: part currency, part virtual precious metal. I don't really care how it's classified. It is useful already, and will become more useful if the volatility goes down. 20% of all bitcoins changed hands in the last few days, with about 200 MUSD volume. This suggests this is no longer a geek playground. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 14 09:30:06 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 02:30:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1365931806.26601.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, > Gold works offline and has a human history of many kiloyears. > Bitcoin cann well be gone in a decade. Or not. For purposes of our discussion here, I assume Bitcoin is here to stay.? I might not have thought so but for its?meteoric?rise in recent months. Even the recent crash lends it some credibility, as it did not?evaporate?entirely. As an old veteran of the financial markets, the action looks familiar to me.? I learned that the Vicklevoss twins, the supposed true fathers of Facebook, have an $11 million stake in bitcoins. I've learned also that venture capitalists are now investing even money into making the market more efficient. It looks a lot like gold, but for the 21st century. >> Consider Bitcoin as a sort of hybrid: part currency, part virtual precious metal. > I don't really care how it's classified. It is useful already, > and will become more useful if the volatility goes down. You should care how it is classified, as I do. I spent many years of my life as an investment adviser. I think it is wise for now to consider Bitcoin something like a cross between an ordinary currency and a precious metal. Gordon From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Apr 14 14:37:49 2013 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:37:49 +1000 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list Message-ID: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> I'm not sure that my posting of this link is appropriate, so feel free to moderate it away if it isn't. I'm posting it because I'd have wanted it pointed it out to me if I hadn't seen it. Added bonus of bitcoin being a hot topic on this list nowadays. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 14 15:22:11 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:22:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > I'm not sure that my posting of this link is appropriate, so feel free > to moderate it away if it isn't. I'm posting it because I'd have wanted > it pointed it out to me if I hadn't seen it. Added bonus of bitcoin > being a hot topic on this list nowadays. > > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 > Site is down at present. Been down for three hours. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 14 15:34:10 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:34:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:37:49AM +1000, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > I'm not sure that my posting of this link is appropriate, so feel free > to moderate it away if it isn't. I'm posting it because I'd have wanted > it pointed it out to me if I hadn't seen it. Added bonus of bitcoin > being a hot topic on this list nowadays. > > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 Can you tell us what this is about? Link is down. From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 14 16:01:05 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:01:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Can you tell us what this is about? Link is down. > Google cache here. It's about Hal Finney. BillK From brian at posthuman.com Sun Apr 14 15:41:18 2013 From: brian at posthuman.com (Brian Atkins) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:41:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <516ACE1E.9050406@posthuman.com> On 4/14/2013 10:34 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:37:49AM +1000, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: >> I'm not sure that my posting of this link is appropriate, so feel free >> to moderate it away if it isn't. I'm posting it because I'd have wanted >> it pointed it out to me if I hadn't seen it. Added bonus of bitcoin >> being a hot topic on this list nowadays. >> >> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 > > Can you tell us what this is about? Link is down. A thread begun recently by Hal Finney talking about the beginning of Bitcoin with Satoshi among other subjects. Definitely worth a read once the site is back. From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Apr 14 15:49:03 2013 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:49:03 +1000 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> On 15/04/13 01:34, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:37:49AM +1000, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: >> I'm not sure that my posting of this link is appropriate, so feel free >> to moderate it away if it isn't. I'm posting it because I'd have wanted >> it pointed it out to me if I hadn't seen it. Added bonus of bitcoin >> being a hot topic on this list nowadays. >> >> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 > > Can you tell us what this is about? Link is down. Bummer. I should have saved it. It is a post by Hal Finney about his story with Bitcoin and ALS which includes a status update. Or at least an update for me since I hadn't heard from him since he announced his ALS diagnosis in 2009. From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Apr 14 17:52:53 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 12:52:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > It is a post by Hal Finney about his story with Bitcoin and ALS which "For those who don't know me, I'm Hal Finney. I got my start in crypto working on an early version of PGP, working closely with Phil Zimmermann. When Phil decided to start PGP Corporation, I was one of the first hires. I would work on PGP until my retirement. At the same time, I got involved with the Cypherpunks. I ran the first cryptographically based anonymous remailer, among other activities." "When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them." ""Speaking of heirs, I got a surprise in 2009, when I was suddenly diagnosed with a fatal disease. .. My body began to fail. I slurred my speech, lost strength in my hands, and my legs were slow to recover. In August, 2009, I was given the diagnosis of ALS, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, after the famous baseball player who got it. Today, I am essentially paralyzed. I am fed through a tube, and my breathing is assisted through another tube. I operate the computer using a commercial eyetracker system. It also has a speech synthesizer, so this is my voice now. I spend all day in my power wheelchair. I worked up an interface using an arduino so that I can adjust my wheelchair's position using my eyes." He also spoke up in 2009: http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-August/052656.html - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From ginakathleenmiller at gmail.com Sun Apr 14 17:28:09 2013 From: ginakathleenmiller at gmail.com (Gina Miller) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:28:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: Do you know if he is still on our Extropy email list? On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > On 15/04/13 01:34, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:37:49AM +1000, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > >> I'm not sure that my posting of this link is appropriate, so feel free > >> to moderate it away if it isn't. I'm posting it because I'd have wanted > >> it pointed it out to me if I hadn't seen it. Added bonus of bitcoin > >> being a hot topic on this list nowadays. > >> > >> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 > > > > Can you tell us what this is about? Link is down. > > Bummer. I should have saved it. > > It is a post by Hal Finney about his story with Bitcoin and ALS which > includes a status update. Or at least an update for me since I hadn't > heard from him since he announced his ALS diagnosis in 2009. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Apr 14 19:13:35 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:13:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Gina Miller wrote: > Do you know if he is still on our Extropy email list? According to this page the answer is yes: http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/roster.cgi/extropy-chat - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Apr 14 22:22:44 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:22:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> Il 14/04/2013 10:28, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > Gold works offline and has a human history of many kiloyears. Bitcoin > can well be gone in a decade. Or not. As all human things it will die a day. But the resiliency and endurance of Bitcoin are dependent on the community that own and use it. Larger the community, larger the investment in Bitcoin the individuals have, stronger the incentive to keep Bitcoin going. Bitcoin, as gold, have a monetary value (as a mean of indirect exchange) because a (very large) group of people accept it and we believe they will accept it in the future in exchange for goods and services. >>> The bets on Bitcoin are on its utility as a transfer currency, >>> which is unrelated to short-term animal spirits (fear and greed). >>> >> The spectacular rally in BTC and subsequent crash suggest that fear >> and greed have everything to do with it. > Yes, the short-term animal spirits. We, here, know better, > hopefully. I do not believe in "animal spirits". Talking and thinking in term of "animal spirits" is to reject rationality and logic in economic matters. It is thinking people just only react and never act and think ahead. And support the idea someone can and must manage their reactions for "The Greater Good". >> As Stuart pointed out, rightly I think, Bitcoin is currently seen >> more as a store of value than as a real currency. The quality "store of value" is not binary. Bitcoin is seen as a better store of value than the fiat money and an easier and less costly store of value than gold and silver (or other less liquid goods like real estate, durable goods, etc.) People will prefer a currency as a store of value to another depending on the circumstances. For example many Bitcoiners have gold and silver (some at hand, some in vaults outside their own government reach). But anyway, they have, for now, fiat also; some in cash and some in bank accounts. They just reduced their exposition to the fiat risks, the bank risks, etc. moving to bitcoin, gold, silver. >> Consider Bitcoin as a sort of hybrid: part currency, part virtual >> precious metal. > I don't really care how it's classified. It is useful already, and > will become more useful if the volatility goes down. > 20% of all bitcoins changed hands in the last few days, with about > 200 MUSD volume. This suggests this is no longer a geek playground. I suppose Mr. Nakamoto sais. "I have a mustard seed and I'm not afraid to use it". Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 14 22:48:21 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:48:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 11:22 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > I do not believe in "animal spirits". > Talking and thinking in term of "animal spirits" is to reject > rationality and logic in economic matters. > After the disasters of recent years, if you still think rationality and logic have much connection to the financial markets, then you're in the wrong business. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 15 04:59:23 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:59:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Gina Miller wrote: > Do you know if he is still on our Extropy email list? Ja, I am showing Hal as still receiving Extropy chat. I haven't heard from him in a long time. Gina it has been a long time since we heard from you too. Welcome back young lady! {8-] I do hope all is well with you. Happy 106th birthday Leonard Euler! I try to imagine what emotions must Euler have felt when he discovered that e^i*pi = -1. That must have been such a mind-blowing discovery. It is astonishing enough to learn of it today, but what must it have been like to be the first person to discover it? It would surely have been insufficient to simply sit in a chair and laugh. One would need to physically get down on the floor and howl at the enormity of the joke nature has played on us. Mrs. Euler would surely have thought it most puzzling. spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 15 07:43:13 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:43:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: <1366011793.66010.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> >>>> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833 > >>> Can you tell us what this is about? Link is down. > >> Bummer. I should have saved it. > > The link worked just now for me. I remember Hal. Sorry to hear about his ALS. It seems Hal might be one of the few people who actually corresponded privately with the mysterious Satoshi figure. > -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Apr 15 09:55:17 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:55:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> On 2013-04-15 06:59, spike wrote: > Happy 106th birthday Leonard Euler! Indeed. > I try to imagine what emotions must Euler have felt when he discovered that > e^i*pi = -1. That must have been such a mind-blowing discovery. It is > astonishing enough to learn of it today, but what must it have been like to > be the first person to discover it? In "Euler: the Master of Us All" William Dunham writes that he concluded his proof of he de Moivre formula with evident satisfaction in his Introductio in analysin infinitorum. However, http://www.maa.org/editorial/euler/How%20Euler%20Did%20It%2040%20Greatest%20Hits.pdf makes a argument that he might have known the formula long before (in 1729), likely having learned it from Johann Bernouilli. There is more sleuthing at http://www.maa.org/editorial/euler/how%20euler%20did%20it%2046%20e%20pi%20and%20i.pdf Dunham's book is great fun, because it shows just how wild Euler's approach was. This was no holds barred math, long before boring epsilon-delta formalists made calculus tame and safe. Infinite degree polynomials! Sums of products of sums! Limits nobody would expect to converge! -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 15 13:02:13 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:02:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] news about old member of the list In-Reply-To: <1366011793.66010.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <1366011793.66010.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130415130213.GU15179@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:43:13AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > The link worked just now for me. I remember Hal. Sorry to hear about his > ALS. It seems Hal might be one of the few people who actually corresponded > privately with the mysterious Satoshi figure. Satoshi was communicative enough http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=bitcoin-list&max_rows=25&style=nested&viewmonth=200901 I don't see how 'private' and 'mysterious' matter. There is a very good reason to release source anonymously. And it would be kinda pointless to leak info about your nym, wouldn't it. From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 15 13:31:13 2013 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:31:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> Message-ID: <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Anders Sandberg > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Cc: > Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 2:55 AM > Subject: [ExI] Euler day ? Spike writes: >> I try to imagine what emotions must Euler have felt when he discovered that >> e^i*pi = -1.? That must have been such a mind-blowing discovery.? It is >> astonishing enough to learn of it today, but what must it have been like to >> be the first person to discover it? Anders writes: ? > Dunham's book is great fun, because it shows just how wild Euler's > approach was. This was no holds barred math, long before boring epsilon-delta > formalists made calculus tame and safe. Infinite degree polynomials! Sums of > products of sums! Limits nobody would expect to converge! > I concur. I have heard it said that mathematical?discoveries are named after the second person to prove them?lest almost every theorem?be named after Euler. :-) Stuart LaForge ? "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 15 15:14:25 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:14:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> Message-ID: <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> Il 15/04/2013 00:48, BillK ha scritto: > On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 11:22 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> I do not believe in "animal spirits". >> Talking and thinking in term of "animal spirits" is to reject >> rationality and logic in economic matters. >> > > > After the disasters of recent years, if you still think rationality > and logic have much connection to the financial markets, then you're > in the wrong business. I work in a psychiatric ward, so I feel at home everywhere. Anyway, the behaviors of the economic actors (protagonists and anonymous guys and girls) is rational. Their behavior can be explained with ignorance, stupidity, avidity, selfishness, but not with with "animal spirits" possessing them. You are free to not agree with me but, then, explain what animal spirit govern you. Are you the only without an animal spirit? Mirco From anders at aleph.se Mon Apr 15 15:40:16 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:40:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> On 15/04/2013 15:31, The Avantguardian wrote: > Anders writes: >> Dunham's book is great fun, because it shows just how wild Euler's >> approach was. This was no holds barred math, long before boring epsilon-delta >> formalists made calculus tame and safe. Infinite degree polynomials! Sums of >> products of sums! Limits nobody would expect to converge! >> > I concur. I have heard it said that mathematical discoveries are named after the second person to prove them lest almost every theorem be named after Euler. :-) One cool thing with Euler is that he often gave several different proofs of the same theorem, probably because he knew his methods were not always correct. And his proofs were often *very* different in style - this robustness-increasing method (which I *strongly* favor - see http://www.gwern.net/The%20Existential%20Risk%20of%20Mathematical%20Error ) is somewhat work-intensive, and most of us have a hard time making uncorrelated proofs. But Euler could. So in a sense many theorems should be called the "Euler-Euler-Euler theorem" since he was the first to prove it in utterly different ways. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 15 16:39:50 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:39:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> Message-ID: <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco, >Anyway, the behaviors of the economic actors (protagonists and anonymous >guys and girls) is rational. Their behavior can be explained with >ignorance, stupidity, avidity, selfishness, but not with with "animal >spirits" possessing them. "Animal spirits" is merely an archaic term used by Maynard Keynes to describe ordinary human fear and greed. Keynesian thought dominated economics from about WWII up until about the late 70s.?Keynesian thought then?fell out of favor, due mainly to the work of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, but it has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 15 16:52:22 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:52:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 09:39:50AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > "Animal spirits" is merely an archaic term used by Maynard Keynes to > describe ordinary human fear and greed. Keynesian thought dominated economics > from about WWII up until about the late 70s.?Keynesian thought then?fell out > of favor, due mainly to the work of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of > Economics, but it has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. You're describing investment schools of thought. I was talking about how dumb money actually operates. These features are timeless. From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 15 16:47:24 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:47:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> Message-ID: <000801ce39f8$e89dc750$b9d955f0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Euler day On 15/04/2013 15:31, The Avantguardian wrote: > Anders writes: ... >...So in a sense many theorems should be called the "Euler-Euler-Euler theorem" since he was the first to prove it in utterly different ways. -- Anders Sandberg, _______________________________________________ Unrelated aside: I had intended to give my son the middle name Euler. At the hospital the day before his birth, I decided to try an experiment. I wrote the name on a piece of paper and asked four people at Stanford Pediatric how they would pronounce the name. All four said YOU-ler. So, no. Damn. {8-[ spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 15 16:38:08 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:38:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > One cool thing with Euler is that he often gave several different proofs of > the same theorem, probably because he knew his methods were not always > correct. And his proofs were often *very* different in style - this > robustness-increasing method (which I *strongly* favor - see > http://www.gwern.net/The%20Existential%20Risk%20of%20Mathematical%20Error ) > is somewhat work-intensive, and most of us have a hard time making > uncorrelated proofs. But Euler could. > > So in a sense many theorems should be called the "Euler-Euler-Euler theorem" > since he was the first to prove it in utterly different ways. > Spike omitted to mention ........... "How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb?" "-e^i*pi". (which, of course, equals 1). BillK From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 15 15:30:39 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:30:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 4:14 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Anyway, the behaviors of the economic actors (protagonists and anonymous > guys and girls) is rational. Their behavior can be explained with > ignorance, stupidity, avidity, selfishness, but not with with "animal > spirits" possessing them. > > You are free to not agree with me but, then, explain what animal spirit > govern you. Are you the only without an animal spirit? > > I think there is a contextual misunderstanding here. In English literary history, the phrase "animal spirits" doesn't mean literally being possessed by the spirit of an animal. It refers to a famous quotation. See: for the full history of the phrase. BillK From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 15 17:27:23 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:27:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > You're describing investment schools of thought. I was talking about how dumb? > money actually operates. These features are timeless. Many economists would disagree that the concept of "dumb money" has any meaning. According to some, the markets always behave rationally and/or efficiently, as per the Efficient Market Hypothesis. I thought Mirco wanted to argue along those lines, but he also recognized in his last post that "selfishness" (greed) is a factor.? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 15 17:47:38 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:47:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <1365224349.9820.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1365409044.55740.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51632644.50602@libero.it> <1365549490.23444.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <5165A9D9.7000000@libero.it> <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> Message-ID: <004001ce3a01$52ad7200$f8085600$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK >...I think there is a contextual misunderstanding here. In English literary history, the phrase "animal spirits" doesn't mean literally being possessed by the spirit of an animal. It refers to a famous quotation. See: for the full history of the phrase. BillK _______________________________________________ EXCELLENT BillK, thanks. Since Wodehouse used it, and I am among his biggest fans, I now get it. Wodehouse is one of your lads, by the way, British to the core, and a fine example. I consider him the British counterpart of our Mark Twain for causing me delightful mirth. An American equivalent to animal spirits would be a popular saying, "...do SOMETHING, even if it's wrong!" spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 15 17:12:32 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:12:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: <000801ce39f8$e89dc750$b9d955f0$@rainier66.com> References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> <000801ce39f8$e89dc750$b9d955f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:47 PM, spike wrote: > Unrelated aside: I had intended to give my son the middle name Euler. At > the hospital the day before his birth, I decided to try an experiment. I > wrote the name on a piece of paper and asked four people at Stanford > Pediatric how they would pronounce the name. All four said YOU-ler. So, > no. Damn. {8-[ > > Wikepedia says the nearest English equivalent of the German pronunciation is "Oiler" So I doubt if you would prefer that. :) BillK From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Apr 15 19:07:21 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:07:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> <000801ce39f8$e89dc750$b9d955f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366052841.326.YahooMailNeo@web126202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I would think this right and not just because German is the language I probably speak second-best, after English*, but think of how "Freud" is pronounced even in English. Regards, Dan * Which means my German is really awful. But then you should hear my attempts at French. :) From: BillK To: ExI chat list Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 1:12 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Euler day On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:47 PM, spike wrote: > Unrelated aside: I had intended to give my son the middle name Euler.? At > the hospital the day before his birth, I decided to try an experiment.? I > wrote the name on a piece of paper and asked four people at Stanford > Pediatric how they would pronounce the name.? All four said YOU-ler.? So, > no.? Damn.? {8-[ Wikepedia says the nearest English equivalent of the German pronunciation is "Oiler" So I doubt if you would prefer that.? :) BillK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 15 19:41:00 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:41:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Euler day In-Reply-To: References: <516ABF3D.8080509@organicrobot.com> <20130414153410.GI15179@leitl.org> <516ACFEF.1050702@organicrobot.com> <00b601ce3995$ff994c30$fecbe490$@rainier66.com> <516BCE85.9060202@aleph.se> <1366032673.69492.YahooMailNeo@web160503.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <516C1F60.90409@aleph.se> <000801ce39f8$e89dc750$b9d955f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006901ce3a11$29b2ecd0$7d18c670$@rainier66.com> On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Euler day On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:47 PM, spike wrote: > >... asked four > people at Stanford Pediatric how they would pronounce the name. All > four said YOU-ler. So, no. Damn. {8-[ > > >...Wikepedia says the nearest English equivalent of the German pronunciation is "Oiler" >...So I doubt if you would prefer that. :) >...BillK _______________________________________________ I have always heard it pronounced Oiler. So ja, I would prefer that. Euler has been on my top five list of greatest heroes since my misspent childhood. He discovered sooo many cool things, I just couldn't get enough stories about him and his work. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 15 22:58:03 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:58:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bees again Message-ID: <00af01ce3a2c$b0773ee0$1165bca0$@rainier66.com> This is a pretty good report, a bit alarming, perhaps intentionally. It goes from about 1:30 minutes to 14:40. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ5riRX1_3w The thing that struck me about all the video is in all of it, I never did see a hive which I would consider fully healthy. All of them looked more or less distressed to me. Granted my experience was 35 years ago primarily, so it is not necessarily a meaningful comparison, but I didn't see any hives covered with swarming bees, not one. When I visited a local community farm, I saw exactly one hive of approximately 60 that looked healthy. Those who are bee hipsters, take a few minutes and watch please, and comment if you wish. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 16 05:55:29 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:55:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bees again In-Reply-To: <00af01ce3a2c$b0773ee0$1165bca0$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01ce3a2c$b0773ee0$1165bca0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000901ce3a67$00bfb7d0$023f2770$@rainier66.com> >. On Behalf Of spike Subject: [ExI] bees again >.This is a pretty good report, a bit alarming, perhaps intentionally. It goes from about 1:30 minutes to 14:40. >.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ5riRX1_3w >.spike I had an idea related to my earlier urging you to not buy honey this year: do buy almonds. They will cost a lot this year, but my idea is this: if we go ahead and buy overpriced almonds, then the almond growers will be more able to borrow capital with their almond groves as surety for the loans. If so, they can use the borrowed money to invest in stationary hives. Then the almond growers would be less likely to extract honey, which would reduce risk from neonics in the honey-replacement syrup. In the meantime, I am thinking about what happens if the bee industry collapses and we need to rely for human nutrition on corn and oats for the caloric heavy lifting, with far lower fruit and nut crops. My estimate after the peak of blossom season is that the bee population locally was down more than an order of magnitude this year. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 16 06:44:29 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:44:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] bees again In-Reply-To: <000901ce3a67$00bfb7d0$023f2770$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01ce3a2c$b0773ee0$1165bca0$@rainier66.com> <000901ce3a67$00bfb7d0$023f2770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <516CF34D.9080606@aleph.se> On 16/04/2013 06:55, spike wrote: > > I had an idea related to my earlier urging you to not buy honey this > year: do buy almonds. They will cost a lot this year, but my idea is > this: if we go ahead and buy overpriced almonds, then the almond > growers will be more able to borrow capital with their almond groves > as surety for the loans. If so, they can use the borrowed money to > invest in stationary hives. Then the almond growers would be less > likely to extract honey, which would reduce risk from neonics in the > honey-replacement syrup. Ah, now we have a chance to get into a good, old-fashioned libertarian rage! Because this won't work, because of... government central planned economics. I kid you not. Take a look at http://www.almondboard.com/Handlers/HandlerServices/MarketingOrder/VolumeRegulation/Pages/Default.aspx The Almond Board is controlling the almond production as per a federal marketing order. They literally take a sizeable chunk of the production from growers, decide what the optimum price should be to have an "orderly" market, and sell it to that price. Growers are not allowed to just sell their production to whoever they want for whatever price they agree on. The Economist has some eye-opening articles about the raisin case: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/04/economist-explains-why-america-regulate-trade-raisins http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21574522-supreme-court-grapples-tiny-fruit-de-minimis-curat-lex So, in this case I think one can make a case that government planning is killing bees. Because I am pretty confident that this breaks the price mechanism that you mentioned: more almond sales will not lead to correspondingly higher prices that will allow the growers to have more bees. Rather, the board will dampen this effect (since this might be bad for the marzipan industry, or whatever). (The almond tree outside St. Mary's cathedral here in Oxford is *finally* blossoming. http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/2284705312/ I will check for bees, but in my experience Oxford bees are pretty indoorsy. In fact, some live in the lion's mouth: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/3604205031/ ). -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 16 08:50:35 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:50:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 10:27:23AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Many economists would disagree that the concept of "dumb money" has any meaning. > According to some, the markets always behave rationally and/or efficiently, > as per the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Thanks for the best laugh today. Dismal science at its best. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 16 09:39:10 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:39:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> References: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366105150.69032.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >?Thanks for the best laugh today. Dismal science at its best. Ha, Eugen! Yes, this is the dismal science. But it is a science. It's not just?folklore, as some might have it. It is a branch of the social sciences. It is a dismal social science that I am, perhaps unfortunately, studied in. I spent my education and a significant?of?part of my career and much of my hobby time on this dismal science of economics. I participate here now about Bitcoin only because I'm an old Extropian who respects the intelligence of people like you. By all other accounts, I should be talking to people in finance and investment.? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 16 11:10:18 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:10:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366105150.69032.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> <1366105150.69032.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Gordon wrote: > But it is a science. It's not just folklore, as some might have it. It is a > branch of the social sciences. > > It is a dismal social science that I am, perhaps unfortunately, studied in. > I spent my education and a significant of part of my career and much of my > hobby time on this dismal science of economics. > > Well, you would say that, wouldn't you? :) Some people disagree. See: ECONNED: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism Yves Smith Review, (one of many) here: Quote: What is currently taught as economics cannot possibly be described either as a science or even, for that matter, as a study of society. I make that assertion because the track record of economists in prediction is so poor that it is laughable for them to claim scientific status. This failure of predictive power has been pointed out over and again ? particularly after the failure of the bulk of the economics profession to predict the collapse of 2007/8. Not only is economics as currently taught not a science, it isn?t social either. For mainstream economists society is simply the aggregation, the adding together, of millions of individual economic actors and actions. All of these actors are assumed to be ?rational? ? a word which economists also use in a way that reflects their own prejudices ? a purely calculating and narrowly self interested mentality focused on short and long run material gratification, whose relationship to other economic actors is intrinsically competitive. Thus ?rational economic man? has no emotion, is part of no social psychological processes involving mutual influence, common hopes, beliefs and fears, no mutual support, no group or common class interests. Instead ?rational economic man? is a calculating machine, focused on maximising his satisfactions or ?utility?. ------ Pretty biting criticisms, in my non-economist opinion. BillK From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 16 16:40:27 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:40:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> <1366105150.69032.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366130427.98069.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> BillK wrote: >Some people disagree. >See: >ECONNED: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and >Corrupted Capitalism >Yves Smith Based the review you provided, I am probably more in agreement than disagreement with this author. I was in agreement with you, BillK (I think it was you) when you suggested in so many words to Mirco that the financial crisis of 2008 poked some holes into modern economic theory. The idea that economic actors should or can be considered at all times rational does not mesh well with the recent facts. This is also why I, like you, do not object to Eugen's use of the term "animal spirits".?? -Gordon ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 16 18:44:19 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:44:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> Il 15/04/2013 19:27, Gordon ha scritto: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> You're describing investment schools of thought. I was talking about how dumb >> money actually operates. These features are timeless. > Many economists would disagree that the concept of "dumb money" has any > meaning. In fact, who want "Smart money"? It would spend you instead of you spending it. > According to some, the markets always behave rationally and/or > efficiently, as per the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The Market allocate scarce resources using the market prices to signal scarcity or excess of production, allowing the coordination of the different lines of production. Sometimes, the best allocation of resources is to store them away for the winter or unexpected surprises. But this do not like to our overlords, as they see all these as THEIR idle resources. > I thought Mirco > wanted to argue along those lines, but he also recognized in his last > post that "selfishness" (greed) is a factor. The point of Keynes to talk about "Animal Spirits" was to have people think it was possible to manipulate people to repress their bear spirit and unchain their bull spirit. Unfortunately it is impossible to have people doing something against their will and interest for a long time. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 16 19:01:08 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:01:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366130427.98069.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> <1366105150.69032.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366130427.98069.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <516D9FF4.1080707@libero.it> Il 16/04/2013 18:40, Gordon ha scritto: > I was in agreement with you, BillK (I think it was you) when you > suggested in so many words to Mirco that the financial crisis of 2008 > poked some holes into modern economic theory. In fact, modern MAINSTEAM economic theory is archaic it resemble more to astrology than astronomy. Mainstream economist not even think of men as rational/logic/efficient economic actors in the market. They threat them, with their equations, like billiard balls. So they think they will be able to manipulate them in doing what they think right and good. > The idea that economic > actors should or can be considered at all times rational does not mesh > well with the recent facts. This is also why I, like you, do not object > to Eugen's use of the term "animal spirits". The problem their actions are subjectively rational, given the limited ability to obtain informations, process them and act on the results. When interest rates drop and loans cost less, it is not strange the general population act rationally increasing the quantity of debts and reducing the quantity of savings. Given their goals, time horizon, upbringing, education, etc. they are acting rationally. Not all people have the time, will and inclination to take a step back, learn, criticize and understand the long term effects of a reduction of interest rates under the level freely set by the market. Not even many economists, because they just regurgitate memorized talking point and notions. Mirco From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 16 19:52:39 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:52:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bees again In-Reply-To: <516CF34D.9080606@aleph.se> References: <00af01ce3a2c$b0773ee0$1165bca0$@rainier66.com> <000901ce3a67$00bfb7d0$023f2770$@rainier66.com> <516CF34D.9080606@aleph.se> Message-ID: <009501ce3adb$f42aaf50$dc800df0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 11:44 PM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] bees again On 16/04/2013 06:55, spike wrote: >>.I had an idea related to my earlier urging you to not buy honey this year: do buy almonds. They will cost a lot this year, but my idea is this: if we go ahead and buy overpriced almonds, then the almond growers will be more able to borrow capital with their almond groves as surety for the loans. If so, they can use the borrowed money to invest in stationary hives. Then the almond growers would be less likely to extract honey, which would reduce risk from neonics in the honey-replacement syrup. >.Ah, now we have a chance to get into a good, old-fashioned libertarian rage! Because this won't work, because of... government central planned economics. >.I kid you not. Take a look at http://www.almondboard.com/Handlers/HandlerServices/MarketingOrder/VolumeReg ulation/Pages/Default.aspx The Almond Board is controlling the almond production as per a federal marketing order. They literally take a sizeable chunk of the production from growers, decide what the optimum price should be to have an "orderly" market, and sell it to that price. -- >.Anders Sandberg, Ja Anders you may be right under ordinary circumstances, but with a sufficiently low supply of almonds, all bets are off. I think most of what you cite above are supports to prevent the price of almonds from dropping too low. But clearly the government cannot stop the price from going arbitrarily high, if the demand is there and the supply sufficiently low. There is no legal structure to prevent a farmer from selling their products for whatever the market will bear. The almond growers have a kind of a loose confederation, a co-op of sorts, where they have even made commercials together, urging the proles to devour almonds. Their catch phrase: "A can a week, that's all we ask." They made some funny advertisements, almond growers buried up to his neck in almonds, uttering the catch phrase. But if there are massive almond crop failures, then the price goes crazy and the co-op breaks down, for anyone who manages to make almonds will toss their compatriots to the wind and go for maximum profit. If you decide to do your own consumer-level political activism, here's an idea for you: since almonds will keep for a long time, just go ahead and buy a bunch of them now, while the price is low. That way the shelves get emptied sooner, so that the coming skyrocketing price will happen sooner because of limited supply. Then a year from now or more, when regular almond devourers are missing their favorite snack, you bring out your horded supply and appear generous indeed. Give them away next year as Newtonmas gifts, and perhaps the year after that. I think almonds have a couple years shelf life, longer if unopened. Wrap them with a note inside "Bee kind, don't buy honey" or something to that effect. There is a transhumanist angle to all this, which I will share later, gotta run. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 16 20:54:58 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:54:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> Message-ID: <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco Romanato wrote: >>> You're describing investment schools of thought. I was talking about how dumb >>> money actually operates. These features are timeless. >> Many economists would disagree that the concept of "dumb money" has any >> meaning. > In fact, who want "Smart money"? > It would spend you instead of you spending it. :) On this subject, while it seems obvious to our intuitions that there must exist "smart money" and "dumb money" (savvy and not-savvy investors), it is difficult to identify either. Studies show that professional money managers who outperform the US stockmarket in year 1 are no more likely to outperform in year 2 than those who underperformed in year 1. In fact, after expenses, the majority of money managers underperform an unmanaged index fund, suggesting that expertise buys nothing after accounting for transaction costs. ? I do not believe the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is the final truth about the market, but it does nonetheless seem to be a close approximation of it. Significant anomalies?are infrequent, and those which are common are relatively unimportant in practical terms. In many cases they can be explained with a broader definition of "risk". For example, one study showed that small cap stocks traded over the counter offer a slightly better than average risk-adjusted return, an?apparent?anomaly to EMH. But what is a risk-adjusted return? According to EMH, risk is defined as beta (roughly speaking, the volatility of the asset price relative to the general market). Beta is not however the true and final measure of risk. It is merely a convenient proxy for it. In the case of small cap stocks, the spread between the bid and the ask prices are often quite high in percentage terms. These wide spreads represent a real additional risk not accounted for in EMH. It is very likely that after adjusting for this additional risk, the apparent anomaly disappears.? I think the pursuit of alpha (returns in excess of the market, adjusted for risk) is an almost but perhaps not completely futile endeavor, at least in large highly liquid markets like the US stockmarket. Small emerging markets like that for Bitcoin offer better opportunities for alpha, at least in theory, as they are still in their infancy and probably not very efficient. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 18 17:32:33 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:32:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin Message-ID: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> GIMPS is an organized search for the record prime number, but it occurred to me that it is kinda sorta like a prototype of bitcoin. Imagine you have a hardcore math buddy who would give an absurd amount of money to be on the same short list with Mersenne, Euler, Cataldi, and those kinds of cats, guys who have always been indistinguishable from god to your math buddy, but not so much to you. Rich and famous? You like rich, but don't care about famous, at least not in that. So if you are running GIMPS because she thought it was cool, and consequently discovered the next Mersenne prime, it makes sense to me to contact your buddy and tell her you found one and will sell it to her for say, 50k, along with an agreement to say nothing about it after the sale. Likewise, it makes sense to me that your math buddy would put out the word in the small community of people who care about this sort of silliness that she has a pile of money willing to buy a Mersenne prime should it be discovered. This situation is loosely analogous to Bitcoin, ja? Eugen, is it? We had a program running since 1995, waiting waiting waiting for someone to come along and modify it into something that makes actual money by some quasi-formal means, rather than the (I hope) imaginary scenario I describe above. I will be extremely annoyed (and yet paradoxically entertained and perhaps even titillated) if I learn that one or more of the GIMPS discoverers bought their way to godhood. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 18 18:17:16 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:17:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> Behalf Of spike Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin >. I will be extremely annoyed (and yet paradoxically entertained and perhaps even titillated) if I learn that one or more of the GIMPS discoverers bought their way to godhood. spike I feel the need to explain the titillated comment: There is not even any point in being a geek if one cannot be weird. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 18 20:28:06 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:28:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> On 18/04/2013 19:17, spike wrote: > > >... I will be extremely annoyed (and yet paradoxically entertained and > perhaps even titillated) if I learn that one or more of the GIMPS > discoverers bought their way to godhood... spike Now, a market for godhood sounds rather extropian. A market for honorary godhood may be a bad thing (it is supposed to be a honor), but it would be great for real godhood since no doubt the prices would come down as it was commoditized. > There is not even any point in being a geek if one cannot be weird. Yeah, mainstream geekery is so bland. Sometimes I feel like a hipster: "I was a transhumanist before it was cool!" Yesterday I gave a lecture to senior civil servants in the UK government. I was presented as a transhumanist and nobody raised an eyebrow, and afterwards several people said things straight out of our list discussions. If people in suit and tie can discuss bitcoin, skill uploads and big data tracking of changes in human nature over a glass of wine in the Churchill Room of the Treasury Department, then these ideas are no longer very weird. Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk about the future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can envision that seem remotely possible given current science? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Apr 18 20:42:22 2013 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:42:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] stem cells: new research results Message-ID: There is so much stem cell research going on these days that I rarely report on it anymore, but these two new results are particularly impressive. Perhaps I'm too easily impressed Recipe for large numbers of stem cells require only one ingredient http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uops-rfl041613.php and Mayo Clinic researchers discover that stem cell senescence drives aging http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/mc-mcr041513.php Best Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 18 21:28:48 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:28:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <002301ce3c7b$b7557c80$26007580$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg . There is not even any point in being a geek if one cannot be weird. Yeah, mainstream geekery is so bland. >.Sometimes I feel like a hipster: "I was a transhumanist before it was cool!" Anders, I feel like a hipster for having been friends with you BEFORE you were a professor. >. these ideas are no longer very weird. Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk about the future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can envision that seem remotely possible given current science? -- Anders Sandberg, Agreed. We need to further explore a concept I mentioned a couple weeks ago: the use of currently available mobile bandwidth to Borg ourselves. So far the capability has mostly been used in gaming, but even that is encouraging: so many important business and societal advancement starts out with gaming. In a sense the Mersenne prime search was just a game, at least for those of us who take it seriously. I wanted that particular proto-bitcoin, my own Mersenne prime. I would have paid about the price of a new midsized car for one. We need to think of some kind of task, even if it is a made-up gamey kind of thing, for demonstration purposes, where we get people to sign up with some kind of pooled ability of some sort. Then we create this big smeared out super-organism that goes around communicating in some cryptic way and getting that task done. For instance, suppose there is some kind of noxious weed, where we learn to identify that and report its location, then yank it up for instance. We get reputation points or something for scoring that weed. Other ideas? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 18 22:27:26 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:27:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 9:28 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk about the > future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can envision > that seem remotely possible given current science? > > At first sight, my suggestion might not sound very weird, but the implications....... A society where all the men look like 25 year old handsome fit athletes and all the women look like 21 year old film starlets. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Apr 18 23:46:01 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:46:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 2:17 PM, spike wrote: >>? I will be extremely annoyed (and yet paradoxically entertained and >> perhaps even titillated) if I learn that one or more of the GIMPS >> discoverers bought their way to godhood? spike > > I feel the need to explain the titillated comment: > > There is not even any point in being a geek if one cannot be weird. > In that case, there is no need to explain :) From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Apr 18 23:49:19 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:49:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk about the > future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can envision > that seem remotely possible given current science? Telekinesis enabled by thinking to the cloud-controlled utility fog? Unfortunately that will probably end up being a crowdsourced interest weighted by how impactful your use of the fog is vs. the desired outcome of the crowd. So much magic is negated by the lack of consensus. :( From atymes at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 02:46:04 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:46:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk about > the > > future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can envision > > that seem remotely possible given current science? > > Telekinesis enabled by thinking to the cloud-controlled utility fog? > Drone human bodies, for rent by disembodied intelligences. And that's barely trying. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 19 05:48:25 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:48:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5170DAA9.5030205@aleph.se> On 19/04/2013 03:46, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Mike Dougherty > wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Anders Sandberg > wrote: > > Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk > about the > > future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can > envision > > that seem remotely possible given current science? > > Telekinesis enabled by thinking to the cloud-controlled utility fog? > > > Drone human bodies, for rent by disembodied intelligences. > And that's barely trying. So what do you get when you try to be weird? One idea that has been rattling around my head: another core system. Kinzler and Spelke have argued that we have a few evolved "core systems" in the brain that handle objects, agents, number, geometric properties and maybe social relations rapidly and efficiently. What if we added a core system for dynamical systems theory, making us able to "see" bifurcations, attractor states, and do chaos control? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 06:18:06 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:18:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <5170DAA9.5030205@aleph.se> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <5170DAA9.5030205@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 10:48 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > On 19/04/2013 03:46, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > And that's barely trying. > > > So what do you get when you try to be weird? > When I seriously try, I beg, borrow, and steal what others have invented as a first pass, because it suffices most of the time. And so I shall here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarfishAliens -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 13:38:32 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:38:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Starships, San Diego, May 14, 21, 22 Message-ID: This starship conference might interest members near San Diego. So far as I can see there is no entrance fee, except parking charges, but you have to register in advance. The speakers list is rather impressive. The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination is hosting an inaugural public launch with a series of perspectives on the coming century. Day 1, on May 14, looks at the first third of this time ? 33 years, the timeframe between the creation and the proposed future of the book and movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Days 2 and 3 will address a century long project: to create a Starship. Speakers include some of the worlds leading scientists, technologists and science fiction authors, including: Peter Diamandis, Freeman Dyson, Joe Haldeman, Jill Tarter, David Brin, Neal Stephenson and others? BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 13:30:17 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:30:17 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <5170DAA9.5030205@aleph.se> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <5170DAA9.5030205@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > One idea that has been rattling around my head: another core system. Kinzler > and Spelke have argued that we have a few evolved "core systems" in the > brain that handle objects, agents, number, geometric properties and maybe > social relations rapidly and efficiently. What if we added a core system for > dynamical systems theory, making us able to "see" bifurcations, attractor > states, and do chaos control? We're going to need that core system update just to manage the multiple POV that happens every time we attempt to reintegrate a parallel-run fork of our identity/pattern. When you can be in two places at once, you may find yourself having "Tea" and "No-Tea" simultaneously. From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Apr 19 16:43:13 2013 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:43:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Book Event - reading/signing LA Message-ID: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> Does anyone have a suggestion on where to try to create a bookstore event for The Transhumanist Reader in LA? Some years ago mark Frauenfelder, Carla Sinclaire, Max, and I did a book event at a bookstore in Santa Monica. It was great fun. But, I've been out of LA for so long now, that I am out of the loop. I'm wonder if you all have some ideas on who to contact. I'm also wondering if there are enough transhumanists at UCLA or USC to put something together. I did email Peter Voss and Louise, and also the Futurist Salon, but I was told no one is doing book events any more. Kifuni is always a great place to link up, but books and food don't really mix well. Amy Li, on the board of Humanity+, was in LA, but she is now in SV. I'm drawing a blank. So --- if anyone has and ideas on how to get something happening to promote the book at a bookstore or university in LA area, please let me know! Thanks, Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD NEW Book: Co-Editor: The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and Classical Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell Pub.) Available at Amazon! Final Cover Design_email Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology Chairman, Humanity+ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 13790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Apr 19 17:43:44 2013 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:43:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Conference: Russia - SportAccord Convention and Mention of Transhumanism Message-ID: <00de01ce3d25$70a1f6b0$51e5e410$@natasha.cc> If we have any list members in Russia, I'll be speaking at the SportAccord 2013, Saint Petersburg, Russia http://sportaccordconvention.com/ and would love to get together! Here are speakers: http://www.sportaccordconvention.com/mobile.php?s=SPEAKERSSPEAKERS13 &t=PROGRAMME&l=79%3C=m Here is an article: http://www.sportspromedia.com/press_releases/uk_minister_to_speak_at_sportaccord_convention_2013_in_saint_petersburg Natasha Vita-More, PhD NEW Book: Co-Editor: The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and Classical Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell Pub.) Available at Amazon! Final Cover Design_email Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology Chairman, Humanity+ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 13790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From joshjob42 at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 20:26:22 2013 From: joshjob42 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:26:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Book Event - reading/signing LA In-Reply-To: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> References: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: Well, I am a graduate student at USC, but I don't know really any other transhumanists. There is a Less Wrong meetup though, so maybe they'd be willing to help? I don't know anything about organizing events, but just thought I should speak up. If you were going to do a bookstore, you might try Vromans in Pasadena (it's independent) or The Last Bookstore in Downtown (biggest used bookstore I've found, also a nice lobby area downstairs). -Joshua Job. On Apr 19, 2013 10:19 AM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: > Does anyone have a suggestion on where to try to create a bookstore event > for *The Transhumanist Reader* in LA?**** > > ** ** > > Some years ago mark Frauenfelder, Carla Sinclaire, Max, and I did a book > event at a bookstore in Santa Monica. It was great fun. But, I?ve been out > of LA for so long now, that I am out of the loop. I?m wonder if you all > have some ideas on who to contact. I?m also wondering if there are enough > transhumanists at UCLA or USC to put something together. I did email Peter > Voss and Louise, and also the Futurist Salon, but I was told no one is > doing book events any more. Kifuni is always a great place to link up, but > books and food don?t really mix well. Amy Li, on the board of Humanity+, > was in LA, but she is now in SV. I?m drawing a blank.**** > > ** ** > > So --- if anyone has and ideas on how to get something happening to > promote the book at a bookstore or university in LA area, please let me > know!**** > > ** ** > > Thanks,**** > > Natasha**** > > ** ** > > Natasha Vita-More, PhD **** > > *NEW* Book: Co-Editor:* **The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and > Classical Essays on the > Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell > Pub.) Available at Amazon! > ***** > > [image: Final Cover Design_email]**** > > *Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology* > > *Chairman, Humanity+ > > * > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 13790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 23:14:23 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:14:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:32 AM, spike wrote: > GIMPS is an organized search for the record prime number, but it occurred > to me that it is kinda sorta like a prototype of bitcoin. Imagine you have > a hardcore math buddy who would give an absurd amount of money to be on the > same short list with Mersenne, Euler, Cataldi, and those kinds of cats, > guys who have always been indistinguishable from god to your math buddy, > but not so much to you. Rich and famous? You like rich, but don?t care > about famous, at least not in that. So if you are running GIMPS because > she thought it was cool, and consequently discovered the next Mersenne > prime, it makes sense to me to contact your buddy and tell her you found > one and will sell it to her for say, 50k, along with an agreement to say > nothing about it after the sale. > Algorithmically, there is a big difference. If I tell you that the shah hash of 80934875179832740981723723984710721 is 100000000000000000000000001, (it isn't, just an example) you can verify that fact by hashing it yourself and verifying the fact in way under a millisecond of compute time. If you tell me that 80934875179832740981723723984710721 is prime, I have to go through the same work verifying the fact that you did figuring it out in the first place (except that I don't have to also check all the other numbers that you think aren't prime along the way). When the numbers are large enough (like what GIMP works on, this is a nontrivial check. The ability to have a huge amount of work required to find the excessively weird case, but a trivial amount of work to verify it is what makes Bitcoin work. I wish the same were true of finding and verifying prime numbers, because they are useful for other things (just like gold is useful for manufacturing)... -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cvanderwall14 at gmail.com Fri Apr 19 18:21:05 2013 From: cvanderwall14 at gmail.com (Christian Vanderwall) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:21:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Book Event - reading/signing LA In-Reply-To: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> References: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: The Los Angeles festival of books is happening this weekend on USC's campus. It might be a little late to get anything official organized but it is worth looking into. http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/contact/ Good Luck! Christian On Apr 19, 2013 10:19 AM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: > Does anyone have a suggestion on where to try to create a bookstore event > for *The Transhumanist Reader* in LA?**** > > ** ** > > Some years ago mark Frauenfelder, Carla Sinclaire, Max, and I did a book > event at a bookstore in Santa Monica. It was great fun. But, I?ve been out > of LA for so long now, that I am out of the loop. I?m wonder if you all > have some ideas on who to contact. I?m also wondering if there are enough > transhumanists at UCLA or USC to put something together. I did email Peter > Voss and Louise, and also the Futurist Salon, but I was told no one is > doing book events any more. Kifuni is always a great place to link up, but > books and food don?t really mix well. Amy Li, on the board of Humanity+, > was in LA, but she is now in SV. I?m drawing a blank.**** > > ** ** > > So --- if anyone has and ideas on how to get something happening to > promote the book at a bookstore or university in LA area, please let me > know!**** > > ** ** > > Thanks,**** > > Natasha**** > > ** ** > > Natasha Vita-More, PhD **** > > *NEW* Book: Co-Editor:* **The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and > Classical Essays on the > Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell > Pub.) Available at Amazon! > ***** > > [image: Final Cover Design_email]**** > > *Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology* > > *Chairman, Humanity+ > > * > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 13790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From max at maxmore.com Sat Apr 20 00:27:30 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:27:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Book Event - reading/signing LA In-Reply-To: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> References: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: So far as I know, the LA Future Salon is still going, now run by Peter Voss and Josie Roman. Yahoo Group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LAFuturists/ --Max On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Does anyone have a suggestion on where to try to create a bookstore event > for *The Transhumanist Reader* in LA?**** > > ** ** > > Some years ago mark Frauenfelder, Carla Sinclaire, Max, and I did a book > event at a bookstore in Santa Monica. It was great fun. But, I?ve been out > of LA for so long now, that I am out of the loop. I?m wonder if you all > have some ideas on who to contact. I?m also wondering if there are enough > transhumanists at UCLA or USC to put something together. I did email Peter > Voss and Louise, and also the Futurist Salon, but I was told no one is > doing book events any more. Kifuni is always a great place to link up, but > books and food don?t really mix well. Amy Li, on the board of Humanity+, > was in LA, but she is now in SV. I?m drawing a blank.**** > > ** ** > > So --- if anyone has and ideas on how to get something happening to > promote the book at a bookstore or university in LA area, please let me > know!**** > > ** ** > > Thanks,**** > > Natasha**** > > ** ** > > Natasha Vita-More, PhD **** > > *NEW* Book: Co-Editor:* **The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and > Classical Essays on the > Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell > Pub.) Available at Amazon! > ***** > > [image: Final Cover Design_email]**** > > *Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology* > > *Chairman, Humanity+ > > * > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* Kindle available now: http://www.amazon.com/The-Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-ebook/dp/B00BQZK6MU/ref=tmm_kin_title_0 President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 13790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Apr 20 00:23:37 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:23:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 4:14 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] proto-bitcoin On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:32 AM, spike wrote: >>.GIMPS is an organized search for the record prime number, but it occurred to me that it is kinda sorta like a prototype of bitcoin. >.The ability to have a huge amount of work required to find the excessively weird case, but a trivial amount of work to verify it is what makes Bitcoin work.-Kelly Thanks Kelly, I think you verified what I was saying to start with: that GIMPS is analogous to bitcoin. It is close enough for approximation purposes to say that there are about 30,000 average modern desktop computers dedicated to GIMPS and we get a new Mersenne prime about every three years or so on the average, so it works well enough to say that finding a Mersenne prime today takes about 100k computer years. If you find one, it takes about a month to verify it, so it takes about a millionth time to verify as it took to find. Bitcoin hipsters, does this sound about right? Your computer can verify a bitcoin genuine in about a millionth the computing time it took to mine the coin to start with? Or am I grossly misunderstanding Bitcoin? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 20 00:37:49 2013 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:37:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Book Event - reading/signing LA In-Reply-To: References: <00ae01ce3d1c$fc37b150$f4a713f0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <002a01ce3d5f$491e8f10$db5bad30$@natasha.cc> Great! Thank you. Natasha Vita-More, PhD NEW Book: Co-Editor: The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and Classical Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell Pub.) Available at Amazon! Final Cover Design_email Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology Chairman, Humanity+ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Christian Vanderwall Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 11:21 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Book Event - reading/signing LA The Los Angeles festival of books is happening this weekend on USC's campus. It might be a little late to get anything official organized but it is worth looking into. http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/contact/ Good Luck! Christian On Apr 19, 2013 10:19 AM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: Does anyone have a suggestion on where to try to create a bookstore event for The Transhumanist Reader in LA? Some years ago mark Frauenfelder, Carla Sinclaire, Max, and I did a book event at a bookstore in Santa Monica. It was great fun. But, I've been out of LA for so long now, that I am out of the loop. I'm wonder if you all have some ideas on who to contact. I'm also wondering if there are enough transhumanists at UCLA or USC to put something together. I did email Peter Voss and Louise, and also the Futurist Salon, but I was told no one is doing book events any more. Kifuni is always a great place to link up, but books and food don't really mix well. Amy Li, on the board of Humanity+, was in LA, but she is now in SV. I'm drawing a blank. So --- if anyone has and ideas on how to get something happening to promote the book at a bookstore or university in LA area, please let me know! Thanks, Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD NEW Book: Co-Editor: The Transhumanist Reader: Contemporary and Classical Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Wiley-Blackwell Pub.) Available at Amazon! Final Cover Design_email Adjunct Professor, University of Advancing Technology Chairman, Humanity+ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 13790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Apr 20 00:45:10 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:45:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] local crisis Message-ID: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> ExI friends, I have an interesting crisis in which I would welcome any advice you may offer. A dear friend from a long time ago posted me yesterday saying her 15 yr old daughter was threatened at her high school by a boy she didn't even know, who was just in her class. He explicitly threatened to shoot her in the back of the head, said he had a gun in his backpack. He is 16. The girl told her mother, who went to the principal, who tried to excuse the boy since he doesn't understand the American way, being two months in the country from Egypt. As you might expect the 15 yr old girl is vigorously shunning the spotlight. I advised her to go to the superintendent, and if he didn't immediately react convincingly to go to the local news agencies. She posted back a few minutes ago saying Mohammad got a 3 day vacation from school. He offered an apology, but my friend's family refused, requesting no contact at all, for they understand the difference between a threat and an insult. There were at least two teenage witnesses whose stories match, and now at least three ranking school officials know about it. I just replied back saying it absolutely does not matter what she does at this point: this story has legs; the whole sordid affair is likely headed for the front page on both CNN and Fox, among others. Anyone here with children will get this immediately. There are too many elements in it that stir far too much marketable emotion to just go away quietly. Any and all advice welcome. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 01:48:44 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:48:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] local crisis In-Reply-To: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> References: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: My advice: let her be. Or if you're too concerned for her safety to let it go, tell the police all the information you have - in particular, name the witnesses - and let them handle it, then back off. You do not have all the facts of the story, nor are you in a position to render effective aid. Without knowing anything more than what you have said, I can promise you that much. This is one high school kid bullying another. That happens all the time; even death threats aren't front page national news. Further, even if this did show up in the media as you are imagining, it would be disproportionate retribution - and ironically could put the girl in even more danger, from previously uninvolved teens desperate for attention. On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 5:45 PM, spike wrote: > ** ** > > ExI friends, I have an interesting crisis in which I would welcome any > advice you may offer.**** > > ** ** > > A dear friend from a long time ago posted me yesterday saying her 15 yr > old daughter was threatened at her high school by a boy she didn?t even > know, who was just in her class. He explicitly threatened to shoot her in > the back of the head, said he had a gun in his backpack. He is 16. The > girl told her mother, who went to the principal, who tried to excuse the > boy since he doesn?t understand the American way, being two months in the > country from Egypt.**** > > ** ** > > As you might expect the 15 yr old girl is vigorously shunning the > spotlight.**** > > ** ** > > I advised her to go to the superintendent, and if he didn?t immediately > react convincingly to go to the local news agencies. She posted back a few > minutes ago saying Mohammad got a 3 day vacation from school. He offered > an apology, but my friend?s family refused, requesting no contact at all, > for they understand the difference between a threat and an insult.**** > > ** ** > > There were at least two teenage witnesses whose stories match, and now at > least three ranking school officials know about it. I just replied back > saying it absolutely does not matter what she does at this point: this > story has legs; the whole sordid affair is likely headed for the front page > on both CNN and Fox, among others. Anyone here with children will get this > immediately. There are too many elements in it that stir far too much > marketable emotion to just go away quietly.**** > > ** ** > > Any and all advice welcome.**** > > ** ** > > spike **** > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 02:34:27 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:34:27 -0600 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 6:23 PM, spike wrote: > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > *Sent:* Friday, April 19, 2013 4:14 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] proto-bitcoin > > > > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:32 AM, spike wrote: > > >>?GIMPS is an organized search for the record prime number, but it > occurred to me that it is kinda sorta like a prototype of bitcoin? > > > >?The ability to have a huge amount of work required to find the > excessively weird case, but a trivial amount of work to verify it is what > makes Bitcoin work?-Kelly > > > > Thanks Kelly, I think you verified what I was saying to start with: that > GIMPS is analogous to bitcoin. It is close enough for approximation > purposes to say that there are about 30,000 average modern desktop > computers dedicated to GIMPS and we get a new Mersenne prime about every > three years or so on the average, so it works well enough to say that > finding a Mersenne prime today takes about 100k computer years. If you > find one, it takes about a month to verify it, so it takes about a > millionth time to verify as it took to find. > > Bitcoin hipsters, does this sound about right? Your computer can verify a > bitcoin genuine in about a millionth the computing time it took to mine the > coin to start with? Or am I grossly misunderstanding Bitcoin? > The difficulty with comparing the difficulty of mining a Bitcoin with the difficulty of verifying a Bitcoin is that the difficulty of finding a Bitcoin goes up. You see, the creator of Bitcoin was familiar with Moore's law, and didn't want deflation in the face of increased computing ability. So each year that passes, it is more difficult to mine a Bitcoin. Granted, as the prime numbers you search get bigger, it gets more difficult to find prime numbers, so your point may hold some water, however verifying that it is a prime number also gets much harder, so the ratio doesn't get much different. The ratio for Bitcoin changes. The ratio for primes probably doesn't change as much. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Apr 20 02:23:54 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 19:23:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] local crisis In-Reply-To: References: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <015b01ce3d6e$1bed0c60$53c72520$@rainier66.com> Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] local crisis >.My advice: let her be. Or if you're too concerned for her safety to let it go, tell the police all the information you have - in particular, name the witnesses - and let them handle it, then back off. That's what I did. However, just as I expected, the story is leaking out like a furious blast from a fire hose. >.This is one high school kid bullying another. Hmmm, well actually it is one high school kid bullying at least two others, one of which spoke up and at least one which did not. >.That happens all the time; even death threats aren't front page national news. This one has a special quality. Apparently the principal tried to squelch the story and excuse the kid because he is a recent immigrant from a place where abuse of women is generally tolerated (both known victims are female.) I intentionally did not offer all the details, for I agree with the following comment: >.- and ironically could put the girl in even more danger, from previously uninvolved teens desperate for attention. So I didn't do anything more. There are enough who know of it now, firsthand witnesses, I predict this story will make the national level before the moon is full. >. Further, even if this did show up in the media as you are imagining, it would be disproportionate retribution. Hmmm, ja, but the term retribution would apply only if the victims themselves are doing anything to promote the story, which they are not. The reason I expect this story to be broadcast widely is that it carries so much emotional currency that news agencies so desperately crave. The news agencies are not seeking retribution, but they damn sure are eager to seek news copy that can sell ad space. We have seen several recent cases of innocent elementary school children suffering severe punishment for things like chewing a pop tart into a shape that vaguely resembled a gun, a child in big trouble for drawing a picture of a gun, a child suspended for bringing a gun- shaped bubble maker to school, a child in deep trouble for having a piece of paper shaped in the letter L. But now a recent immigrant from Egypt makes an explicit death threat, with witnesses whose stories match, specifically stating he has a gun and intends to use it with fatal consequences, and somehow he gets a pass? Absolutely regardless of what the victims do or do not, this story has legs. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 03:25:54 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 23:25:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 10:34 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > The difficulty with comparing the difficulty of mining a Bitcoin with the > difficulty of verifying a Bitcoin is that the difficulty of finding a > Bitcoin goes up. You see, the creator of Bitcoin was familiar with Moore's > law, and didn't want deflation in the face of increased computing ability. > So each year that passes, it is more difficult to mine a Bitcoin. > > Granted, as the prime numbers you search get bigger, it gets more difficult > to find prime numbers, so your point may hold some water, however verifying > that it is a prime number also gets much harder, so the ratio doesn't get > much different. > > The ratio for Bitcoin changes. The ratio for primes probably doesn't change > as much. Can you explain how it becomes more difficult to find bitcoins even with increasing computing ability? the only thing that comes to mind would be golomb rulers hmm... just looked at the wiki page for bitcoin, seems there are a fixed number of bitcoins awarded for witnessing the transaction of bitcoins. There's nothing mathemagical about these hashes like there is with Mersenne primes, is there? so the decreasing return in exchange for increasing work in 'mining' is just a design/implementation feature. That does suck, but it's more honest than credit card companies just stealing n% of the seller's profits from each transaction. From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 03:35:42 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:35:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] local crisis In-Reply-To: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> References: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 6:45 PM, spike wrote: > ** ** > > ExI friends, I have an interesting crisis in which I would welcome any > advice you may offer.**** > > ** ** > > A dear friend from a long time ago posted me yesterday saying her 15 yr > old daughter was threatened at her high school by a boy she didn?t even > know, who was just in her class. He explicitly threatened to shoot her in > the back of the head, said he had a gun in his backpack. He is 16. The > girl told her mother, who went to the principal, who tried to excuse the > boy since he doesn?t understand the American way, being two months in the > country from Egypt.**** > > ** ** > > As you might expect the 15 yr old girl is vigorously shunning the > spotlight.**** > > ** ** > > I advised her to go to the superintendent, and if he didn?t immediately > react convincingly to go to the local news agencies. She posted back a few > minutes ago saying Mohammad got a 3 day vacation from school. He offered > an apology, but my friend?s family refused, requesting no contact at all, > for they understand the difference between a threat and an insult.**** > > ** ** > > There were at least two teenage witnesses whose stories match, and now at > least three ranking school officials know about it. I just replied back > saying it absolutely does not matter what she does at this point: this > story has legs; the whole sordid affair is likely headed for the front page > on both CNN and Fox, among others. Anyone here with children will get this > immediately. There are too many elements in it that stir far too much > marketable emotion to just go away quietly.**** > > ** ** > > Any and all advice welcome. > On a slower news day perhaps. This story has a lot of competition today though. Perhaps it will get picked up in a few days. But the news cycle covers the real news very unevenly. There are many cases similar to those that get coverage. A lot of things have to do with that. For example, Elizabeth Smart got coverage because her parents were rich, white and Mormon, and that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen to rich white Mormons. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 03:49:02 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:49:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:25 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 10:34 PM, Kelly Anderson > wrote: > > The difficulty with comparing the difficulty of mining a Bitcoin with the > > difficulty of verifying a Bitcoin is that the difficulty of finding a > > Bitcoin goes up. You see, the creator of Bitcoin was familiar with > Moore's > > law, and didn't want deflation in the face of increased computing > ability. > > So each year that passes, it is more difficult to mine a Bitcoin. > > > > Granted, as the prime numbers you search get bigger, it gets more > difficult > > to find prime numbers, so your point may hold some water, however > verifying > > that it is a prime number also gets much harder, so the ratio doesn't get > > much different. > > > > The ratio for Bitcoin changes. The ratio for primes probably doesn't > change > > as much. > > Can you explain how it becomes more difficult to find bitcoins even > with increasing computing ability? > My understanding is that the length of the hash becomes longer... so if on day one, you have to find a 20 digit number that hashes to 10000000000000000001 (Not that this is the actual pattern) Then five years down the road, you have to find a 40 digit number that does the same. Ten years down the road you have to find a 60 digit number that does the same. So the number of random numbers you have to hash to find the resulting pattern goes up exponentially, just like your computing power does. the only thing that comes to mind would be golomb rulers > > hmm... just looked at the wiki page for bitcoin, seems there are a > fixed number of bitcoins awarded for witnessing the transaction of > bitcoins. There's nothing mathemagical about these hashes like there > is with Mersenne primes, is there? > It isn't as magic as a prime number, but you can't reverse a SHA-1 hash by any known method. I can't start with 100000..0001 and tell you which number, when hashed will result in that result. It is a one way function. That is the magic of the SHA-1 hash. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1 The article doesn't do a lot to explain exactly how it works, but I'm assuming something in the footnotes would if you really were interested. Many people have looked for ways to reverse it, but to no avail apparently, or someone would have a very successful bitcoin mine, which hasn't seemed to have happened. so the decreasing return in exchange for increasing work in 'mining' > is just a design/implementation feature. Yes. Exactly. > That does suck, but it's > more honest than credit card companies just stealing n% of the > seller's profits from each transaction. > Why does that suck? It means that the original bitcoins will not be devalued by later coins mined with more exotic equipment. There is also a limit on how many coins total will ever be minted. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 04:06:19 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:06:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:49 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Why does that suck? It means that the original bitcoins will not be devalued > by later coins mined with more exotic equipment. There is also a limit on > how many coins total will ever be minted. In the sense that it takes increasing amounts of work to get less amount of coin. I was also a little disappointed that the secret sauce wasn't more exotic math than you described. Of course, you are correct: you would want to build the system to anticipate investment in hardware solutions that trivialize even the best you can imagine in today's computation. From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 04:40:40 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:40:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 10:06 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:49 PM, Kelly Anderson > wrote: > > Why does that suck? It means that the original bitcoins will not be > devalued > > by later coins mined with more exotic equipment. There is also a limit on > > how many coins total will ever be minted. > > In the sense that it takes increasing amounts of work to get less > amount of coin. I was also a little disappointed that the secret > sauce wasn't more exotic math than you described. > I don't know the exact details of how it gets exotic. It might be from multiple hashes of similar length strings, or some other approach... but it's just described as a "difficulty" rating. I don't think it needs to be overly complex to meet it's goals. > Of course, you are correct: you would want to build the system to > anticipate investment in hardware solutions that trivialize even the > best you can imagine in today's computation. > Yeah, and now that they are building hardware specific for bitcoin mining, it could get very interesting. There is NO POINT whatsoever to trying to mine bitcoin with a CPU these days. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 05:11:10 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:11:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:40 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Yeah, and now that they are building hardware specific for bitcoin mining, > it could get very interesting. There is NO POINT whatsoever to trying to > mine bitcoin with a CPU these days. > Let me underline that. I tried it out a few weeks ago, for grins, on an old machine that doesn't have a separate GPU, only a CPU. (Or at least, what passes for a GPU isn't modern enough to be recognized by the mining software I used.) I tried chipping in on one of the popular pools, figuring that would at least give me feedback as to how far behind the curve my setup was. Turns out, the mining software's optimized to be run on GPUs, so "old + CPU" meant I was running about 1,000 times slower than most miners despite my hardware being only about 10 years old. (That's, what, 5 doublings, or 32-fold, according to Moore's Law?) At that speed, new blocks were being created and checked faster than my computer could do enough work to be measured. As a result, I did not get a tiny tiny share of the blocks being mined, but literally zero shares. That is, my computer contributed exactly zero work, despite being correctly set up (as verified by miners using modern hardware), since it was beneath the threshold of "fast enough". At least I got a bitcoin wallet out of it, though I doubt I will make use of it soon. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 06:22:06 2013 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 23:22:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New wrinkle on power sats and laser propulsion Message-ID: Skip down to the last two paragraphs if you already know this stuff. Short economic analysis--power satellites, laser propulsion and new proposal. I have a paper in for peer review at the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS). It is a "design to cost" analysis, based on the assumption that to gain enough market share to be worth doing, the cost of energy from space had to come in at half the cost of the least expensive fossil energy (as electricity). Electricity from depreciated coal plants is around 4 cents a kWh, so the target is set at 2 cents per kWh. Based on levelized cost, 20 years and 6.8% discount, a "no fuel" energy project can spend ~80,000 times the cost charged per kWh. For 2 cents per kWh, the owner can spend up to $1600/kw or $1.6 B/GW. That's about a fifth of the cost of a 1 GW nuclear plant. It seems likely that the receiving antenna on the surface of the Earth, can be constructed (in 5 GW blocks) for about $200 M/GW or $200/kW. Of that, $50 is the cost of the inverter; the rest is stamped out antenna, diodes, support poles and labor to build it. (Not counting land costs, probably leased over farmland. Of the remaining $1400/kW, the parts and labor should not exceed $900/kW. (There is a factor of two because of the transmission loss.) The remaining $500/kW is for shipment to GEO. If the power satellite's mass is 5 kg/kW (a reasonable number) then the shipment cost can't exceed $100/kg. That's roughly 100 times less than the current cost to ship communication satellites to GEO. Others (Hiroshi Yoshida and William Maness) have come to the same cost reduction requirement. Huge as it is, this reduction seems possible. The energy cost to GEO is only a dollar or two per kg. The business model used for the JBIS paper has the whole second stage broken up and used for power satellite parts, making the entire 20-ton dry weight into payload. The proposed first stage is a second generation Skylon (Reaction Engines) that carries no oxygen. Acceleration to low earth orbit (LEO ) above the air-breathing part of the flight is from hydrogen is heated to ~7500 m/s by a laser in geosynchronous orbit (GEO). (This takes about 4000 km of acceleration.) Part of the substantial cost reduction comes from the improved payload fraction due to the higher exhaust velocity. The rest of the reduction comes from the high flight rate, 3 per hour at 20 tons delivered to GEO per flight. Like railroads, the low cost (over wagons pulled by oxen) comes at the high cost of putting in the rails, or, in this case, multi GW propulsion lasers. Incidentally, the calculated time to repay the energy used to build a power satellites is under two months A first-pass business analysis puts the peak investment at ~$140 B over about 7 years. The entire investment (in the baseline model) is paid off by year 12 from the start. This is an impossible amount of money for private enterprise to risk, though it is within the ability of a number of governments to fund. Along that line, last November the Chinese surprised an Indian delegation to Beijing: "Besides briefing the 82-year-old Kalam about its recent mission to send three astronauts, including China's first woman to space, CAST officials have shown "great interest" in partnering the mission with international collaboration for Space based Solar Power initiative, said V Ponraj, a scientist who is part of Kalam's delegation. "Wu Yansheng, President of CAST has said his organisation is very much interested to collaborate with India and ISRO on the space mission and would like to establish a formal initiative from both the nations," he said in a statement." http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-02/india/34877401_1_space-solar-power-space-collaboration-v-ponraj In a more recent article: Chinese government promises "whatever it takes" to cap coal use Thu, 07 Feb, 2013 12:36 AM PST "There is widespread fear that Chinese coal consumption, which nearly rivals the entire rest of the world combined, will undo efforts to combat climate change." http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/02/chinese-government-promises-whatever-it-takes-cap-coal-use The Chinese seem to be serious about power satellites as the best way to stop burning coal. They are one of the few energy sources that scale to the size needed. Years ago, G. Harry Stein figured there is room for power satellites in GEO for more than ten times the current energy consumption. Three years ago we have this from CAST: "The CAST SPS research team conceives that there are four imperative sections for SPS development: launching approach, in-orbit construction/multi-agents, high efficiency solar conversion and wireless transmission. Except for launch, the other aspects do not seem to be insurmountable issues for China in the upcoming years." http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/ji.html "Except for launch" indicates that three years ago they didn't have a launch solution where power satellites made economic sense. Up to early 2012, there were no proposed solutions to launch cost. The difficulty with the proposed method is getting the first propulsion laser to GEO. That is a major part of the $140 B estimated price tag. That is a considerable cost even to cap (or end) coal use. An April 2, 2013 suggestion from Steve Nixon (patent pending) leads to the concept of powering the first laser from the ground via a 10-km-sized microwave transmitter and a 1-km high power receiver on the end in GEO. Reciprocity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_%28radio%29#Reciprocity indicates this will work. It would be much smaller and lighter than a power satellite. An unclassified NASA study from 1987 indicates a 5-GW rectenna in space would mass less than 1,000 tons. Another large advantage over the JBIS paper baseline design is that it could be built and tested in LEO (much easier to reach than GEO). With 5 GW available, Hall thruster engines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_effect_thruster would push the propulsion laser to GEO in about ten days, fast enough to avoid much damage from space debris. It could cut the cost by as much as half. More important it could cut years off the time frame to build the transport infrastructure to build large numbers of power satellites, massively reduce the amount of coal burned and perhaps hold the CO2 build up to 450 ppm and (assuming CO2 is connected to global warming) the global temperature rise to 2 deg C. Keith From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 20 10:19:37 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 03:19:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] AARP article about a billionaire investing in life extension research Message-ID: David Murdock, hurt many times by loved ones dying much too early, has heavily invested in life extension research, even to the point of revitalizing a near ghost town for that purpose. I just wish the man were not already ninety years-old, since when he dies, the research goals may change... I find it heartening that the AARP has an intelligent article like this one, within the pages of their magazine, which makes it into millions upon millions of homes. http://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-04-2013/david-murdock-live-forever.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 20 12:28:05 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:28:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130420122805.GL15179@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 12:06:19AM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Of course, you are correct: you would want to build the system to > anticipate investment in hardware solutions that trivialize even the > best you can imagine in today's computation. You need more state that would fit an ASIC. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 20 12:33:32 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:33:32 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130420123332.GO15179@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:25:54PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Can you explain how it becomes more difficult to find bitcoins even > with increasing computing ability? There is a lot of papers on Bitcoin already. I would start with Satoshi's original one. > the only thing that comes to mind would be golomb rulers > > hmm... just looked at the wiki page for bitcoin, seems there are a > fixed number of bitcoins awarded for witnessing the transaction of > bitcoins. There's nothing mathemagical about these hashes like there > is with Mersenne primes, is there? > > so the decreasing return in exchange for increasing work in 'mining' > is just a design/implementation feature. That does suck, but it's "Just"? "Suck"? It's an essential feature, and shows a lot of foresight on part of the designer. > more honest than credit card companies just stealing n% of the > seller's profits from each transaction. Mining is never meant to be profitable. Only bleeding edge adopters got lucky there. The value of Bitcoin is that it's a P2P transaction currency, and a distributed mint. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 20 17:01:35 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:01:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] local crisis In-Reply-To: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> References: <013c01ce3d60$5075df60$f1619e20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366477295.58658.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike, > A dear friend from a long time ago posted me yesterday saying her 15 yr old daughter was threatened at her high school by a boy she didn?t even know, who was just in her class.? He explicitly threatened to shoot her in the back of the head, said he had a gun in his backpack.? He is 16. ...I advised her to go to the superintendent, and if he didn?t immediately react convincingly to go to the local news agencies.< If someone threatened my child like that, I would also call the police. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Apr 20 17:33:04 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:33:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130420123332.GO15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <011a01ce3d5d$4d543460$e7fc9d20$@rainier66.com> <20130420123332.GO15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <002701ce3ded$1e194880$5a4bd980$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl >...Mining is never meant to be profitable. Only bleeding edge adopters got lucky there. >...The value of Bitcoin is that it's a P2P transaction currency, and a distributed mint. _______________________________________________ That's kinda how it was with the Mersenne prime search. The computing resources required to determine if a particular Mersenne number M is prime increases approximately as the square of the log M. Back in 1995, if you could imagine our current desktop computers as a standard, it would be a few hundred computer years to strike Mersenne gold. Now it is probably over 100k computer-years per MP. Note: I haven't done the calcs on that probability distribution function recently so don't bust my chops on it if I overestimate. There is an interesting calculation I did on this in about 1996 where I demonstrated that the value of the research prize plus the increased value of the discovering computer times the probability of discovery would cover the cost of extra computing time and electricity devoured, should a big company install GIMPS as a universal background process on all its machines. Last time I calculated it about 5 yrs ago, even taking into account modern computer speeds and power use, as well as the EFF prize of 200k$, the mathematical expectation was on the order of a couple percent of the cost of electricity alone. Shows to go ya: early birds rule, late birds drool. spike From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 21 09:11:55 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:11:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130421091155.GS15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 09:28:06PM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Obviously we need to weird out more. Tomorrow I will give a talk about > the future of enhancement. What is the strangest enhancements we can > envision that seem remotely possible given current science? Solid state minds, artificial reality and large scale engineering are still considered SF by the mainstream. From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 21 09:24:15 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:24:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130421092415.GV15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:27:26PM +0100, BillK wrote: > At first sight, my suggestion might not sound very weird, but the > implications....... > > A society where all the men look like 25 year old handsome fit > athletes and all the women look like 21 year old film starlets. ...is not gonna happen. But a society where you can't tell what the fuck you're looking at, any time. From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 21 09:39:50 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:39:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 07:49:19PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Telekinesis enabled by thinking to the cloud-controlled utility fog? Here's a dirty little secret: there will never be utility fog, because it's a primitive, slow interface catering to species gone extinct. > Unfortunately that will probably end up being a crowdsourced interest > weighted by how impactful your use of the fog is vs. the desired > outcome of the crowd. So much magic is negated by the lack of > consensus. :( Or your could render whatever you want in your own private artificial reality, with no pesky neighbors and cheaper and quicker. From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 21 09:53:58 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 10:53:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130421092415.GV15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421092415.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:27:26PM +0100, BillK wrote: >> At first sight, my suggestion might not sound very weird, but the >> implications....... >> A society where all the men look like 25 year old handsome fit >> athletes and all the women look like 21 year old film starlets. > > ...is not gonna happen. But a society where you can't tell what > the fuck you're looking at, any time. > That's one of the implications......... That 20 year-old starlet might be a 200 year old counter-intelligence expert. :) It depends, of course, on how far into the future you want to speculate. But in the nearer future when humans still have flesh bodies, then studies have shown that handsome, taller men are more successful in business and society. Similarly for attractive women. So when body customisation becomes available, society in general will trend towards the more socially successful shapes. Though there will always be weird outliers on the fringes of society as well. Society will have to change the evolutionary driven technique of judging people by their appearance. When all men look like a Greek god, society will be forced to judge by actions rather than superficial appearance. (Which is what they should be doing anyway! But inbuilt prejudices are difficult to fight). BillK From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 21 10:09:08 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:09:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421092415.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130421100908.GE15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 10:53:58AM +0100, BillK wrote: > But in the nearer future when humans still have flesh bodies, then If you can look like a 21 year old starlet, you can look like anything, and can want to look like that particular anything. That's the essence of the drive towards diversification. > studies have shown that handsome, taller men are more successful in What is you've redesigned your maximum attraction for big, black, hairy, flying spiders with fricken laser beams attached to their mandibles? That will probably fit the 99% NOPE profile for most people. > business and society. Similarly for attractive women. So when body > customisation becomes available, society in general will trend towards > the more socially successful shapes. Though there will always be weird > outliers on the fringes of society as well. > > Society will have to change the evolutionary driven technique of > judging people by their appearance. When all men look like a > Greek god, society will be forced to judge by actions rather than > superficial appearance. > > (Which is what they should be doing anyway! But inbuilt prejudices are > difficult to fight). From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sun Apr 21 05:59:46 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:59:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? Message-ID: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> 'ey, I'm still working on that super-kinky story, part one is over thirty thousand words. Hopefully, I will be working on part two soon, maybe within the week. I want to cover the subject of what it will actually be like to be an upload in extreme detail, accuracy, and honesty. To that end, I need to brush up on what the current claims are as to why it should be so great and, in the greatest possible detail, how it will work. I probably have enough material to work with but to make the story resonate with people, I need to hammer people with logic and inescapable chains of causation. At the same time, I don't want to say anything that would cause the entire piece to be dismissed out of hand. (It is acknowledged that many would dismiss what I have to say out of prejudice but that can't be helped at this point.) My problem here is that while the process of upl04d!ng t3h br4!nz is extensively discussed, the day to day problems of running an upload in a simulation are almost completely ignored. Stross actively avoided getting too technical for fear of writing something that would become dated too quickly. Egan did reveal some technical information but his claims about performance were not well justified. I would definitely prefer to work from more primary sources such as technical papers rather than have to rely on other people's fiction. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 21 18:56:01 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:56:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > I want to cover the subject of what it will actually be like to be an > upload in extreme detail, accuracy, and honesty. To that end, I need to > brush up on what the current claims are as to why it should be so great > and, in the greatest possible detail, how it will work. > One scene you could do: have an upload come across a former chassis, possibly interleaved with memories of its destruction. "I was killed...but I know who did it and exactly how. In theory, I can visit the same death upon them The difference? They can't come back." Bonus points if this wasn't the original biological chassis, the death of which spurred the upload, but just another drone body - and if this has happened before, so the protagonist has already wrestled with the question of revenge. As to the day to day operation, I'd suggest analogs to disabled people where the host is less capable than a human body - and similar thoughts where the host is more capable. Either way, the upload is "living with" new limits in exactly the same way any normal human with a long term condition that impacts quality of life is "living with" it. (Lose an arm, and it'll be a week until you get a replacement? You're one-handed for a week. Super-strong? You learn - quickly - how to control it, so you're not wrecking your house; you almost certainly aren't still having major accidents weeks later.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sun Apr 21 19:28:37 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:28:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <51743DE5.30001@verizon.net> Eugen Leitl wrote: > Or your could render whatever you want in your own private > artificial reality, with no pesky neighbors and cheaper and > quicker. How do you propose to solve the content creation problem? -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sun Apr 21 19:57:43 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:57:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> Message-ID: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> Hi Adrian, This sounds like a very interesting and beneficial Project. For the past 4 or 5 years I've been working on a survey project to survey the worlds best experts about how consciousness works. I've been attending conferences on consciousness and interviewing experts, and integrating all of their best ideas on consciousness into the open survey being collaboratively developed by all at Canonizer.com. My personal interest in this is precisely because I want to know what the best expert theories are, and what the leading theories are predict will be possible with uploading, most importantly, what will or could it be subjectively like to be uploaded to a much more capable system. So far, about 50 people have participated in integrating their theories into the survey, already including diverse people like Daniel Dennett (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21), Steven Lehar (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/17), David Chalmers (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8), and a growing number of others. There is also a growing number of supporters of each of their respective camps. As more experts participate in the survey, it's ability to provide a real time measure of expert consensus, about each of the concisely stated leading theories being developed, will continue to improve, in a horse race kind of way. Everyone can watch this and be educated by it, as we approach the demonstrable science that will surely soon falsify all but the one true camp. By definition, everyone will definitively know how close we are, as the leading experts start to abandon the various competing theories, and converge on the one theory that works. At least one camp has already been falsified by the data coming out of the large hadron collider. Currently there are about 3 leading theories with the most consensus, and lots of 'noise' camps (due to the fact that nothing is censored on the way in) which can be easily ignored. The surprising thing is how much consensus has been achieved with the consensus building system, despite the diversity of experts already participating. The near unanimous emerging consensus is so far focusing arround what the experts have now agreed to call "Representational Qualia Theory" (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6). This is the basic idea predicting that a redness quality, is not a quality of the strawberry, but instead, is a quality of our knowledge of the strawberry or a property of the final result of the perception process. The only disagreement seems to be about the nature of the relationship between such qualities we can experience, and the underlying neural correlates responsible for them. So far, the leading Neck and Neck camps are Chalmer's "Functional Property Dualism" which is predicting the relationship is Functional, and Hameroff's "Material Property Dualism" which is predicting the qualities are a quality of some material stuff, and without the right material, no redness quality experience. Obviously, each of these are very falsifiable, and it's only a matter of time before the experimental neural scientist demonstrate which one is the true theory, to the falsification of all others. Given this theory the experts seem to so far near unanimously agree on, there is a conscious world in our head, which is our knowledge of the world we are consciously aware of, through it via our senses. At the center of this conscious world, is our knowledge of our "self", which unlike most of the rest of our knowledge of the world, doesn't have a referent in realty. However, despite this lack of a referent in reality, it and it's continuity is still something that is very real, and important to what we are and how we might want to be uploaded. The consensus seems to be predicting that we will be able to create significantly expanded and diverse phenomenal conscious worlds on artificial platforms, and consciously merge these worlds of knowledge (via effing of the ineffable techniques being predicted by the various different theories) with the worlds currently being produced by our brains. With that, our knowledge of our self spirit, even though it doesn't have a referent in reality, well be able to traverse back and forth between these two conscious worlds (the one currently in our bran, and the expanded and consciously connected one running on the greatly enhanced artificial platform.) much like an out of body experience. I've written a short story narrative describing exactly what these theories are predicting will be possible and what it could consciously be like for us. It is contained in Chapers 5 and 6 of the short story entitled "1229 Years After Titanic" http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742 . It's still kind of crude, but if you are interested I'd love to know your thoughts of any of it. Most people are afraid of uploading, because they think there will be no possible continuity between one's self and the upload, and no way of knowing if that upload is the same as the real me. But the leading theories are now predicting that this need not be the case. The prediction is that people's knowledge of themselves, their knowledge of their 'spirits' if you will, will be able to represented as if we are having an "out of body experience" as we move from one platform to another, much like is roughly portrayed in the movie Avatar. I think getting people to understand this kind of stuff, will definitely get them interested in understanding what will be possible. The result being people loosing all fears of being uploaded that so many still struggle with. If any sales brochure could communicate that, it would surely be a great success at motivating people to push towards uploading, and the singularity. Anyway, that's just how things currently appear to me. I'd love to follow what you are working on, and see any results you end up with, as I am keenly interested in all such! Upwards, Brent Allsop On 4/21/2013 12:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Alan Grimes > wrote: > > I want to cover the subject of what it will actually be like to be > an upload in extreme detail, accuracy, and honesty. To that end, I > need to brush up on what the current claims are as to why it > should be so great and, in the greatest possible detail, how it > will work. > > > One scene you could do: have an upload come across a former > chassis, possibly interleaved with memories of its destruction. > "I was killed...but I know who did it and exactly how. In theory, > I can visit the same death upon them The difference? They > can't come back." > > Bonus points if this wasn't the original biological chassis, the > death of which spurred the upload, but just another drone body - > and if this has happened before, so the protagonist has already > wrestled with the question of revenge. > > As to the day to day operation, I'd suggest analogs to disabled > people where the host is less capable than a human body - and > similar thoughts where the host is more capable. Either way, > the upload is "living with" new limits in exactly the same way > any normal human with a long term condition that impacts > quality of life is "living with" it. (Lose an arm, and it'll be a week > until you get a replacement? You're one-handed for a week. > Super-strong? You learn - quickly - how to control it, so you're > not wrecking your house; you almost certainly aren't still having > major accidents weeks later.) > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 21 20:21:03 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:21:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Adrian, > Watch that quote attribution! :) You're talking to Alan. I just chimed in with a suggestion or two. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sun Apr 21 20:13:36 2013 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:13:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The High Frontier free on Kindle Message-ID: <201304212033.r3LKXQrG028493@andromeda.ziaspace.com> The High Frontier is free on Kindle from 20 to 23 April. Info thanks to Mike Lorrey. >Today we have another announcement: From Saturday April 20th to >Tuesday April 23rd, the Kindle edition of The High Frontier is >absolutely free. Just open the Kindle app on your iOS, Android, >Windows PC or Mac and type High Frontier in the Kindle store, or get >your free Kindle edition directly from the Amazon.com website at >. -- David. From spike at rainier66.com Sun Apr 21 23:13:19 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:13:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin Message-ID: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... > >> ...is not gonna happen. But a society where you can't tell what the fuck you're looking at, any time. >...That 20 year-old starlet might be a 200 year old counter-intelligence expert. :)...BillK _______________________________________________ That occurred to me too, while watching the Next Generation. I take it as the reason Picard was apparently celibate, as opposed to Kirk who would do anything, including the green chick (the Orion slave girl in episode 17, Whom the Gods Destroy, I think. If it isn't episode 17, please don't geek-stampede me, my memory from 1968 has grown dim.) Kirk would do anyone. But Picard had aaaallllll those goooorgeous space babes all around him, Dr. Crusher (ooooh, she could crush me anytime she wanted) the stunning Counselor Deanna Troi, and of course that crazy sexy 7 of 9, so knockout beautiful I would gladly become a Borganism just to be close to her, please glue that thing on my face. But Picard never did any of them, because in the back of his mind, he knew that when he was in there, she could suddenly morph back into Q, eeewww, yuk, Picard would almost hafta whack it off and leave it behind if that happened. Q would do something like that too, so evil was his sense of humor. Nope, can't chance that, no way. The captain would be better to just keep it zipped for the entire five year mission, wait until he got home to seek out and explore. Um, pardon me, what were we talking about again? spike From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 01:45:14 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:45:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 5:39 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 07:49:19PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: >> Telekinesis enabled by thinking to the cloud-controlled utility fog? > > Here's a dirty little secret: there will never be utility fog, > because it's a primitive, slow interface catering to species > gone extinct. > > Or your could render whatever you want in your own private > artificial reality, with no pesky neighbors and cheaper and > quicker. I'll give you the no utility fog. And for most whatever-we-call-people by then, virtual worlds will be so much easier than worrying about the "real world" - but someone has to make sure asteroid impacts aren't putting so much debris in the atmosphere that we can't get solar energy, or destroying the power-collection grid itself. I mean, I'm pretty sure google keeps several copies of this email... so I don't make my own backup of it. However, if a complete nuclear exchange wiped the rest of the computers from this planet - I certainly don't expect to recover anything from archives. ( yes, I know I'd be gone.. that's not the point ) Even when everything has been virtualized / moved to the 'cloud' - someone is still running physical machines, yeah? From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 03:06:51 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:06:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] AARP article about longevity research patron, David Murdoch Message-ID: I admire this man's desire to research good nutrition, and I am saddened by the losses he suffered during the course of his life, but I think his money could be better spent learning about genetic manipulation, as a means of life extension. http://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/inf-04-2013/david-murdock-live-forever.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 22 04:08:07 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:08:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I'm glad to see that you're still working on this project, Brent. I don't know if you remember me (I used to sign off as '-gts") but some years ago I took the position here that consciousness cannot be duplicated or created on digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is impossible. I engaged in a?lengthy?debate about it. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief (I was even called a "troll") so I left for another venue. -Gordon? ? ________________________________ From: Brent Allsop To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2013 1:57 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? Hi Adrian, This sounds like a very interesting and beneficial Project.? For the past 4 or 5 years I've been working on a survey project to survey the worlds best experts about how consciousness works.? I've been attending conferences on consciousness and interviewing experts, and integrating all of their best ideas on consciousness into the open survey being collaboratively developed by all at Canonizer.com. My personal interest in this is precisely because I want to know what the best expert theories are, and what the leading theories are predict will be possible with uploading, most importantly, what will or could it be subjectively like to be uploaded to a much more capable system. So far, about 50 people have participated in integrating their theories into the survey, already including diverse people like Daniel Dennett (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21), Steven Lehar (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/17), David Chalmers (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8), and a growing number of others.? There is also a growing number of supporters of each of their respective camps.? As more experts participate in the survey, it's ability to provide a real time measure of expert consensus, about each of the concisely stated leading theories being developed, will continue to improve, in a horse race kind of way.? Everyone can watch this and be educated by it, as we approach the demonstrable science that will surely soon falsify all but the one true camp.? By definition, everyone will definitively know how close we are, as the leading experts start to abandon the various competing theories, and converge on the one theory that works.? At least one camp has already been falsified by the data coming out of the large hadron collider.? Currently there are about 3 leading theories with the most consensus, and lots of 'noise' camps (due to the fact that nothing is censored on the way in) which can be easily ignored. The surprising thing is how much consensus has been achieved with the consensus building system, despite the diversity of experts already participating.? The near unanimous emerging consensus is so far focusing arround what the experts have now agreed to call "Representational Qualia Theory" (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6).? This is the basic idea predicting that a redness quality, is not a quality of the strawberry, but instead, is a quality of our knowledge of the strawberry or a property of the final result of the perception process.? The only disagreement seems to be about the nature of the relationship between such qualities we can experience, and the underlying neural correlates responsible for them.? So far, the leading Neck and Neck camps are Chalmer's "Functional Property Dualism" which is predicting the relationship is Functional, and Hameroff's "Material Property Dualism" which is predicting the qualities are a quality of some material stuff, and without the right material, no redness quality experience.? Obviously, each of these are very falsifiable, and it's only a matter of time before the experimental neural scientist demonstrate which one is the true theory, to the falsification of all others. Given this theory the experts seem to so far near unanimously agree on, there is a conscious world in our head, which is our knowledge of the world we are consciously aware of, through it via our senses.? At the center of this conscious world, is our knowledge of our "self", which unlike most of the rest of our knowledge of the world, doesn't have a referent in realty.? However, despite this lack of a referent in reality, it and it's continuity is still something that is very real, and important to what we are and how we might want to be uploaded. The consensus seems to be predicting that we will be able to create significantly expanded and diverse phenomenal conscious worlds on artificial platforms, and consciously merge these worlds of knowledge (via effing of the ineffable techniques being predicted by the various different theories) with the worlds currently being produced by our brains.? With that, our knowledge of our self spirit, even though it doesn't have a referent in reality, well be able to traverse back and forth between these two conscious worlds (the one currently in our bran, and the expanded and consciously connected one running on the greatly enhanced artificial platform.) much like an out of body experience. I've written a short story narrative describing exactly what these theories are predicting will be possible and what it could consciously be like for us.? It is contained in Chapers 5 and 6 of the short story entitled "1229 Years After Titanic"? http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742.? It's still kind of crude, but if you are interested I'd love to know your thoughts of any of it. Most people are afraid of uploading, because they think there will be no possible continuity between one's self and the upload, and no way of knowing if that upload is the same as the real me.? But the leading theories are now predicting that this need not be the case.? The prediction is that people's knowledge of themselves, their knowledge of their 'spirits' if you will, will be able to represented as if we are having an "out of body experience" as we move from one platform to another, much like is roughly portrayed in the movie Avatar.? I think getting people to understand this kind of stuff, will definitely get them interested in understanding what will be possible.? The result being people loosing all fears of being uploaded that so many still struggle with. If any sales brochure could communicate that, it would surely be a great success at motivating people to push towards uploading, and the singularity. Anyway, that's just how things currently appear to me.? I'd love to follow what you are working on, and see any results you end up with, as I am keenly interested in all such! Upwards, Brent Allsop On 4/21/2013 12:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > >I want to cover the subject of what it will actually be like to be an upload in extreme detail, accuracy, and honesty. To that end, I need to brush up on what the current claims are as to why it should be so great and, in the greatest possible detail, how it will work. >> > > >One scene you could do: have an upload come across a former >chassis, possibly interleaved with memories of its destruction. >"I was killed...but I know who did it and exactly how.? In theory, >I can visit the same death upon them? The difference?? They >can't come back." > > >Bonus points if this wasn't the original biological chassis, the >death of which spurred the upload, but just another drone body - > >and if this has happened before, so the protagonist has already >wrestled with the question of revenge. > > >As to the day to day operation, I'd suggest analogs to disabled >people where the host is less capable than a human body - and >similar thoughts where the host is more capable.? Either way, >the upload is "living with" new limits in exactly the same way >any normal human with a long term condition that impacts >quality of life is "living with" it.? (Lose an arm, and it'll be a week >until you get a replacement?? You're one-handed for a week. > >Super-strong?? You learn - quickly - how to control it, so you're >not wrecking your house; you almost certainly aren't still having >major accidents weeks later.) > > > >_______________________________________________ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 04:58:21 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:58:21 +1200 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:13:19 +1200, spike wrote: > That occurred to me too, while watching the Next Generation. I take it as > the reason Picard was apparently celibate, as opposed to Kirk who would do > anything, including the green chick (the Orion slave girl in episode 17, > Whom the Gods Destroy, I think. If it isn't episode 17, please don't > geek-stampede me, my memory from 1968 has grown dim.) Kirk would do anyone. > But Picard had aaaallllll those goooorgeous space babes all around him, Dr. > Crusher (ooooh, she could crush me anytime she wanted) the stunning > Counselor Deanna Troi, and of course that crazy sexy 7 of 9, so knockout > beautiful I would gladly become a Borganism just to be close to her, please > glue that thing on my face. But Picard never did any of them, because in Umm, I'm not a treky or anything, but I believe Picard couldn't do 7 of 9 because she appeared on Star Trek Voyager, which spent its 7 year run in a very distant part of the galaxy/universe compared to the places the Enterprise ever traveled. Although if memory serves, Q had no problem finding Voyager on the odd occasion, so who knows what affairs he may have meddled in. From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 22 05:28:36 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:28:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Andrew Mckee On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:13:19 +1200, spike wrote: >> ... and of course that crazy sexy 7 of 9... >...Umm, I'm not a treky or anything, but I believe Picard couldn't do 7 of 9 because she appeared on Star Trek Voyager, which spent its 7 year run in a very distant part of the galaxy/universe compared to the places the Enterprise ever traveled... See there, the hazards of posting while under the influence of young children. Regardless of what particular distant galaxy she inhabited, that woman could send me into pon farr in a big way. And even with that green skin, Cadet Gaila just looks like a heck of a lotta fun: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Rachel_Nichols >...Although if memory serves, Q had no problem finding Voyager on the odd occasion, so who knows what affairs he may have meddled in. _______________________________________________ Oh that Q was a bastard. But he was a great idea. He made references to the Borg in his comments to Picard about all the things the captain was afraid of are really trivial little dangers, easily circumvented by a being as powerful as Q. But Q said there were things that really are scary, which I think referred to the Borg. If something scared Q, it must be a fearsome beast indeed. Star Trek was some really great TV, regardless. Back in 1968, we didn't even know the Orion slave girl was green, for all we had was black and white TV, but even when we got living color it really didn't work right, so on some days everyone looked like Orion slave girls. You just had to be there, and I'm guessing not many of us were. Jeff Davis, Keith, Gordon, maybe a few others. OK, I'll stop now. spike From andymck35 at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 07:02:17 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:02:17 +1200 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:28:36 +1200, spike wrote: > Oh that Q was a bastard. But he was a great idea. He made references to Not sure I'd call Q that to his face :-) But as Data mentioned, Q seemed to treat humans with a fondness much as we are found of a favorite pet. He may have done some nasty things at times, but, well, there are times you have to take your dog to the vet whether it likes it or not. > Star Trek was some really great TV, regardless. Agreed, I know some had issues with it at times, but compared to the shows we get today... Damn, I need some fresh new forward looking optimistic transhuman friendly science fiction series to watch. Anything good playing on the TVs over there? From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 08:30:18 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:30:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, The Man in the High Tower, by Phillip K. Dick, Ringworld, by Larry Niven, and Blake's 7, the classic BBC series, are all being adapted by the SyFy Channel. Oh, and I am very excited about Elysium, the upcoming film, by the director of District 9. It will be starring Matt Damon, one of my favorite actors. John : ) On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 12:02 AM, Andrew Mckee wrote: > On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:28:36 +1200, spike wrote: > > > Oh that Q was a bastard. But he was a great idea. He made references to >> > > Not sure I'd call Q that to his face :-) > > But as Data mentioned, Q seemed to treat humans with a fondness much as we > are found of a favorite pet. > He may have done some nasty things at times, but, well, there are times > you have to take your dog to the vet whether it likes it or not. > > > Star Trek was some really great TV, regardless. >> > > Agreed, I know some had issues with it at times, but compared to the shows > we get today... > > Damn, I need some fresh new forward looking optimistic transhuman friendly > science fiction series to watch. > > Anything good playing on the TVs over there? > > > > > ______________________________**_________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/**mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-**chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 22 09:06:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:06:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51743DE5.30001@verizon.net> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <51743DE5.30001@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130422090618.GY15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 03:28:37PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: > >> Or your could render whatever you want in your own private >> artificial reality, with no pesky neighbors and cheaper and >> quicker. > > How do you propose to solve the content creation problem? Scanned real world, procedural creation, stuff people design. That assumes you would throught the vision system, triggering internal representations is more efficient. Think like place/grid cells, only for entire reality. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 22 10:20:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:20:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130422102018.GF15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 09:08:07PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > I'm glad to see that you're still working on this project, Brent. I don't > know if you remember me (I used to sign off as '-gts") but some years ago I > took the position here that consciousness cannot be duplicated or created on > digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is impossible. I engaged in Does that mean binary, or discrete? Would an analogue solid state system qualify? > a?lengthy?debate about it. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief > (I was even called a "troll") so I left for another venue. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 22 11:20:36 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:20:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 09:45:14PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > I'll give you the no utility fog. And for most > whatever-we-call-people by then, virtual worlds will be so much easier > than worrying about the "real world" - but someone has to make sure Do you worry much about your microbiome in charge of your digestion? Rarely, I would imagine. > asteroid impacts aren't putting so much debris in the atmosphere that > we can't get solar energy, or destroying the power-collection grid > itself. I mean, I'm pretty sure google keeps several copies of this Utility fog has serious deficiences due to the reconfigurability requirement. The amount of wasted volume dedicated to navigation, propulsion and relinking is considerable. It only makes sense as a poor man's reconfigurable environment for meat puppets, and falls short on about everything if there are none. > email... so I don't make my own backup of it. However, if a complete > nuclear exchange wiped the rest of the computers from this planet - I > certainly don't expect to recover anything from archives. ( yes, I > know I'd be gone.. that's not the point ) > > Even when everything has been virtualized / moved to the 'cloud' - Virtualization assumes shared resources, and saving and restoring state. In case of provably optimal computers there is nothing shared, so saving and restoring N bits of state requires twice the number of hardware, and considerable delays. Which means there will be no virtualization, and no cloud. > someone is still running physical machines, yeah? Nobody is running anything. No more than you are running your body. You *are* your body. Nothing is going to change about that. From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Apr 22 14:21:37 2013 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:21:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1fb85c1542fd181dbd429d9fa9c42923.squirrel@main.nc.us> > Star Trek was some really great TV, regardless. Back in > 1968, we didn't > even know the Orion slave girl was green, for all we had > was black and white > TV, but even when we got living color it really didn't > work right, so on > some days everyone looked like Orion slave girls. You > just had to be there, > and I'm guessing not many of us were. Jeff Davis, Keith, > Gordon, maybe a > few others. :) I was there, spike. Regards, MB From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 14:23:42 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:23:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 12:13 AM, spike wrote: > That occurred to me too, while watching the Next Generation. I take it as > the reason Picard was apparently celibate, as opposed to Kirk who would do > anything, including the green chick (the Orion slave girl in episode 17, > Whom the Gods Destroy, I think. If it isn't episode 17, please don't > geek-stampede me, my memory from 1968 has grown dim.) Kirk would do anyone. > But Picard had aaaallllll those goooorgeous space babes all around him, Dr. > Crusher (ooooh, she could crush me anytime she wanted) the stunning > Counselor Deanna Troi, and of course that crazy sexy 7 of 9, so knockout > beautiful I would gladly become a Borganism just to be close to her, please > glue that thing on my face. But Picard never did any of them, because in > the back of his mind, he knew that when he was in there, she could suddenly > morph back into Q. It may be nit-picking, :) but shape-shifting wasn't what I had in mind. With a little more advanced technology, life extension could become common. So with rejuvenation techniques, old experienced people could look like 20 year old starlets. Add in cosmetic surgery and possibly designer genes for humans and you get a redesigned ever-youthful human race. I agree that these techniques could be be used to create humans in giant spider bodies, but who would vote for a giant spider for President? :) BillK From atymes at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 14:55:09 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:55:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 4:20 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Utility fog has serious deficiences due to the reconfigurability > requirement. The amount of wasted volume dedicated to navigation, > propulsion and relinking is considerable. It only makes sense > as a poor man's reconfigurable environment for meat puppets, and > falls short on about everything if there are none. > Since we're talking about utility fog, here's a patent of mine. It's intended as a way to get the effect of utility fog, but in a practical way: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,487,454.PN.&OS=PN/6,487,454&RS=PN/6,487,454 No prototypes yet. I keep looking around for someone who would be interested in (and have the funding to) develop it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clementlawyer at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 16:52:45 2013 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:52:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] World's Safest Banks Message-ID: Thought this might interest some of the members who have been discussing banking/bitcoins/gold, etc. I'm not espousing any particular investment or currency type. The World's 50 Safest Banks 2012* 1.* KfW* (*Germany*) 26.* Pohjola Bank* (*Finland*)2.* Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten (BNG)* (*Netherlands*) 27.* BNP Paribas* (*France*)3.* Zurcher Kantonalbank* (Switzerland) 28.* China Development Bank* (*China*)4.* Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank* (*Germany*) 29.* DZ Bank *** (*Germany*)5.* Caisse des Depots et Consignations(CDC)* (*France*)30.* Agricultural Development Bank of China* (*China*)*Tie* *6.* Landeskreditbank Baden-Wurttemberg* *Forderbank (L-Bank)* (*Germany*)31.* CoBank ACB* (*United States*) *Tie* *6.* Nederlandse Waterschapsbank* (*Netherlands*)32.* National Bank of Abu Dhabi* (*United Arab Emirates*) 7.* Banque et Caisse d'epargne de l'etat* (*Luxembourg*) 33.* National Bank of Kuwait* (*Kuwait*)8.* Rabobank Group* (*Netherlands*) 34.* Pictet & Cie* (*Switzerland*)9.* NRW.Bank* (*Germany*) 35.* Deutsche Bank* (*Germany*)10.* Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)* (*Canada*) 36.* JPMorgan Chase* (*United States*)11.* Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank)* (*Canada*) 37.* Banque Federative du Credit Mutuel (BFCM)* (*France*)*Tie** 12.* National Australia Bank* (*Australia*)38.* U.S. Bancorp* (*United States*)*Tie** 12.* Commonwealth Bank of Australia* (*Australia*)39.* DNB Bank *** (*Norway*)13.* Westpac Banking Corporation* (*Australia*)40.* National Bank of Canada *** (*Canada*)14.* Scotiabank (Bank of Nova Scotia)* (*Canada*)41.* Northern Trust Corporation* (*United States*) 15.* DBS Bank* (*Singapore*)42.* Qatar National Bank * (*Qatar*) 16.* Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation* (*Singapore*)43.* SAMBA Financial Group * (*Saudi Arabia*) 17.* United Overseas Bank* (*Singapore*)44.* La Banque Postale * (*France*) 18.* Caisse centrale Desjardins* (*Canada*)45.* Bank of Taiwan * (*Taiwan*)19.* HSBC Holdings* (*United Kingdom*)*Tie** 46.* Shizuoka Bank* (*Japan*)20.* Nordea Bank* (*Sweden*)*Tie* *46.* Banco del Estado de Chile (BancoEstado) *** (*Chile*)21.* Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ)* (*Australia*) 47.* Barclays Group* (*United Kingdom*)22.* Svenska Handelsbanken* (*Sweden*) 48.* Credit Agricole* (*France*)23.* Bank of Montreal (BMO)* (*Canada*) 49.* Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ* (*Japan*)24.* Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)* (*Canada*) 50.* Banco Santander* (*Spain*) *Source:* Global Finance*25.* BNY Mellon* (*United States*) James -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Mon Apr 22 18:31:47 2013 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:31:47 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Apr 2013, BillK wrote: [...] > I agree that these techniques could be be used to create humans in > giant spider bodies, but who would vote for a giant spider for > President? :) You know, if the candidate could write a non trivial program, or build a car from parts, or anything like this, man, I will vote for him anytime, against all the lawyer/artist/sportsmen candidates, even if he looked like heap of steamy shit. If he could show a party full of folks like this, I would buy a membership. Or stole it. Ummm. Did I suggested... But no! I don't look like heap of shit! You have to take my word for this, because I'm not going to post my photo. 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 rtomek at ceti.pl Mon Apr 22 20:00:17 2013 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:00:17 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Apr 2013, spike wrote: > > >... On Behalf Of Andrew Mckee > > On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:13:19 +1200, spike wrote: > > >> ... and of course that crazy sexy 7 of 9... > [...] > > And even with that green skin, Cadet Gaila just looks like a heck of a lotta > fun: > > http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Rachel_Nichols To me, they are all like "9 of 9" actually :-) [...] > Oh that Q was a bastard. But he was a great idea. He made references to Ok, so he was a bastard but by some other comment (but whose?) he also treated humans as pets, right? So, the sum of his bads and goods is actually a huge plus and he deserves a scotch. An out of my head list of shows, just in case you or somebody did not watch them: - V (with Elisabeth Mitchell) - not quite transhuman, but lots of nice looking alien and human women. Big plus, humanity gets big whip in the ass. Finally! I am truly disgusted with all those films when aliens come, and they are so superior, but it's national holly day or Christmas or something, so they fail. Not in this series. There is not even one day of Christmas in it and the fighting is hard and the people are as stupid and naive as they are (with only few exceptions). - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - hard core reprogramming of Summer Glau. A girl who displays assembly and hex in her eyes. Yummy. She can also kick arse of other terminators out there (except the terminatoromorpheress). And she knows about bank robberies and guns and time travel. She also has built-in gps, so one can travel broad and wide and never get lost with her. - Forbidden Science - transhumanism mixed with medium porn (I'm not sure, is there such a thing? it is too good for soft and not good enough for hard, I mean lot's of skin and knocking but no perversions like playing with rubber ducks etc) - cloning, zex, memory transfer, more zex, murder, even more zex, cyberspace, more zex,. I'm not sure if this show is or will be ever allowed in US because it is not for whole families, definitely. And besides, one of the actresses is Abby Sciuto lookalike. And she is not shy. - Battlestar Galactica, plus spinoffs - my fav, plenty of great cyborgs, plenty of great fighter pilots, space tactics, techno lasses and not even one f*ing magician. And the pilots make their own spirit, clean engines with it and what is left, they drink. After that they either fight Cylons or play cards and brawl. And after that a new cistern of spirit is distilled, so they again clean their engines and throats with it. I have written this already, but I will repeat - great. I was sold to the show in a second when beautiful Cylon breaks neck of a child out of curiosity - or for fun, she looked like both - and we hear click and child stops crying. Wonderful. It gets a bit mystic by the end, but I can live with this. Also, majority of humans were not too clever, some were brave but overally, I rooted for Cylons most of the time. Oh, I also rooted for the brave ones, too. And for the few reasonable, of course. 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 spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 22 20:32:05 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:32:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005a01ce3f98$7507d6f0$5f1784d0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of BillK >... >...I agree that these techniques could be be used to create humans in giant spider bodies, but who would vote for a giant spider for President? :) BillK _______________________________________________ Hey, we elected Bush and Obama, twice in both cases. A giant spider could scarcely be worse than those two yahoos. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Apr 22 22:06:26 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:06:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 7:20 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Do you worry much about your microbiome in charge of your > digestion? Rarely, I would imagine. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In fact there's now a pretty strong meme to suggest that regularly giving a damn about that system will help make the rest of them work better. > Utility fog has serious deficiences due to the reconfigurability > requirement. The amount of wasted volume dedicated to navigation, > propulsion and relinking is considerable. It only makes sense > as a poor man's reconfigurable environment for meat puppets, and > falls short on about everything if there are none. i already conceded that utility fog is mostly magic for the sake of theater/hollywood. > Virtualization assumes shared resources, and saving and restoring > state. In case of provably optimal computers there is nothing shared, > so saving and restoring N bits of state requires twice the number > of hardware, and considerable delays. > > Which means there will be no virtualization, and no cloud. Then what the heck were you talking about when you said, "Oh it'll be cheaper and easier to have fantasy worlds"? You didn't _really_ mean people would be playing pretend, did you? >> someone is still running physical machines, yeah? > > Nobody is running anything. No more than you are running your > body. You *are* your body. Nothing is going to change about that. Ok, you ARE your body... and you might get high on drugs and not care about it for a while... but that's hardly sustainable. You will have to take care of it; even if you've externalized the cost of that care to pharmaceuticals or medical technologies that you didn't discover/invent yourself. I don't understand how one might BE physically bare-bones hardware and unconcerned about the processes of physical reality. From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 22 23:40:19 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:40:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars Message-ID: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> So why did you guys give me so much grief about this idea a mere 15 yrs ago? http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/22/world/mars-one-way-ticket/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 Anyone wish to refute the notion that any humanned trip to Mars will be one-way? If you figure out a way to do it, this company would surely be happy to hear from you. I sure as hell never did figure out a way to get back, and we tried approximately a jillion different concepts. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 00:25:59 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:25:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Complex Phishing Schemes Message-ID: I have been amazed lately by the complexity of some of the phishing schemes that are being employed out there. In one I encountered recently, a robot, pretending to be a person, emailed me a picture of themselves (their human anti-avatar?) with my name written on a piece of paper they were holding. The font used made it look like hand writing and it was at a weird angle. This was supposed to be evidence that they were real, and not a computer. The script employed in this phishing scheme was rather sophisticated. The note sent along in this conversation was complaining about the lack of "real people" out there, and how glad they were to have figured out that I was not a robot. It was very convincing for a while (it passed the Turing test against me for about six messages interchanged). And I finally looked up the image with my name on it using Google reverse image search, something that I'd guess most people would not be aware enough to do, and I encountered a description of the overall scheme. I had smelled a rat or I wouldn't have done the reverse image lookup, but it was convincing for a while. For me, it is often a game to play along with these phishers of men to see just how sophisticated they have gotten. The game was up for me when I was asked for a credit card to "prove my age" and "do a quick background check"... LOL... they were only going to charge a dollar. That never works with me, but it could for some. The trick is that they then bill you more using the same number for a site that would embarrass some people to fight the charge. I wonder if any of you have run into such convincing and/or sophisticated phishing schemes, and if anyone has any thoughts as to how sophisticated these schemes might get in the very near future. I have also run into phishing schemes that were clearly people. I ask them questions like what is the capital of Georgia, and get the right answers... but even this should be able to be done by machines soon. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 01:23:50 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:23:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: For the same reason we may give this company grief about this idea now. Further, given the significant ($38) application fee, the strong likelihood is that this company will never actually launch hardware so far as LEO, let alone Mars. If their budget is that tight, they can't afford to test - and if they can't afford to test, things will break when they first try. Any state attorney wishing to score political capital can make an easy case that, under such circumstances, the launch is at best assisted suicide, and potentially attempted manslaughter, if the astronaut believes he or she will still be alive as of touchdown on Mars. On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 4:40 PM, spike wrote: > So why did you guys give me so much grief about this idea a mere 15 yrs > ago?**** > > ** ** > > > http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/22/world/mars-one-way-ticket/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 > **** > > ** ** > > Anyone wish to refute the notion that any humanned trip to Mars will be > one-way? If you figure out a way to do it, this company would surely be > happy to hear from you. I sure as hell never did figure out a way to get > back, and we tried approximately a jillion different concepts.**** > > ** ** > > spike**** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 02:11:34 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:11:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] National Geographic article about life extension Message-ID: An interesting article, about how the study of very long lived people, may bear results in the lab... http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/longevity/hall-text John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 06:44:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:44:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 06:06:26PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > Virtualization assumes shared resources, and saving and restoring > > state. In case of provably optimal computers there is nothing shared, > > so saving and restoring N bits of state requires twice the number > > of hardware, and considerable delays. > > > > Which means there will be no virtualization, and no cloud. > > Then what the heck were you talking about when you said, "Oh it'll be > cheaper and easier to have fantasy worlds"? You didn't _really_ mean > people would be playing pretend, did you? You notice I never say virtual worlds, but artificial reality. The reason is that virtual has a specific meaning in CS -- it means time-sharing of a given hardware resource, which implies saving and restoring state which only works when there's very little state to keep track of. In case of solid state minds, it's all state, so virtualization buys you nothing in terms of time-sharing hardware but introduces a large number of complications. Which doesn't mean you can't checkpoint, serialize state and reinstantiate on a different chunk of bare computronium iron. I guess technically you could call it a cloud, as long as it's the equivalent of today's pixieboot on bare iron. > >> someone is still running physical machines, yeah? > > > > Nobody is running anything. No more than you are running your > > body. You *are* your body. Nothing is going to change about that. > > Ok, you ARE your body... and you might get high on drugs and not care > about it for a while... but that's hardly sustainable. You will have > to take care of it; even if you've externalized the cost of that care > to pharmaceuticals or medical technologies that you didn't > discover/invent yourself. My point precisely. Solipsism is never good for your health. > I don't understand how one might BE physically bare-bones hardware and > unconcerned about the processes of physical reality. We're definitely on one page here. Just a communication problem. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 23 07:55:40 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:55:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <20130422102018.GF15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130422102018.GF15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366703740.45944.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 09:08:07PM -0700, Gordon wrote: >> I'm glad to see that you're still working on this project, Brent. I don't >> know if you remember me (I used to sign off as '-gts") but some years ago I >>took the position here that consciousness cannot be duplicated or created on >> digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is impossible. I engaged in > Does that mean binary, or discrete? Would an analogue solid state system > qualify? > a?lengthy?debate about it. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief > (I was even called a "troll") so I left for another venue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 23 08:11:12 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:11:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <1366703740.45944.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130422102018.GF15179@leitl.org> <1366703740.45944.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366704672.14772.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Sorry that last post of mine went without my comment. Yahoo webmail is?clumsy. Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 09:08:07PM -0700, Gordon wrote: >> I'm glad to see that you're still working on this project, Brent. I don't >> know if you remember me (I used to sign off as '-gts") but some years ago I >>took the position here that consciousness cannot be duplicated or created on >> digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is impossible. I engaged in > Does that mean binary, or discrete? Would an analogue solid state system > qualify? I'm not sure what you mean by binary or discrete, but I did not disqualify analogue solid state systems. >> a?lengthy?debate about it. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief > >(I was even called a "troll") so I left for another venue. It was in fact you, Eugen, who called me a troll back in about 2008 or so. That was painful, as I consider you a leader here on ExI. I've been around here since about 2000. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 08:26:39 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:26:39 +1200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:40:19 +1200, spike wrote: > Anyone wish to refute the notion that any humanned trip to Mars will be > one-way? If you figure out a way to do it, this company would surely be > happy to hear from you. I sure as hell never did figure out a way to get > back, and we tried approximately a jillion different concepts. I thought the NASA guys/robots found evidence of water ice up there?, a small industrial facility, a few square kilometers of photo-voltaic panels , and a few busloads of zero wage workers, what more could you need? :-) From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 08:44:23 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:44:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <1366704672.14772.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130422102018.GF15179@leitl.org> <1366703740.45944.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366704672.14772.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130423084423.GD15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 01:11:12AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > >> I'm glad to see that you're still > working on this project, Brent. I don't > >> know if you remember me (I used to sign off as '-gts") but some years ago I > >>took the position here that consciousness cannot be duplicated or created on > >> digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is impossible. I engaged in > > > Does that mean binary, or discrete? Would an analogue solid state system > > qualify? > > I'm not sure what you mean by binary or discrete, but I did not disqualify analogue solid state systems. Such a position would be inconsistent, then, as with sufficient number of discrete states you could approximate any continuum. In fact the human CNS makes use of analogue-like processing for close ranges, and only switches to discrete coding (spikes) when it has to signal across longer distances, where signalling based on amplitude alone wouldn't work. You see similiar approaches in modern hybrid systems for neuromorphic processing http://www.livescience.com/27907-neurogrid-brain-simulator-brain-awareness-nsf.html This definitely makes sense, assuming you know which specific function you're need to directly implement in solid state. Unfortunately, we don't know that yet, hence the need for all-purpose computers, which are not efficient, but flexible. Once we know, we can build dedicated hardware for that purpose, which will be dramatically faster and dramatically more energy-efficient. > >> a?lengthy?debate about it. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief > > >(I was even called a "troll") so I left for another venue. > > It was in fact you, Eugen, who called me a troll back in about 2008 or so. That was painful, as I consider you a leader here on ExI. I've been around here since about 2000. Please accept my apologies. Sometimes, I'm an idiot. From andymck35 at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 08:59:28 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:59:28 +1200 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:00:17 +1200, Tomasz Rola wrote: > Ok, so he was a bastard but by some other comment (but whose?) he also > treated humans as pets, right? So, the sum of his bads and goods is Think that was me paraphrasing the character of 'Data' from one of the STTNG episodes. But Q didn't treat humans as pets, I / Data said Q acted as if he had a fondness for the human species - much like we humans have a fondness for our own pets. > - Battlestar Galactica, plus spinoffs - my fav, plenty of great cyborgs, > plenty of great fighter pilots, space tactics, techno lasses and not > even one f*ing magician. And the pilots make their own spirit, clean > engines with it and what is left, they drink. After that they either > fight Cylons or play cards and brawl. And after that a new cistern of > spirit is distilled, so they again clean their engines and throats with > it. I have written this already, but I will repeat - great. I was sold > to the show in a second when beautiful Cylon breaks neck of a child out > of curiosity - or for fun, she looked like both - and we hear click and > child stops crying. Wonderful. It gets a bit mystic by the end, but I > can live with this. Also, majority of humans were not too clever, some > were brave but overally, I rooted for Cylons most of the time. Oh, I > also rooted for the brave ones, too. And for the few reasonable, of > course. Your talking about the remake, and yep it was pretty good I thought, right up till the last episode which had me gaging WTF!!!s for a while. But it was the same with 'Lost' as well, Deus Ex Machina does not happily wrap up a series as many Hollywood screenwriters seem to believe it does. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 09:24:12 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:24:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 04:40:19PM -0700, spike wrote: > So why did you guys give me so much grief about this idea a mere 15 yrs ago? > > > > http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/22/world/mars-one-way-ticket/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 > > > > Anyone wish to refute the notion that any humanned trip to Mars will be > one-way? If you figure out a way to do it, this company would surely be > happy to hear from you. I sure as hell never did figure out a way to get > back, and we tried approximately a jillion different concepts. I would argue that any manned mission would involve sending automation ahead to build habitat and closed-loop ecosystem, so needs not to be one-way in principle. Novel propulsion seems to make travel in 30-40 days feasible, and return is even easier (chemical rocket launch from Mars, and aerobraking reentry) so even less need for one-way. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 13:27:17 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:27:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130423132717.GP15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 01:59:46AM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > I probably have enough material to work with but to make the story > resonate with people, I need to hammer people with logic and inescapable > chains of causation. At the same time, I don't want to say anything that People don't care about that. They want a good story. > would cause the entire piece to be dismissed out of hand. (It is > acknowledged that many would dismiss what I have to say out of prejudice > but that can't be helped at this point.) > > My problem here is that while the process of upl04d!ng t3h br4!nz is Are you writing about h4x0r z0mb13z? Seems a bit narrow. > extensively discussed, the day to day problems of running an upload in a > simulation are almost completely ignored. Stross actively avoided [citation needed] > getting too technical for fear of writing something that would become The actual fear is to write something incomprehensible which still has to sell. E.g. http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00B1UDSS4/ is a great book, but the target audience is a bit limited. > dated too quickly. Egan did reveal some technical information but his Egan is chronically prone to physics goofs. Don't look for technical detail in SF. > claims about performance were not well justified. I would definitely > prefer to work from more primary sources such as technical papers rather > than have to rely on other people's fiction. What do you want to know? Your earlier question about clocks to synchronize low-level stuff: you don't need clocks for that. What else? From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 14:04:38 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:04:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005001ce402b$7f18dbb0$7d4a9310$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Andrew Mckee Subject: Re: [ExI] one way ticket to mars On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:40:19 +1200, spike wrote: >>... Anyone wish to refute the notion that any humanned trip to Mars will > be one-way? If you figure out a way to do it, this company would > surely be happy to hear from you. I sure as hell never did figure out > a way to get back, and we tried approximately a jillion different concepts. >...I thought the NASA guys/robots found evidence of water ice up there?, a small industrial facility, a few square kilometers of photo-voltaic panels , and a few busloads of zero wage workers, what more could you need? :-) _______________________________________________ Ja. The closest thing I saw to a plausible round trip mission was Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct approach, which does a lot of this. It proposes soft-landing with a vehicle, then setting up a facility using indigenous materials and manufacturing the fuel for a return flight from these materials. Interesting, but I couldn't convince myself that the reliability model closes. If I signed up for such a mission, I would try like hell to make it work, but would quietly treat it as a one way trip, go thru the stages of grief for losing myself before I ever left home. I am seeing this 3D printing technology taking off however. I can vaguely imagine landing some 3D printers on Mars, making the factory with that, then having a return rocket mostly assembled before the humans arrive. Another likely scenario has humans inserted into Mars synchronous orbit, never landing on the surface, but staying there a couple years to operate semi-autonomous equipment on the ground. spike From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 14:17:12 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:17:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <005001ce402b$7f18dbb0$7d4a9310$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <005001ce402b$7f18dbb0$7d4a9310$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130423141712.GA15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 07:04:38AM -0700, spike wrote: > Ja. The closest thing I saw to a plausible round trip mission was Robert > Zubrin's Mars Direct approach, which does a lot of this. It proposes > soft-landing with a vehicle, then setting up a facility using indigenous > materials and manufacturing the fuel for a return flight from these It seems a somewhat paleofuture way of doing this. > materials. Interesting, but I couldn't convince myself that the reliability > model closes. If I signed up for such a mission, I would try like hell to > make it work, but would quietly treat it as a one way trip, go thru the > stages of grief for losing myself before I ever left home. > > I am seeing this 3D printing technology taking off however. I can vaguely > imagine landing some 3D printers on Mars, making the factory with that, then The Moon is much better suitable for this. There's really not much difference between 0 mbar and 6 mbar, in terms of design. It's just added nuisance (wind drag, dust). And half the insolation to boot, plus no crater rims of eternal sunlight, right next to the volatiles cryotrap. Much smaller gravity well. Etc. > having a return rocket mostly assembled before the humans arrive. Another > likely scenario has humans inserted into Mars synchronous orbit, never In case of the Earth, you never have to leave your armchair. 24/7 operation by way of rotating through the time zones. > landing on the surface, but staying there a couple years to operate > semi-autonomous equipment on the ground. Once you've got the Moon, Mars is a cakewalk. From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 14:16:45 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:16:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl ... > >>... Anyone wish to refute the notion that any humanned trip to Mars will > be one-way? If you figure out a way to do it, this company would > surely be happy to hear from you. I sure as hell never did figure out > a way to get back, and we tried approximately a jillion different concepts. >...I would argue that any manned mission would involve sending automation ahead to build habitat and closed-loop ecosystem, so needs not to be one-way in principle... Agreed, and perhaps the 3D printing tech is what we need for that. If we get good enough at it, a version of Zubrin's Mars Direct approach might work. >...Novel propulsion seems to make travel in 30-40 days feasible... Disagree. The only thing we have even vaguely plausible for a non-Hohmann transfer orbit is fission nuclear, assuming any reasonable extrapolation of today's tech. Nuclear is better, but not enough better to give us fast rides. I argued 20 years ago that a really good alternative is really not on our horizon. That was not popular, but turned out to be right. It is farther away today than it was then. It's chemical rockets for us, and 8 months trip to Mars, any time in the next 50-ish years. Damn. {8-[ >... and return is even easier (chemical rocket launch from Mars, and aerobraking reentry) so even less need for one-way. _______________________________________________ I hope you are right. I am betting on semi-autonomous 3D printers and assemblers (not nano) building a habitat ahead of the astronauts. spike From rtomek at ceti.pl Tue Apr 23 14:42:58 2013 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:42:58 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> <002501ce3f1a$3dcb3430$b9619c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Apr 2013, Andrew Mckee wrote: > On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:00:17 +1200, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > >Ok, so he was a bastard but by some other comment (but whose?) he also > >treated humans as pets, right? So, the sum of his bads and goods is > > Think that was me paraphrasing the character of 'Data' from one of the STTNG > episodes. Correct! I knew I had read a message, yet when I wanted to find it again, to verify sender, I couldn't. > But Q didn't treat humans as pets, I / Data said Q acted as if he had a > fondness for the human species - much like we humans have a fondness for > our own pets. I see. Well, I don't think I watched enough ST to have my own opinion on Q. Seems that he could have been a bastard or he could have acted with some higher goal in mind, like a dentist. > >- Battlestar Galactica, plus spinoffs - my fav, plenty of great cyborgs, [...] > > Your talking about the remake, and yep it was pretty good I thought, Correct again. I wouldn't mind watching older version but cables don't think so. BTW, "V" mentioned by me was a remake/sequel, too. > right up till the last episode which had me gaging WTF!!!s for a while. > > But it was the same with 'Lost' as well, Deus Ex Machina does not > happily wrap up a series as many Hollywood screenwriters seem to believe > it does. Yep, definitely. I tend to remember good middle (if there was any) and get over with whatever trick they do in the last episode to make ends meet. And "Lost", after certain moment, became tired and old. I watched last two seasons mostly out of inertia. Terminator, however, was really keeping the level up to the very end (IMHO). I was surprised it had been made by the same Hollywood. But it could be my fondness for robots. BSG, too, was holding water until the very end. And their "mystical derailing" wasn't very bad for me, but again, if you like a cyborg and cyborg gets mystic, you end up liking mystic cyborg. 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 eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 14:44:37 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:44:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 07:16:45AM -0700, spike wrote: > >...Novel propulsion seems to make travel in 30-40 days feasible... > > Disagree. The only thing we have even vaguely plausible for a non-Hohmann > transfer orbit is fission nuclear, assuming any reasonable extrapolation of Do you disagree that http://www.space.com/8009-rocket-engine-reach-mars-40-days.html is a near-future technology? > today's tech. Nuclear is better, but not enough better to give us fast > rides. I argued 20 years ago that a really good alternative is really not > on our horizon. That was not popular, but turned out to be right. It is > farther away today than it was then. It's chemical rockets for us, and 8 > months trip to Mars, any time in the next 50-ish years. Damn. {8-[ I don't expect that's going to happen with manned missions. Machines are patient, people are not. > >... and return is even easier (chemical rocket launch from Mars, and > aerobraking > reentry) so even less need for one-way. > _______________________________________________ > > I hope you are right. I am betting on semi-autonomous 3D printers and > assemblers (not nano) building a habitat ahead of the astronauts. There has been considerable progress with lunar regolith simulant lately http://news.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=34094 There's an actual project to build an inflatable module with meteorite/radiation shield printed from regolith. Plus, with electrostatic and magnetic separation dry processes are not much of a limitation. From atymes at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 15:27:59 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:27:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <005001ce402b$7f18dbb0$7d4a9310$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <005001ce402b$7f18dbb0$7d4a9310$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 7:04 AM, spike wrote: > Ja. The closest thing I saw to a plausible round trip mission was Robert > Zubrin's Mars Direct approach, which does a lot of this. It proposes > soft-landing with a vehicle, then setting up a facility using indigenous > materials and manufacturing the fuel for a return flight from these > materials. Interesting, but I couldn't convince myself that the > reliability > model closes. If I signed up for such a mission, I would try like hell to > make it work, but would quietly treat it as a one way trip, go thru the > stages of grief for losing myself before I ever left home. > > I am seeing this 3D printing technology taking off however. I can vaguely > imagine landing some 3D printers on Mars, making the factory with that, > then > having a return rocket mostly assembled before the humans arrive. > How about "assembled *and tested*"? Once you have the infrastructure on place, the added cost of making a few more rockets on Mars and trying them out is rather small. One could get up to at least the standards that rockets made on Earth live up to before humans board them. Thing is, any venture seriously proposing one-way trips as a cost saving measure, is going to reject such notions out of hand. They're going for flags and footprints. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 15:02:23 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:02:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 Gordon wrote: > I don't know if you remember me > I do, and the thing I could never figure out is why you just assumed that we would find it harder to make a computer that was conscious than to make one that was intelligent when Evolution found the exact opposite to be true. > > some years ago I took the position here that consciousness cannot be > duplicated or created on digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is > impossible. > I see that some things never change. > Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief (I was even called a > "troll") > Not me. I gave you a lot of grief but I never called you a troll. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 16:11:27 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:11:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 7:45 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] one way ticket to mars On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 07:16:45AM -0700, spike wrote: > >>...Novel propulsion seems to make travel in 30-40 days feasible... > >>... Disagree. The only thing we have even vaguely plausible for a > non-Hohmann transfer orbit is fission nuclear, assuming any reasonable > extrapolation of >...Do you disagree that http://www.space.com/8009-rocket-engine-reach-mars-40-days.html is a near-future technology? I agree the ion engine is feasible, even current technology. But my argument is that it doesn't do as much as they say. You still need chemical propulsion to get to LEO to assemble the ion engines, and I figure you might need chemical propulsion to get out of the earth's gravity well in a reasonable amount of time. Even then, with that marvelous Isp the nuclear rockets offer, the optimal mission assuming humans aboard is far waaay longer than 30 to 40 days. Every scenario I ran optimized in an orbit not far from a standard Hohmann transfer, perhaps a little over 5 months being the shortest practical mission, and even then you hang your lives on the system working perfectly at the other end for Mars insertion. 30 to 40 days, no way. My assumptions went up to Isp of about 1200 m/sec, much beyond which your energy consumption goes nuts, and the total thrust is way low for the very high Isp systems. The really shorty missions, anything less than about 5 months, require high total thrust at the far end, otherwise you die of boredom and starvation on your way out to Jupiter, waving a sad goodbye to Mars, damn. {8-[ But you make a good point: I need to get out all those spreadsheets I made 15 yrs ago, update them and start calculating again, see if anything will change my mind. Already something has: China and India are going into space stuff bigtime, and they have buttloads of money to dump into it. Those two guys may work together, and if they do, you have a couple billion proles from which to choose rocket scientists. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 16:35:29 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:35:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 8:23 AM, BillK wrote: > I agree that these techniques could be be used to create humans in > giant spider bodies, but who would vote for a giant spider for > President? :) > A lot of people, if he were running against an atheist... LOL -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 23 16:45:24 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:45:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 09:11:27AM -0700, spike wrote: > I agree the ion engine is feasible, even current technology. But my I've seen ITO/InP on Kapton is claimed to have 2 kg/kW. http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/applab/v95/i22/p223503_s1?isAuthorized=no So if they need 200 MW, that'd take 200 t. > argument is that it doesn't do as much as they say. You still need chemical > propulsion to get to LEO to assemble the ion engines, and I figure you might But that time is not part of travel, since the crew sits there terraside, twiddling their thumbs until craft is ready for departure. > need chemical propulsion to get out of the earth's gravity well in a > reasonable amount of time. Even then, with that marvelous Isp the nuclear It's not nuclear, it's electric, solar-powered. There are some data on nuclear VASIMR http://web.mit.edu/mars/Conference_Archives/MarsWeek04_April/Speaker_Documents/VASIMREngine-TimGlover.pdf There are some fusion-assisted propulsion plans, but I think it's too speculative at this point http://www.technewsworld.com/story/77758.html > rockets offer, the optimal mission assuming humans aboard is far waaay > longer than 30 to 40 days. Every scenario I ran optimized in an orbit not > far from a standard Hohmann transfer, perhaps a little over 5 months being > the shortest practical mission, and even then you hang your lives on the > system working perfectly at the other end for Mars insertion. 30 to 40 The problem with photovoltaic is that you only have half power at Mars. > days, no way. > > My assumptions went up to Isp of about 1200 m/sec, much beyond which your VASIMR VX-200 claims an Isp of 5000 s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket Zubrin doesn't like Ad Astra, but they've replied to his criticisms with http://www.adastrarocket.com/VASIMR_development_AdAstra_15July2011.pdf > energy consumption goes nuts, and the total thrust is way low for the very > high Isp systems. The really shorty missions, anything less than about 5 > months, require high total thrust at the far end, otherwise you die of > boredom and starvation on your way out to Jupiter, waving a sad goodbye to > Mars, damn. {8-[ > > But you make a good point: I need to get out all those spreadsheets I made > 15 yrs ago, update them and start calculating again, see if anything will > change my mind. Already something has: China and India are going into space > stuff bigtime, and they have buttloads of money to dump into it. Those two > guys may work together, and if they do, you have a couple billion proles > from which to choose rocket scientists. From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 17:07:17 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:07:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > There are some data on nuclear VASIMR > http://web.mit.edu/mars/Conference_Archives/MarsWeek04_April/Speaker_Documents/VASIMREngine-TimGlover.pdf > That nuclear design was 2004 and we are still no nearer getting a nuclear power engine in space to generate enough electricity for a big VASIMR engine. Without that, even adastrarocket company themselves only claim that the VX-200 will reduce fuel costs on a trip to Mars. i.e. It won't be quicker, just a bit cheaper. > > VASIMR VX-200 claims an Isp of 5000 s. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket > > Zubrin doesn't like Ad Astra, but they've replied to his criticisms > with http://www.adastrarocket.com/VASIMR_development_AdAstra_15July2011.pdf > Quote from that 2011 pdf: "It is abundantly clear that the nuclear reactor technology required for such missions is not available today and major advances in reactor design and power conversion are needed". That is still the position today in 2013. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 17:56:02 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:56:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008a01ce404b$d26bfb60$7743f220$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of spike ... >...My assumptions went up to Isp of about 1200 m/sec, much beyond which your energy consumption goes nuts...spike _______________________________________________ Doh! See what happens when a lad relies on memory from 10-12 years ago? He drops a factor of g and makes mistakes of an order of magnitude! I meant 12000 m/sec of course. I was in the barber chair doing these calcs in my head and realized I had blundered it, damn. And my barber is a crazy-sexy Vietnamese girl, and these are the first really good hot days of summer so I will leave to your imagination what she came to work wearing today, and no I will not tell you where her shop is located. She doesn't know much English but is good in Spanish and I know a little Espaniol, so here she was in my face trimming my eyebrows with those, and I am trying to make small talk in Spanish with her, trying to remember what little bit of habla Espaniol I once knew so tragically many years ago, with those in my face, trying to do mental BOTECs at the same time, and even with that mental process in third place I still managed to realize I had dropped an order of magnitude, damn. Now both Anders and Eugen will jump my ass, but the difference is Anders will do so in his gentle polite British-Swedish way, so kindhearted and charitable I will actually enjoy it, but Eugen will just kick my virtual butt and leave my broken virtual body in a smoldering heap beside the information superhighway. It's all 7 of 9s fault! Apologies to all for my order of magnitude goof. I will try to be more careful in the future. spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 18:04:24 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:04:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <008b01ce404c$fe103410$fa309c30$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl >... > >>... My assumptions went up to Isp of about 1200 m/sec, much beyond which your >...VASIMR VX-200 claims an Isp of 5000 s... Ja, I meant 12,000 m/sec. If they can get 5000 sec or about 50k m/sec, then well OK, I will at least pay attention. There was a guy named Bruce Johnson at NASA Glenn in Ohio back in the 90s who was saying we could make those kinds of numbers, but they were a long way from a flight version. Gene you surprise me man! You let me off easy on that 1200 goof. You are getting soft in our old age pal. {8^D spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 19:56:43 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:56:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <008a01ce404b$d26bfb60$7743f220$@rainier66.com> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> <008a01ce404b$d26bfb60$7743f220$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000301ce405c$ae304150$0a90c3f0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of spike Subject: Re: [ExI] one way ticket to mars >... On Behalf Of spike ... >>...My assumptions went up to Isp of about 1200 m/sec, much beyond which your energy consumption goes nuts...spike _______________________________________________ >...Doh! I meant 12000 m/sec of course... Doh! Europeans, you guys don't know how good you have it. That kind of embarrassing error above is an indirect result of using the sloppy Isp unit of seconds, when you really mean pound-force seconds per pound mass, then cancel two unmatching but similarly named units. Cursed English system! >... I was in the barber chair ...a crazy-sexy Vietnamese girl...first really good hot days of summer ... here she was in my face trimming my eyebrows with those... Doh! Some days it is better to just step away from the keyboard, leave it alone until one is feeling abnormal again. What I meant of course is that she was in my face with those; trimming my eyebrows with SCISSORS. If she really could trim a man's eyebrows with THOSE, she wouldn't need to bother running a barbershop. But this time I can't even blame it on English units, because we were speaking Espaniol. I blame it on this year's daring and playful women's fashions, oh my, I love em! The girls seem less shy, showing off a bit. It's the 70s again, cool! >...Apologies to all for my order of magnitude goof. I will try to be more careful in the future. spike _______________________________________________ That silly goof is good actually. It's a wakeup call: I need to get my space stuff out of the old software toolbox and get busy with it again. Keith has been doing all these calculations and I have been sitting on my butt cheering him on, rather than getting with the program myself. spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 23 20:13:55 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:13:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> . >>. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief (I was even called a "troll") >.Not me. I gave you a lot of grief but I never called you a troll. John K Clark {8^D Gordon, you are among friends here. Many of us here disagree with your notion that consciousness can never be simmed on a digital computer, but even with that, you are among impressive company with that notion. Penrose makes the same case in The Emperor's New Mind. I disagreed with that book when it came out over 20 yrs ago, and still do: I don't think he ever reeled in that fish. In any case, don't go away; even if someone calls you a troll, you are among friends here. Make your case, drive it home. If you have a good reason to think consciousness can never exist in a digital or even analog computer, do state it and let us focus on the concept, not the man. Present equations if you have them. Emperor's New Mind is devoid of equations, and even the philosophical concepts I found unconvincing. I am a big Penrose fan, but I think Emperor was a fumble. Gordon, you are living inside an analog computing device that is both intelligent and conscious. That is an odd position from which to argue that this phenomenon is impossible. If you claim that a digital sim of an analog computing device is impossible, we are listening and we want evidence, equations if possible. This is an important argument, for if you are right, then cryonics is pointless as all hell. But I still don't see it. Do try again sir, an no calling GTS a troll please. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Tue Apr 23 20:18:20 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:18:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <20130423132717.GP15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <20130423132717.GP15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5176EC8C.3060302@verizon.net> >> claims about performance were not well justified. I would definitely >> prefer to work from more primary sources such as technical papers rather >> than have to rely on other people's fiction. > What do you want to know? Your earlier question about clocks to synchronize > low-level stuff: you don't need clocks for that. What else? Point 1: that seems to contradict, or rather be strongly incompatible with the often repeated claim that "clock speed" was a variable that could be tweaked or otherwise manipulated. Point 2: All game engines I know, to the best of my understanding, are strongly based on at least two critically important clocks: 1. The sound system's sample-rate clock which dictates what voltage to send to the speakers/headphones at each instant. 2. The frame rate clock off of which the entire rendering engine hangs... If any of these clocks (both mentioned above and not mentioned) are not perfectly synchronized with each other and the systems simulating the brain, which also has a number of local and global synchronization problems, then the subjective experience will suffer and the oft and emphatic claim that it will be "indistinguishable from reality!" will not hold. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 23 22:54:46 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:54:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 2:44 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > You notice I never say virtual worlds, but artificial reality. > > The reason is that virtual has a specific meaning in CS -- > it means time-sharing of a given hardware resource, which > implies saving and restoring state which only works when > there's very little state to keep track of. > > In case of solid state minds, it's all state, so virtualization > buys you nothing in terms of time-sharing hardware but introduces > a large number of complications. Which doesn't mean you can't > checkpoint, serialize state and reinstantiate on a different > chunk of bare computronium iron. Please explain in greater detail your distinction between virtual world and artificial reality. For the purpose of computing, I'd treat virtual, artificial, simulated, et al. as conceptually isomorphic, with any nuance separating them to likely be related to point of view / perspective. In the sense of hosting environment, world and reality are similarly similar. :) You might call the planet Earth our "world" or you could refer to the zeitgeist as our "world" so again it's a definition of terms problem. I'm trying to imagine how we might have an artificial reality if "artificial" means "fake" and "reality" is the opposite. If artificial reality is a clever oxymoron, then perhaps I've been _very_ slow to get the joke? From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 05:07:05 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:07:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <516D9FF4.1080707@libero.it> References: <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130416085035.GU15179@leitl.org> <1366105150.69032.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366130427.98069.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9FF4.1080707@libero.it> Message-ID: <1366780025.97025.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I'm glad to say that I am an owner of bitcoins and that I currently have some some paper profits that I hope will continue to grow. If the price drops, I'll buy more, but let's try to keep the rally going. Tell all your friends about the promise of Bitcoin. :) -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 05:41:00 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:41:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike, >Gordon, you are among friends here. ?Many of us here disagree with your notion that consciousness can never be simmed on a digital computer, but even with that, you are among impressive company with that notion. ?Penrose makes the same case in The Emperor?s New Mind. ?I disagreed with that book when it came out over 20 yrs ago, and still do: I don?t think he ever reeled in that fish. ?In any case, don?t go away; even if someone calls you a troll, you are among friends here< Thank you very much, spike! Back then, I took my ideas about the philosophy of mind to a philosophy forum where there was no predisposition to believe in such things as uploading. I spent perhaps a year debating this subject, mostly with acolytes of Daniel Dennett. I remain convinced that digital simulations can never have consciousness, and that strong (conscious) AI and uploading is impossible on digital computers. To John Clark's point: yes it is true that nature has built these machines that have consciousness, you and I being among them, but I think these machines that we call humans are not akin to digital computers.? -Gordon From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 06:10:23 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:10:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> > Thank you very much, spike! Back then, I took my ideas about the philosophy of mind to a philosophy forum where there was no predisposition to believe in such things as uploading. I spent perhaps a year debating this subject, mostly with acolytes of Daniel Dennett. Philosophers have no clue about the problem. > I remain convinced that digital simulations can never have consciousness, and that strong (conscious) AI and uploading is impossible on digital computers. First question: what do you mean by consciousness? Second question: what do you think computational neuroscientists are doing? Specifically, projects like http://www.si-elegans.eu/ and http://www.openworm.org/ Third question: you realize that there are analogue computers. You agree that you can simulate biology in analogue computers. Yet digital computers can simulate analogue computers (and in fact any physical process). How is that possible? > To John Clark's point: yes it is true that nature has built these machines that have consciousness, you and I being among them, but I think these machines that we call humans are not akin to digital computers.? From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 06:22:17 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:22:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130424062217.GN15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 06:07:17PM +0100, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > There are some data on nuclear VASIMR > > http://web.mit.edu/mars/Conference_Archives/MarsWeek04_April/Speaker_Documents/VASIMREngine-TimGlover.pdf > > > > That nuclear design was 2004 and we are still no nearer getting a > nuclear power engine in space to generate enough electricity for a big So don't use a reactor, use these 2 kg/kW PV panels. This isn't batty moonbeams country like http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/07/high-energy-density-nuclear-power-for.html > VASIMR engine. Without that, even adastrarocket company themselves > only claim that the VX-200 will reduce fuel costs on a trip to Mars. > i.e. It won't be quicker, just a bit cheaper. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 06:24:58 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:24:58 +0200 Subject: [ExI] one way ticket to mars In-Reply-To: <20130424062217.GN15179@leitl.org> References: <000301ce3fb2$c0b63be0$4222b3a0$@rainier66.com> <20130423092412.GH15179@leitl.org> <005101ce402d$303fda00$90bf8e00$@rainier66.com> <20130423144437.GB15179@leitl.org> <007001ce403d$364d2050$a2e760f0$@rainier66.com> <20130423164524.GL15179@leitl.org> <20130424062217.GN15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130424062458.GO15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 08:22:17AM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 06:07:17PM +0100, BillK wrote: > > On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > > > There are some data on nuclear VASIMR > > > http://web.mit.edu/mars/Conference_Archives/MarsWeek04_April/Speaker_Documents/VASIMREngine-TimGlover.pdf > > > > > > > That nuclear design was 2004 and we are still no nearer getting a > > nuclear power engine in space to generate enough electricity for a big > > So don't use a reactor, use these 2 kg/kW PV panels. > > This isn't batty moonbeams country like > http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/07/high-energy-density-nuclear-power-for.html Oh, and ibid http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/vasimr-space-missions-and-efficiency.html > > VASIMR engine. Without that, even adastrarocket company themselves > > only claim that the VX-200 will reduce fuel costs on a trip to Mars. > > i.e. It won't be quicker, just a bit cheaper. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 06:31:24 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:31:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, > First question: what do you mean by consciousness? I mean, exactly, what philosophers mean by intentionality: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ > Second question: what do you think computational neuroscientists are doing? If by computational neuroscientists you mean cognitive scientists, I believe they are following a false model. The computational model of mind is, I think, wrong.? -Gordon From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 06:45:40 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:45:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:31:24PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Eugen, > > > First question: what do you mean by consciousness? > > I mean, exactly, what philosophers mean by intentionality: > > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ Ok, how I measure intentionality? I need to make sure I succeeded, after all. Do animals have intentionality? Primates, rodents, fruit flies, nematodes, bacteria, viruses? > > Second question: what do you think computational neuroscientists are doing? > > If by computational neuroscientists you mean cognitive scientists, I believe they are following a false model. The computational model of mind is, I think, wrong.? No, I definitely do not mind mere cognitive scientists, I mean computational neuroscientists. Why do you think the model is false? How do you know it's wrong, if the output is behaviour matching control? From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 07:07:08 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:07:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, >Ok, how I measure intentionality? I need to make sure >I succeeded, after all. >Do animals have intentionality? Primates, rodents, fruit >flies, nematodes, bacteria, viruses? You certainly know you have intentionality. You know it as surely as you can see these words. You're justified in thinking that other beings like you also have it. As we go down the food chain, things are not so clear. I happen to think that most mammals have it, but probably not some less complex organisms. But that is irrelevant. ? >> If by computational neuroscientists you mean cognitive scientists, I believe they are following a false model. The computational model of mind is, I think, wrong.? > No, I definitely do not mind mere cognitive scientists, I mean computational > neuroscientists. Before I answer your next question below, please explain to me how you?differentiate cognitive scientists from computational?neuroscientists. As I understand it, cognitive science is based in the computational model of mind. Paul and Patrick Churchland come to mind as adherents, along with Daniel Dennett. Wouldn't it be nice if the brain/mind were like a computer? So they think. .?? >Why do you think the model is false? How do you know it's wrong, >if the output is behaviour matching control? -Gordon From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 08:16:17 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:16:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 12:07:08AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Eugen, > > >Ok, how I measure intentionality? I need to make sure > >I succeeded, after all. > >Do animals have intentionality? Primates, rodents, fruit > >flies, nematodes, bacteria, viruses? > > > You certainly know you have intentionality. No, as a matter of fact I don't. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ is useless, it's not even wrong. About every sentence of it makes my skin crawl. "Power"? Measured in Watts, or what? "minds", well, how perfectly circular. "to be about" is meaningless. "Or to stand for" that's likely to meant represent. "things, properties" ok, maybe. "Stands of affairs", is meaningless. "The word itself, which is of medieval Scholastic origin," ah, so they admit it's useless. "was rehabilitated by the philosopher" -- no, this it not how it works, sorry. "?Intentionality? is a philosopher's word." -- allright, so we can stop there. They say it's useless. > You know it as surely as you can see these words. I don't care about me, I care about an objective measurement process. So that you can know, and not guess. > You're justified in thinking that other beings like you also have it. No, I don't, unless it's an objectively measurable property. How do I know which beings are "like me"? > As we go down the food chain, things are not so clear. See, something is fishy with your concept of consciosness. If we look at at as ability to process information, suddenly we're starting to get somewhere. > I happen to think that most mammals have it, but probably not some less complex organisms. But that is irrelevant. ? I happen to think that even instantiated viruses can process information, and certainly single cells and bacteria can. And that's immensely relevant, because it's measurable, and we're looking at merely different scales. > >> If by computational neuroscientists you mean cognitive scientists, I believe they are following a false model. The computational model of mind is, I think, wrong.? > > > No, I definitely do not mind mere cognitive scientists, I mean computational > > neuroscientists. > > Before I answer your next question below, please explain to me how you?differentiate cognitive scientists from computational?neuroscientists. As I understand it, cognitive science is based in the computational model of mind. Paul and Patrick Churchland come to mind as adherents, along with Daniel Dennett. Wouldn't it be nice if the brain/mind were like a computer? So they think. If they don't measure and run code they're not computational scientists. In fact, they're not scientists at all. They're probably philosophers, or worse. > .?? > > >Why do you think the model is false? How do you know it's wrong, > >if the output is behaviour matching control? See, you're evading simple questions which are designed to show where you're being inconsistent and instead engage into obfuscation. This is not the way to generate knowledge. It's a way to self-delusion. Remeber, you're the easiest person to fool. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 08:47:35 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:47:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130424084735.GV15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 10:41:00PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > To John Clark's point: yes it is true that nature has built these machines > that have consciousness, you and I being among them, but I think these > machines that we call humans are not akin to digital computers.? Once again: this statement implies that you know what the critical differences are. It seems to be not about quantized or discrete, since biology is both. Is it about being noisy? Quantum entanglement? Something else? Inquiring minds. From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 09:15:38 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:15:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424084735.GV15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424084735.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 9:47 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Once again: this statement implies that you know what the critical > differences are. It seems to be not about quantized or discrete, > since biology is both. Is it about being noisy? Quantum entanglement? > Something else? > > Hmmmm. It seems to me that by relying on empirical observation you are forced to reject much of human creation. For example, pretty much all of philosophy, schools of thought and belief systems. Political theory, ethics and ideologies all have to be dismissed as unquantifiable. You may wish to do this for the purposes of argument, but people can't live without an assortment of belief systems. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 09:17:06 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:17:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <5176EC8C.3060302@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <20130423132717.GP15179@leitl.org> <5176EC8C.3060302@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130424091706.GZ15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 04:18:20PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > >>> claims about performance were not well justified. I would definitely >>> prefer to work from more primary sources such as technical papers rather >>> than have to rely on other people's fiction. >> What do you want to know? Your earlier question about clocks to synchronize >> low-level stuff: you don't need clocks for that. What else? > > Point 1: that seems to contradict, or rather be strongly incompatible > with the often repeated claim that "clock speed" was a variable that > could be tweaked or otherwise manipulated. Asynchronous free-running systems do have a natural refresh rate, but it's not due to a global clock. You can synchronize at higher levels by using a system of locally coupled oscillators. Look at how biology does it. A good book to look at is http://www.amazon.com/Sync-Order-Emerges-Universe-Nature/dp/0786887214/ > Point 2: All game engines I know, to the best of my understanding, are Game engines run on classical computers, even if it's GPU-accelerated physics. Classical computers are largely useless for production quality neural emulation. > strongly based on at least two critically important clocks: > > 1. The sound system's sample-rate clock which dictates what voltage > to send to the speakers/headphones at each instant. I don't see how this is relevant for anything. > 2. The frame rate clock off of which the entire rendering engine > hangs... Again, this is how classical computers work. It's not a natural law, look at asynchronous, clockless machines. > If any of these clocks (both mentioned above and not mentioned) are not > perfectly synchronized with each other and the systems simulating the > brain, which also has a number of local and global synchronization If you're simulating the brain in realtime or faster, you're using a massively parallel system which directly represents patches of circuitry. An advanced design would not have a clock, but even if it had, it would be transparent to the simulated system due to time scale differences. > problems, then the subjective experience will suffer and the oft and > emphatic claim that it will be "indistinguishable from reality!" will > not hold. If you're working at low level of theory, and your simulation is not accurate, then you'll get a lot worse than just rendering artefacts. E.g. total energy would not be conserved, and your system would suffer an excusion into regime not representing anything happening in biology. Think of this as a grand mal on steroids -- you won't be there to watch yourself twitch. From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 09:52:27 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:52:27 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Gordon wrote: > Eugen, > >> First question: what do you mean by consciousness? > > I mean, exactly, what philosophers mean by intentionality: > > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ > >> Second question: what do you think computational neuroscientists are doing? > > If by computational neuroscientists you mean cognitive scientists, I believe they are following a false model. The computational model of mind is, I think, wrong. There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable. Consciousness need not be defined for the purpose of the argument other than vaguely: you know it if you have it. This makes the argument robust, not dependent on any particular philosophy of mind or other assumptions. The argument assumes that consciousness is NOT reproducible by a computer and shows that this leads to absurdity. As far as I am aware no-one has successfully challenged the validity of the argument. http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 10:13:24 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:13:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130424101324.GJ15179@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 06:54:46PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 2:44 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > You notice I never say virtual worlds, but artificial reality. > > > > The reason is that virtual has a specific meaning in CS -- > > it means time-sharing of a given hardware resource, which > > implies saving and restoring state which only works when > > there's very little state to keep track of. > > > > In case of solid state minds, it's all state, so virtualization > > buys you nothing in terms of time-sharing hardware but introduces > > a large number of complications. Which doesn't mean you can't > > checkpoint, serialize state and reinstantiate on a different > > chunk of bare computronium iron. > > Please explain in greater detail your distinction between virtual I'm objecting to virtual in the virtualization layer, as in VM, hypervisor, and such. VR (Lem's phantomatics) implies that there's still a physical monkey in the loop. Whether you're using a HMD with tracker or direct neural stimulation is merely an issue of rendering fidelity. In case of Artificial Reality (sadly, AR now firmly means Augmented Reality, which is a subset of VR) the observer is also a part of emulation, an animat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animat albeit one that formerly used to roam the Great Outdoors. > world and artificial reality. For the purpose of computing, I'd treat > virtual, artificial, simulated, et al. as conceptually isomorphic, The problem with "virtual" is that it's encrusted with concepts like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine and makes people ask nonsensical things about underlying operating systems or hypervisors. Instead, the mental model should more resemble FPGA state, evolving onboard. It still wouldn't be accurate, but it's a start. This not to say that you don't need a control layer for interactions across domains, which needs to be provably secure. It wouldn't help the hapless animat to be hack-proof by virtue of running directly on the hardware layer only if the control plane is wide open to h4x0r shenanigans. > with any nuance separating them to likely be related to point of view > / perspective. In the sense of hosting environment, world and > reality are similarly similar. :) You might call the planet Earth > our "world" or you could refer to the zeitgeist as our "world" so > again it's a definition of terms problem. I try to consistently use the term physical layer for that. > I'm trying to imagine how we might have an artificial reality if > "artificial" means "fake" and "reality" is the opposite. If For an internal observer, artificial reality is supposed to feel exactly like the real thing, with modifications like unreal estate and alternative physics, of course. > artificial reality is a clever oxymoron, then perhaps I've been _very_ > slow to get the joke? Any confusion is solely due to terminology fail on my part. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 14:07:03 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:07:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130424101324.GJ15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> <20130424101324.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 6:13 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > I'm objecting to virtual in the virtualization layer, as in > VM, hypervisor, and such. > > VR (Lem's phantomatics) implies that there's still a physical > monkey in the loop. Whether you're using a HMD with tracker or > direct neural stimulation is merely an issue of rendering > fidelity. understood. > This not to say that you don't need a control layer for > interactions across domains, which needs to be provably secure. > It wouldn't help the hapless animat to be hack-proof by > virtue of running directly on the hardware layer only > if the control plane is wide open to h4x0r shenanigans. we are so far from provably secure. Ironically, the digital equivalent of evolution's product would probably also fail a security audit. ex: Application of sodium pentothol defeats basic secret-keeping? That's a ridiculous design, fix it. :) > For an internal observer, artificial reality is supposed to feel > exactly like the real thing, with modifications like unreal estate and > alternative physics, of course. That's an interesting situation if/when proprioception is directly manipulated From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 24 13:57:09 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:57:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> On 24/04/2013 10:16, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 12:07:08AM -0700, Gordon wrote: >> >> You certainly know you have intentionality. > No, as a matter of fact I don't. > > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ is useless, it's > not even wrong. About every sentence of it makes my skin crawl. > "Power"? Measured in Watts, or what? "minds", well, how > perfectly circular. "to be about" is meaningless. "Or to stand for" Eugene, part of this is merely terminology. Power in philosophy is something different than in physics, just as it means something very different in sociology or political science. Then again, I am unsure if intentionality actually denotes anything, or whether it denotes a single something. It is not uncontroversial even within the philosophy of mind community. > "The word itself, which is of medieval Scholastic origin," > ah, so they admit it's useless. Ah, just like formal logic. Or the empirical method. > See, something is fishy with your concept of consciosness. If we look > at at as ability to process information, suddenly we're starting to > get somewhere. Maybe. Defining information and processing is nearly as tricky. Shannon and Kolmogorov doesn't get you all the way, since it is somewhat problematic to even defining what the signals are. Measurability is not everything. There are plenty of risks that do not have well defined probabilities, yet we need and can make decisions about them with above chance success. The problem with consciousness, intentionality and the other theory of mind "things" is that they are subjective and private - you cannot compare them between minds. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 24 14:50:21 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:50:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 03:57:09PM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Eugene, part of this is merely terminology. Power in philosophy is Yes, I realize that some of it is jargon. However (and not for lack of trying) I have yet to identify a single worthwhile concept coming out of that field, particularly in the theory of mind. You used to be a computational neuroscientist before you became a philosopher (turncoat! boo! hiss!). What is your professional opinion about the philosophy of mind subdiscipline? > something different than in physics, just as it means something very > different in sociology or political science. > > Then again, I am unsure if intentionality actually denotes anything, or > whether it denotes a single something. It is not uncontroversial even > within the philosophy of mind community. > > >> "The word itself, which is of medieval Scholastic origin," >> ah, so they admit it's useless. > > Ah, just like formal logic. Or the empirical method. Ah, but philosophy begat natural philosophy, aka the sciences. Unfortunately, the field itself never progressed much beyond its origins. The more the pity when a stagnant field is chronically prone to arrogant pronouncements about disciplines they don't feel they need to have any domain knowledge in. >> See, something is fishy with your concept of consciosness. If we look >> at at as ability to process information, suddenly we're starting to >> get somewhere. > > Maybe. Defining information and processing is nearly as tricky. Shannon > and Kolmogorov doesn't get you all the way, since it is somewhat > problematic to even defining what the signals are. > > Measurability is not everything. There are plenty of risks that do not > have well defined probabilities, yet we need and can make decisions > about them with above chance success. The problem with consciousness, > intentionality and the other theory of mind "things" is that they are > subjective and private - you cannot compare them between minds. I really like that the Si elegans has identified the necessity of a behavior library. From gsantostasi at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 16:06:56 2013 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:06:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: Have you seen this recent paper that show "intentionality" can actually be realized by a simple law that looks similar to a thermodynamical entropic force? http://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/46 Giovanni On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 9:50 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 03:57:09PM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > > Eugene, part of this is merely terminology. Power in philosophy is > > Yes, I realize that some of it is jargon. However (and not for > lack of trying) I have yet to identify a single worthwhile > concept coming out of that field, particularly in the theory of mind. > > You used to be a computational neuroscientist before you > became a philosopher (turncoat! boo! hiss!). What is your professional > opinion about the philosophy of mind subdiscipline? > > > something different than in physics, just as it means something very > > different in sociology or political science. > > > > Then again, I am unsure if intentionality actually denotes anything, or > > whether it denotes a single something. It is not uncontroversial even > > within the philosophy of mind community. > > > > > >> "The word itself, which is of medieval Scholastic origin," > >> ah, so they admit it's useless. > > > > Ah, just like formal logic. Or the empirical method. > > Ah, but philosophy begat natural philosophy, aka the sciences. > Unfortunately, the field itself never progressed much beyond > its origins. The more the pity when a stagnant field is > chronically prone to arrogant pronouncements about disciplines > they don't feel they need to have any domain knowledge in. > > >> See, something is fishy with your concept of consciosness. If we look > >> at at as ability to process information, suddenly we're starting to > >> get somewhere. > > > > Maybe. Defining information and processing is nearly as tricky. Shannon > > and Kolmogorov doesn't get you all the way, since it is somewhat > > problematic to even defining what the signals are. > > > > Measurability is not everything. There are plenty of risks that do not > > have well defined probabilities, yet we need and can make decisions > > about them with above chance success. The problem with consciousness, > > intentionality and the other theory of mind "things" is that they are > > subjective and private - you cannot compare them between minds. > > I really like that the Si elegans has identified the necessity of > a behavior library. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 24 15:44:50 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:44:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> On 24/04/2013 15:50, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 03:57:09PM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> Eugene, part of this is merely terminology. Power in philosophy is > Yes, I realize that some of it is jargon. However (and not for > lack of trying) I have yet to identify a single worthwhile > concept coming out of that field, particularly in the theory of mind. Well, whenever something worthwhile happens in philosophy it is no longer called philosophy. The scientific method, logic, Occam?s razor, decision theory and most philosophy departments come from philosophy. That doesn't mean 99% of it isn't verbiage, of course. > You used to be a computational neuroscientist before you > became a philosopher (turncoat! boo! hiss!). What is your professional > opinion about the philosophy of mind subdiscipline? It gives me a headache and I avoid it. But yes, there is some worthwhile stuff there - mostly as an antidote to overconfidence among scientists and philosophers. We have some philosophy of mind people being very useful when working together with neuroscientists on experiment design: their sceptical approach to the "things" people look for and their ability to do strict argumentation turns out to be really useful in inventing experiments that actually tell you something (a surprising number of experiments are totally pointless - they can not really answer anything). > The more the pity when a stagnant field is chronically prone to > arrogant pronouncements about disciplines they don't feel they need to > have any domain knowledge in. Ah, a bit like how scientists think they know enough philosophy to ignore it. See for example Hawking's latest book where he reinvents philosophical wheels. There is plenty of this going around. Actually learning enough about different disciplines to see what they know takes time. > I really like that the Si elegans has identified the necessity of a > behavior library. Behavior is nice and public, and can be compared. In C elegans it likely corresponds closely to the internal states, but mammals have a lot more internal degrees of freedom. Still, we should start making behavior libraries for mice and humans too - they are bound to be useful. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 24 16:11:59 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:11:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: Hey Gordon, It?s great to hear from you again! And thanks for starting up this great discussion on the most important of all topics (surely where the next greatest scientific discovery could come from). And it?s great to see all the other old guys back! Stathis, Anders, John, Eugen? But, Gordon, as always, I?m really struggling to know what, exactly, it is you believe. People like Stathis have ?Canonized? their views, so I know concisely what they think, and who else thinks like them, and how many other experts agree with them. When someone like Stathis says he?s in the Functional Property Dualism camp, I know exactly what they believe, and who else agrees with them, and communication can finally take place ? no hours of fuss and muss, like is going on in this thread already ?everyone failing to communicate, and mostly talking past each other, in infinitely repetitive yes / no / yes / no ways. When I listen to what you say, I?m not even sure if you agree with the general, near unanimous expert consensus ?Representational Qualia Theory? stuff. ( http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ). Sometimes, I think we agree on many things, but I can never know for sure, because most of what you say is so nebulous. I love what Eugen said about the stanford philosophy page said about the word ?Intentionality? and how it makes ?his skin crawl? and all the great right on reasons he gave for why it is so bad. None of that is falsifiable or testable, and all of the behavior described in that can be duplicated by abstract machines, as long as the representations are interpreted correctly. Using terms like that, just makes communication with hard scientists impossible. The stuff at Canonizer.com has progressed, significantly, since the last time we talked. In addition to now having Canonized Camps from Lehar, Chalmers, Hameroff, Smythies, Even Daniel Dennett has helped canonize his latest theory he calls ?Predictive Bayesian Coding Theory? (Notice even he has abandoned as falsified his previous ?multiple drafts theory?) http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21 So my question to you Gordon, is what, exactly, to you think about consciousness. Will it be possible to build an artificial machine, in any way, that has what you think is important, even if it is not an abstracted digital computer? And can you say what you believe concisely, so that others can know what you are saying, enough so that others that think similarly, can say they agree with you? Are there any camps at Canonizer.com, close to what you believe? If not, which is the closest camp? Have you found anyone, even if a philosopher, that believes the same as you do? I also like the way Eugen ridicules ?philosophers?. Philosophers are always talking non falsiable stuff, and they never have any way *(i.e. hard science) of convincing everyone else to think the same way they think we should. Canonizer.com is not philosophy, it is theoretical science, and is all about what kind of hard evidence would falsify your particular theory, and convert you to mine. And it?s all about rigorously measuring for when some scientific data, or good rational arguments, come along strong enough to falsify camps, for former supporters of the theory. Oh and Stathis said: <<<< There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable. Consciousness need not be defined for the purpose of the argument other than vaguely: you know it if you have it. This makes the argument robust, not dependent on any particular philosophy of mind or other assumptions. The argument assumes that consciousness is NOT reproducible by a computer and shows that this leads to absurdity. As far as I am aware no-one has successfully challenged the validity of the argument. http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html >>> Stathis, I think we?ve made much progress on this issue, since you?ve lat been involved in the conversation. I?m looking forward to see if we can now convince you that we have, and that there is a real possibility of a solution to the Chalmers? conundrum you believe still exists. I, for one, am in the camp that believes there is an obvious problem with Chalmer?s ?fading dancing? qualia argument, and once you understand this, the solution to the ?hard problem?, objectively, simulatably, sharably (as in effing of the ineffable) goes away, no fuss, no muss, all falsifiably or scientifically demonstrably (to the convincing of all experts) so. Having an experience like: ?oh THAT is what your redness is like ? I?ve never experienced anything like that before in my life, and was a that kind of ?redness zombie? before now.? Will certainly falsify most bad theories out there today, especially all the ones that predict that kind of sharing or effing of the ineffable will never be possible. Brent Allsop On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 03:57:09PM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > > Eugene, part of this is merely terminology. Power in philosophy is > > Yes, I realize that some of it is jargon. However (and not for > lack of trying) I have yet to identify a single worthwhile > concept coming out of that field, particularly in the theory of mind. > > You used to be a computational neuroscientist before you > became a philosopher (turncoat! boo! hiss!). What is your professional > opinion about the philosophy of mind subdiscipline? > > > something different than in physics, just as it means something very > > different in sociology or political science. > > > > Then again, I am unsure if intentionality actually denotes anything, or > > whether it denotes a single something. It is not uncontroversial even > > within the philosophy of mind community. > > > > > >> "The word itself, which is of medieval Scholastic origin," > >> ah, so they admit it's useless. > > > > Ah, just like formal logic. Or the empirical method. > > Ah, but philosophy begat natural philosophy, aka the sciences. > Unfortunately, the field itself never progressed much beyond > its origins. The more the pity when a stagnant field is > chronically prone to arrogant pronouncements about disciplines > they don't feel they need to have any domain knowledge in. > > >> See, something is fishy with your concept of consciosness. If we look > >> at at as ability to process information, suddenly we're starting to > >> get somewhere. > > > > Maybe. Defining information and processing is nearly as tricky. Shannon > > and Kolmogorov doesn't get you all the way, since it is somewhat > > problematic to even defining what the signals are. > > > > Measurability is not everything. There are plenty of risks that do not > > have well defined probabilities, yet we need and can make decisions > > about them with above chance success. The problem with consciousness, > > intentionality and the other theory of mind "things" is that they are > > subjective and private - you cannot compare them between minds. > > I really like that the Si elegans has identified the necessity of > a behavior library. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 16:32:54 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:32:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 Gordon wrote: > I remain convinced that digital simulations can never have consciousness, > and that strong (conscious) AI and uploading is impossible > Your belief, and all beliefs for that matter, that uploading is impossible is based entirely on a very strong intuitive feeling that it just can't be right. Well I'm human too and I also have that feeling just like you do, but I don't trust my intuition one bit on things like this because I know that there was absolutely no Evolutionary advantage in my ancestors being good at it so I inherited no innate skill in this area nor did anybody else. So if I know that my intuition sucks then the only way to get at the truth is to use cold hard logic on the facts about the universe that we have with so much difficulty managed to discover; and that tells us that uploading could work, or at least logic can't find any reason why it wouldn't. Intuition also screams at us that Quantum Mechanics and even Relativity can't be right, but our intuition stinks in these realms too and for exactly the same reason. > on digital computers. > Way back in 1995 I spammed this list with a advertisement for my home study course on analog computers, this is that ad: Welcome to the exciting world of analog computing. Thanks to the new Heath Kit Home Study Course, you can build your very own analog computer in the privacy of your own home. Make big bucks! Amaze your friends! Be a hit at parties! This is a true analog computer, no wimpey pseudo analog stuff here, this baby can handle infinity. Before we begin construction there are a few helpful hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean. Make sure your computer is cold, as it will not operate at any finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, or electrical charge when you build your analog computer. Now that we got those minor points out of the way we can start to manufacture your analog computer. Step One: Repeal the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Step Two: Use any infinitely accurate measuring stick you have handy and ... . . Step Infinity: ... John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 17:18:35 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:18:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] NASA Rover draws penis on red planet Message-ID: http://www.thejournal.ie/men-are-from-mars-e1-9bn-nasa-rover-draws-penis-on-red-planet-883236-Apr2013/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 17:24:36 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:24:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366824276.73058.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >> You certainly know you have intentionality.? > No, as a matter of fact I don't. Intentionality, as I and most philosophers use the word, is in basic terms the ability to have mental content of which one is aware.? When you open your eyes, do you see something? That perception is mental content. When you imagine a pink elephant, that too is mental content. When you do a mathematical calculation in your head, that is also mental content. When you feel a pain in your body, that is also mental content. Unless you are a mindless zombie or a rock or something similar, you have the capacity to have conscious mental content, i.e., intentionality. --- Stathis old friend, it is good to see you! -Gordon? From giulio at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 17:41:46 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:41:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] NASA Rover draws penis on red planet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: WOW the time that the kids of my generation spent drawing this shape is vindicated by science! I used to know ;-) a very reprehensible young man who used to draw it on the ballot slip, with very clear instructions. On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 7:18 PM, John Clark wrote: > http://www.thejournal.ie/men-are-from-mars-e1-9bn-nasa-rover-draws-penis-on-red-planet-883236-Apr2013/ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 24 18:07:29 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:07:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon >...mostly with acolytes of Daniel Dennett... Ja, I don't feel Dennett has reeled in that fish either. More on that later, gotta make this one fast. >...I remain convinced that digital simulations can never have consciousness, and that strong (conscious) AI and uploading is impossible on digital computers... Ja plenty of people feel that way, but I don't understand. If we can model dynamic systems with finite element models, and we can model every micron of a dendrite with its chemical environment (and I see no absolute reason why not) and we can model a synapse and we can model a neuron, etc, do explain why we cannot in principle model a neuron with a bunch of dentrites connected to it and the interconnect and all that stuff. I know it is a crazy difficult problem, but in principle, given enough computing horsepower and enough information interchange and enough time, why can we not make a connectome? Never mind for now modeling a specific brain, why could we not model a generic one? And if we recognize that a human brain is just too complicated, can we model a mouse brain? How about an earthworm or a flea? >...To John Clark's point: yes it is true that nature has built these machines that have consciousness, you and I being among them, but I think these machines that we call humans are not akin to digital computers. -Gordon _______________________________________________ I agree humans are not akin to digital computers. What I am asking is if we can take a buttload of digital computers, connect them all together, each running models of brain cells, and create something that is kinda sorta akin to a human brain? If not, how about some simpler but still conscious brain perhaps? Or if not conscious, at least reactive to its surroundings? spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 24 18:17:22 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:17:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005c01ce4117$f7f6e850$e7e4b8f0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou ... >...There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable. ... -- Stathis Papaioannou _______________________________________________ I just can't see how it could be otherwise. I may be influenced by some of the digital sims I have seen over the years, where a sufficiently sophisticated digital sim predicted a bunch of stuff no one had anticipated. An example is wingtip flutter on a certain military aircraft. The old timers knew that was a possibility, but didn't know where the resonance would be found. The digital sim found it, the engineers compensated, built it, tested it, the wing performed exactly as the sim said. A sim of a wing structure is a jillion orders of magnitude simpler than a human brain, but some kinds of brains are simple compared to a human brain. If we manage to do a sim of a worm, then later a fly, then a mouse, where exactly is the brick wall that says "NO MORE SIMS BEYOND THIS POINT, signed god"? Looks to me like if we can figure out how globs of neurons can learn, and we know earthworms can learn, then we just get more and more computers, tie them together and up we go. spike From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Wed Apr 24 15:47:06 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:47:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <20130424101324.GJ15179@leitl.org> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> <20130424101324.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5177FE7A.3010209@verizon.net> Eugen Leitl wrote: > The problem with "virtual" is that it's encrusted with concepts > likehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine > and makes people ask nonsensical things about underlying > operating systems or hypervisors. Instead, the mental model should > more resemble FPGA state, evolving onboard. It still > wouldn't be accurate, but it's a start. That's one of the things that bugs me about your philosophy. You are like "don't worry, computers won't be the ungodly monstrosities of bloatware and legacy design in the future because all of computer science will take a left turn and suddenly become elegant, robust and operate on almost entirely new principles." I'm sorry, that just doesn't hold water with me. I'm going to need to see some papers/books/articles that are specific enough to convince me that A, it will work, B, it will be useful, and C, it will happen. Better yet, I would like some kind of physical artifact that I can (in principle) play around with... (my computer generally doesn't do anything I want it to except e-mail and sometimes web browsing...) Failing either of those, I'm going to have to group you in with people who believe in magic and rapture cultists. =\ Furthermore, you will have to show how your proposal is either compatible or incompatible with the selling points uploaders typically trumpet. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 24 18:50:19 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:50:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: People are talking past each other, big time, when Gordon says: >...I remain convinced that digital simulations can never have consciousness, and that strong (conscious) AI and uploading is impossible on digital computers... to which John replies: > Your belief, and all beliefs for that matter, that uploading is impossible Surely, Gordon, you believe we will be able to reproduce what the brain does in some artificial way, and that we'll be able to improve and re-architect that stuff significantly, and that we'll do the same for ourselves, essentially moving to a new, trillions of times more capable system i.e. uploading right? So, everyone, please stop talking past each other like this. The only important part, if you ask me, is that abstracted information, like ones and zeros, must have some hardware interpretation system, in order to properly interpret whatever is representing ones and zeros, into the correct ones and zeros. And a second level of interpretation is required, when you convert a set of such abstract ones and zeros, as if it should be representing a phenomenal quality like redness, (so that a system can say that is red) and so on. While a redness quality is just a redness quality, no interpretation required. Sure, a redness quality can, itself, be interpreted, abstractly, to represent things like "stop" or the word 'red' and the properties of a ripe strawberry, but with phenomenal knowledge, what it is fundamentally qualitatively like, is all important, and why we 'intentionally pick it' unlike abstracted digital knowledge which, by design, as abstracted away from whatever is being interpreted as representing it, so it, also, can be 'intentionally' aware of it and pick it in a more capable and intelligent abstracted way. Brent Allsop On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 12:07 PM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon > > > >...mostly with acolytes of Daniel Dennett... > > Ja, I don't feel Dennett has reeled in that fish either. More on that > later, gotta make this one fast. > > >...I remain convinced that digital simulations can never have > consciousness, and that strong (conscious) AI and uploading is impossible > on digital computers... > > Ja plenty of people feel that way, but I don't understand. If we can > model dynamic systems with finite element models, and we can model every > micron of a dendrite with its chemical environment (and I see no absolute > reason why not) and we can model a synapse and we can model a neuron, etc, > do explain why we cannot in principle model a neuron with a bunch of > dentrites connected to it and the interconnect and all that stuff. I know > it is a crazy difficult problem, but in principle, given enough computing > horsepower and enough information interchange and enough time, why can we > not make a connectome? Never mind for now modeling a specific brain, why > could we not model a generic one? And if we recognize that a human brain > is just too complicated, can we model a mouse brain? How about an > earthworm or a flea? > > >...To John Clark's point: yes it is true that nature has built these > machines that have consciousness, you and I being among them, but I think > these machines that we call humans are not akin to digital computers. > -Gordon > > _______________________________________________ > > I agree humans are not akin to digital computers. What I am asking is if > we can take a buttload of digital computers, connect them all together, > each running models of brain cells, and create something that is kinda > sorta akin to a human brain? If not, how about some simpler but still > conscious brain perhaps? Or if not conscious, at least reactive to its > surroundings? > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 24 18:45:35 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:45:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005e01ce411b$e8ac6e20$ba054a60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark . >.Intuition also screams at us that Quantum Mechanics and even Relativity can't be right, but our intuition stinks in these realms too and for exactly the same reason. My intuition screams that quantum mechanics cannot be right but that relativity must be right. I don't know how that happened. >.Way back in 1995 I spammed this list with a advertisement for my home study course on analog computers, this is that ad:.Step Infinity: ... John K Clark {8^D John, well done, me lad. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 18:51:36 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:51:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike, > do explain why we cannot in principle model a neuron with a bunch of dentrites connected to it and the interconnect and all that stuff.? I know it is a crazy difficult problem... We could perhaps build a digital model of a neuron or an entire brain, but I think it would be only a model. The model in this case is not identical to the thing modeled, because the thing modeled (the mind/brain) is not in my view like a digital computer. ? It is tempting to think the mind is to the brain what software is to hardware, per the computational model of mind, but I believe that model is misguided.There are no 1's and 0's floating around in our heads, or anything like them. Thoughts are not like programs running in our brains. Consciousness arises through some biological process that we do not yet understand, but it is I think biological and not digital. In my view digital simulations are, in a sense, nothing more than sophisticated digital photographs. Just as a digital photograph of you is not conscious, neither would be a digital simulation of you. Of course, if we are already living in a digital simulation then we could in that case make conscious digital simulations of ourselves, but I reject that idea as fantasy. I do not believe the world is fundamentally digital. -Gordon From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 19:25:22 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:25:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 12:45 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:31:24PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > > Eugen, > > > > > First question: what do you mean by consciousness? > > > > I mean, exactly, what philosophers mean by intentionality: > > > > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ > > Ok, how I measure intentionality? I need to make sure > I succeeded, after all. > > Do animals have intentionality? Primates, rodents, fruit > flies, nematodes, bacteria, viruses? > More to the point, how can you prove that human beings have intentionality? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 19:45:39 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:45:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Well, whenever something worthwhile happens in philosophy it is no longer > called philosophy. The scientific method, logic, Occam?s razor, decision > theory and most philosophy departments come from philosophy. That doesn't > mean 99% of it isn't verbiage, of course. Just like when something breaks out of "artificial intelligence" as soon as it becomes close to real? Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Game Theory, Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Speech Recognition, OCR, Genetic Programming, Machine Learning and so on and on... Once we get enough of these things understood and programmed up, it is going to eventually be possible to program up a simulation of a human being, perhaps me or you. When that happens, and you ask that simulation do they experience consciousness, if it is a good enough simulation, it will obviously say "yes", and you will not be able to effectively argue it out of it's stated belief that it is indeed conscious, even if it isn't "really" in some sense. The old problem of telling whether another person is conscious in the same way you are is also an outstanding problem in my mind. Thus, it will probably always remain a kind of "faith" that we will have to exercise in other sentient beings who say that they are conscious. We will each individually have to come to a decision. I think when we start to fall in love, in large numbers, with non-humans, or post-humans, then we will have a shift in the zeitgeist, and everything above a certain level of intelligence will be considered conscious by most people and our generation of thinkers will be thought of as closed minded in the same way we think of our grandparents for being closed minded relating to minorities and women. Sometimes, we find consciousness and intelligence surprising. If you have ten minutes, and aren't afraid to cry, try this on for size. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34xoYwLNpvw -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 24 20:05:46 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:05:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: >?More to the point, how can you prove that human beings have intentionality? Strictly speaking, I cannot prove that you have intentionality, but you can prove it to yourself. Do you see the question mark at the end this sentence, and do you know that you see it? If so, you have it. So what other things in the world have it? I think probably all mammals do, based mainly on their biological similarities to humans. Perhaps some less complex organisms also have it, but I'm quite sure that no organism lacking a fairly well-developed nervous system has it. Does my computer have it? No, I seriously doubt that my computer is anything more than a blind,?unconscious?machine. It might act intelligently but it has no idea of its own existence, or of my existence, or of the existence of the things that I make it calculate about. What if I upgraded it? What if I had the most powerful processor imaginable, an infinite amount of ram, and so on? No, I don't think I could ever make my digital computer actually know what it is doing in the sense that you and I do. Someday a digital computer might pass the Turing test, and we will have created weak AI. But strong (conscious, intentional) AI is a completely different challenge. We might someday create strong AI in the sense that I mean, but I don't believe it will happen on digital software/hardware platforms. It will involve biology.? -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 24 20:22:08 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:22:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > The old problem of telling whether another person is conscious in the same > way you are is also an outstanding problem in my mind. > > > The emerging expert consensus is predicting, falsifiably so, exactly how we can 'eff' our way out of this. The expert consensus says that when you are looking at a strawberry patch, with a strawberry in your right field of vision, and a leaf in your left, there is something in your left hemisphere that is your knowledge of the strawberry, and something in your right hemisphere that is your knowledge of the leaf. Your knowledge of the leaf, has a greenness quality to it, and, and your knowledge of the strawberry, has a redness quality to it. So, obviously, we simply need to find the necessary and sufficient causal properties, that are the correlate to, or causal properties of, these redness and greenness qualities. Then if you see these causal properties of knowledge, inverted in someone else, you know they have, whether designed that way or not, inverted quale from you. That's the 'weak' form of getting around the quale interpretation problem, or effing of the ineffable. Surely, the corpus Callosum is some how joining these two hemispheres of knowledge, together, so you can be aware of the redness, and the greenness, at the same time, and know absolutely, more than you know anything, how they are qualitatively different. The next obvious step, is to design it so our brains can be merged together, just like two hemispheres can be hooked together, so both minds can be aware of the exact same knowledge, and it's correlated experiential qualities so both minds would then be experiencing - in a way that everyone would know, as surely what they are like. and that's the strong form of effing the ineffable. Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 20:23:03 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:23:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure? In-Reply-To: <20130424091706.GZ15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <20130423132717.GP15179@leitl.org> <5176EC8C.3060302@verizon.net> <20130424091706.GZ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:17 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote about the differences between analog and digital: http://www.amazon.com/Sync-Order-Emerges-Universe-Nature/dp/0786887214/ I just finished reading that book a couple of months ago. It is a fun read. As to the analog vs. digital argument, I would remind you all that reality itself is actuality digital when you dig deep enough. We have the Planck length, nothing happens in a space smaller than that length. In the time domain, there is no time slice smaller than the Plank time. That is, the time it would take a photon to travel one Planck length, which is defined as 1.6x10-35 meters. Thus, Planck time is about 10^-43 seconds. So any argument that starts with "the brain is analog, therefore it cannot be simulated in a digital computer" is just plain old fashioned wrong. It may take one HELL of a computer, and it might not be able to run in real time, but you can say pretty definitively that it is theoretically possible. Any physics gurus who think I'm wrong about this, please chime in. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 24 20:26:49 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:26:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> On 24/04/2013 19:07, spike wrote: > I agree humans are not akin to digital computers. What I am asking is > if we can take a buttload of digital computers, connect them all > together, each running models of brain cells, and create something > that is kinda sorta akin to a human brain? If not, how about some > simpler but still conscious brain perhaps? Or if not conscious, at > least reactive to its surroundings? The problem is that a model is not the same thing as the system being modeled. (Let's leave aside that the simulation may not simulate everything going on in the system; say we actually have all the elements and causal links correctly represented.) A simulated hurricane does not make you wet as you sit in front of the computer - simulated people in the simulation might indeed get simulatedly wet, but the wetness does not carry between the levels. The big question is whether there are some things that do exist independently of level. When your calculator performs a calculation, one can argue that there is an isomorphism between its result and a "real" calculation that is level-independent. Similarly I think intelligence is level-independent: it does not matter how intelligent behavior or answers are produced, they are still intelligent even if they happen inside a simulation. If you can simulate something level-independent you can get it for "real". But there is no agreement on consciousness: it is not obvious that it can even be level-independent, since it is private. Personally, being a functionalist, I think consciousness is just information processing and is level-independent. But this is just metaphysical guesswork. However, since philosophical zombies seem to be incoherent (why would would zombie philosophers on zombie Earth go to consciousness conferences rather than conferences on some other arbitrary non-existent property?) consciousness must have some causal power, so if you can successfully emulate a human brain and get it to discuss its consciousness, I think you likely have evidence that consciousness is level-independent. This is one reason I think brain emulation will be useful: it will clean out plenty of theories in philosophy of mind one way or another. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 20:30:35 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:30:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Gordon wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > More to the point, how can you prove that human beings have > intentionality? > > Strictly speaking, I cannot prove that you have intentionality, but you > can prove it to yourself. Do you see the question mark at the end this > sentence, and do you know that you see it? If so, you have it. > I seem to think I see it, but perhaps that is an illusion inside my head. It is hard for me to pick apart. So what other things in the world have it? I think probably all mammals do, > based mainly on their biological similarities to humans. Perhaps some less > complex organisms also have it, but I'm quite sure that no organism lacking > a fairly well-developed nervous system has it. > What about a plant growing it's roots around a rock? Seems pretty intentional when you speed it up a bunch. > Does my computer have it? No, I seriously doubt that my computer is > anything more than a blind, unconscious machine. It might act > intelligently but it has no idea of its own existence, or of my existence, > or of the existence of the things that I make it calculate about. What if I > upgraded it? What if I had the most powerful processor imaginable, an > infinite amount of ram, and so on? No, I don't think I could ever make my > digital computer actually know what it is doing in the sense that you and I > do. > You are confusing hardware with software. Your brain doesn't actually experience consciousness or intelligence or intentionality on a hardware basis, those things are experienced as software states. Can you say definitively therefore that you can't run software that has the state of consciousness? I don't feel comfortable with that assumption since my brain is just a different kind of computer running a different sort of software. It's all architectural differences. If I say that the Parthenon has ineffable state A, but no other building does, then does the copy of the Parthenon Nashville have ineffable state A too? > Someday a digital computer might pass the Turing test, and we will have > created weak AI. But strong (conscious, intentional) AI is a completely > different challenge. We might someday create strong AI in the sense that I > mean, but I don't believe it will happen on digital software/hardware > platforms. It will involve biology. > I really don't see the difference Gordon. But perhaps it is just a matter of opinion. You are not a troll for thinking this way, but I do think you are wrong. :-) -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 20:34:51 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:34:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> The old problem of telling whether another person is conscious in the >> same way you are is also an outstanding problem in my mind. >> >> > The emerging expert consensus is predicting, falsifiably so, exactly how > we can 'eff' our way out of this. The expert consensus says that when you > are looking at a strawberry patch, with a strawberry in your right field of > vision, and a leaf in your left, there is something in your left hemisphere > that is your knowledge of the strawberry, and something in your right > hemisphere that is your knowledge of the leaf. > > Your knowledge of the leaf, has a greenness quality to it, and, and your > knowledge of the strawberry, has a redness quality to it. So, obviously, > we simply need to find the necessary and sufficient causal properties, that > are the correlate to, or causal properties of, these redness and greenness > qualities. Then if you see these causal properties of knowledge, inverted > in someone else, you know they have, whether designed that way or not, > inverted quale from you. > > That's the 'weak' form of getting around the quale interpretation problem, > or effing of the ineffable. Surely, the corpus Callosum is some how > joining these two hemispheres of knowledge, together, so you can be aware > of the redness, and the greenness, at the same time, and know absolutely, > more than you know anything, how they are qualitatively different. The > next obvious step, is to design it so our brains can be merged together, > just like two hemispheres can be hooked together, so both minds can be > aware of the exact same knowledge, and it's correlated experiential > qualities so both minds would then be experiencing - in a way that everyone > would know, as surely what they are like. and that's the strong form of > effing the ineffable. > > Brent Allsop > Brent, I've read your descriptions in this area before. I like you as a human being. I truly do. And I try REALLY hard to understand what you are saying every time. I really do. But for some reason, my brain can't translate what you say on this subject into any sort of coherence. I guess what I can say is that I don't know what the ef you are talking about. I'm sure the problem is totally in my brain, not yours. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 24 20:50:29 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:50:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> Message-ID: Hi Kelly, Communication is a two way street. So if I'm failing at communication, it is a problem with me, also. So thanks for trying, and not yet giving up! Let's back up a bit, and be sure we are clear on some of the fundamentals. For example, do you agree that 'red' is an ambiguous term. It includes both the initial cause of the perception of 'red', like when the strawberry reflects something like 650 NM light. And it also includes a phenomenal quality, which is a quality of our knowledge of such. In other words, redness is a quality of the final result of the perception process. So, when we talk about 'red', you must distinguish between them, and know which one of these you are talking about!? Also, all the intermediate representations really have nothing to do with 'red' other than some intermediate physical media is being interpreted in an abstract way, as being red. Without the correct hardware interpretation layer, there is no 'red' anywhere in the light or the eye, other than the abstracted information it all is being interpreted as. Brent Allsop On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >>> The old problem of telling whether another person is conscious in the >>> same way you are is also an outstanding problem in my mind. >>> >>> >> The emerging expert consensus is predicting, falsifiably so, exactly how >> we can 'eff' our way out of this. The expert consensus says that when you >> are looking at a strawberry patch, with a strawberry in your right field of >> vision, and a leaf in your left, there is something in your left hemisphere >> that is your knowledge of the strawberry, and something in your right >> hemisphere that is your knowledge of the leaf. >> >> Your knowledge of the leaf, has a greenness quality to it, and, and your >> knowledge of the strawberry, has a redness quality to it. So, obviously, >> we simply need to find the necessary and sufficient causal properties, that >> are the correlate to, or causal properties of, these redness and greenness >> qualities. Then if you see these causal properties of knowledge, inverted >> in someone else, you know they have, whether designed that way or not, >> inverted quale from you. >> >> That's the 'weak' form of getting around the quale interpretation >> problem, or effing of the ineffable. Surely, the corpus Callosum is some >> how joining these two hemispheres of knowledge, together, so you can be >> aware of the redness, and the greenness, at the same time, and know >> absolutely, more than you know anything, how they are qualitatively >> different. The next obvious step, is to design it so our brains can be >> merged together, just like two hemispheres can be hooked together, so both >> minds can be aware of the exact same knowledge, and it's correlated >> experiential qualities so both minds would then be experiencing - in a way >> that everyone would know, as surely what they are like. and that's the >> strong form of effing the ineffable. >> >> Brent Allsop >> > > Brent, I've read your descriptions in this area before. I like you as a > human being. I truly do. And I try REALLY hard to understand what you are > saying every time. I really do. But for some reason, my brain can't > translate what you say on this subject into any sort of coherence. I guess > what I can say is that I don't know what the ef you are talking about. I'm > sure the problem is totally in my brain, not yours. > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 24 21:05:52 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:05:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <51784930.30501@aleph.se> On 24/04/2013 17:06, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Have you seen this recent paper that show "intentionality" can > actually be realized by a simple law that looks similar to a > thermodynamical entropic force? > > http://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/46 This is not the same kind of intentionality we have been discussing in this thread. This is closer to having intent. Acting so you get maximal future options seems to be a good strategy in general, although in specific cases it gets tricky. Think of Ulysseus pacts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_contract that however are tools for ensuring more long-term options or value. Chess is another example where you actually do not want to go for more open futures - you want to get to a future where your opponent loses. Aiming for maximally open futures makes sense if you want to play the game indefinitely. Intent-like behavior can be generated from simple rules (think of evolution), but does not have to have goals. In the paper goals were inherent in the setup. It can also lack intentionality (having representations), for example as in the case of evolution. When we have intent we typically have representations and goals, where the goals are usually chosen by us via earlier intentional mental actions. Of course, whether there is any real difference between the cases or just a long continuum is at the heart of an endless debate. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 24 21:51:22 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:51:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 11:52 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . spike, >>... do explain why we cannot in principle model a neuron with a bunch of dentrites connected to it and the interconnect and all that stuff.? I know it is a crazy difficult problem... >...There are no 1's and 0's floating around in our heads, or anything like them... Oh I do disagree sir. If you go down far enough, you have a number of molecules that can be completely described by a set of numbers. Electrons in a carbon atom exist as 2 in the S orbital, four in the P. If one is missing, you can describe that with a number. If there is something bonded on there, numbers can get you there. Of course I don't think we can sim a brain, even a flea brain, down to the molecular level, but I don't think we would need to. I think we could come up with a sim of a neuron however, and a dendrite, and a synapse, and the other structures on which Anders would need to educate us. Get a 1e11 of those running in parallel with 1e14 dendrite sims, and we are already up to human level brains. But there are cool things to do with sub-human simulated intelligence too perhaps. >... Thoughts are not like programs running in our brains. Consciousness arises through some biological process that we do not yet understand, but it is I think biological and not digital... -Gordon Sure but we don't necessarily need consciousness I suppose. What we need is creativity. Human-ish intelligence may not be needed for intelligence. If we get a bunch of neuron sims going in parallel, we might be able to get a massively parallel sim to learn, then to invent, without ever going thru the human-ish branch of intelligence. Then we could go straight to the Singularity. Alan, yes I know, the whole concept is evil, and you are agin' it, we know. Just thinking here. We could have a singularity without being uploaded, or a few wildly enthusiastic volunteers being uploaded, that sort of thing. spike _______________________________________________ From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 22:31:00 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:31:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:50 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Kelly, > > Communication is a two way street. So if I'm failing at communication, it > is a problem with me, also. So thanks for trying, and not yet giving up! > > Let's back up a bit, and be sure we are clear on some of the > fundamentals. For example, do you agree that 'red' is an ambiguous term. > It is ambiguous in that somewhere between 620?750 nm you will start seeing red at a slightly different point than I will, but that is a symbolic representation problem in how you and I LEARNED the concept red. There would undoubtedly be a color in there that we both agreed would be red, and then going off the other end, we would have the same issue. But there is an unambiguous middle ground where it is definitely red, and I don't think that is ambiguous in the least. We would agree that orange has some redness to it. > It includes both the initial cause of the perception of 'red', like when > the strawberry reflects something like 650 NM light. And it also includes > a phenomenal quality, which is a quality of our knowledge of such. > The recognition of red by my brain and by your brain even in the unambiguous case of physical middle of the road redness will be established by the lighting up of different neural patterns, or waves of patterns if you believe some brain scientists. > In other words, redness is a quality of the final result of the perception > process. > The recognition of red is different between you and I, but by the time you turn it into a symbol, and turn that symbol back into speech, and I recognize the speech, after all that messing around is done, then we would agree that we have both perceived red, at least in many cases. If I reach out to try and understand what you are saying, redness is a symbol that is the final result of the perception process. > So, when we talk about 'red', you must distinguish between them, and know > which one of these you are talking about!? > Meaning the physics red and the perception red and the symbol "red"? Yup, got it. Those are all different things. Probably a lot of other things in the middle of those things that we don't have language or technology to describe, especially in an email, such as sound waves, brain patterns and waves and so forth. When you break it down it does indeed get VERY complicated. Also, all the intermediate representations really have nothing to do with > 'red' other than some intermediate physical media is being interpreted in > an abstract way, as being red. Without the correct hardware interpretation > layer, there is no 'red' anywhere in the light or the eye, other than the > abstracted information it all is being interpreted as. > If there is no eye and no brain, redness can still be detected by a device. So Redness (if the definition is agreed upon) is a TRUTH that lies outside of anyone's brain. I can have a symbol "red" in a database, and if that is the result of a query issued by that camera device, then that recognition of red is no different than what happens from the query in my brain that comes up with the symbol "red". There is no "emotion", but I don't think your definition of qualia necessarily includes an emotional aspect, or does it? The qualia, as you call it, of redness, is simply the mental state of resonating strongly with the symbol red (as represented by a learned pattern state in my brain) in the context of an experience conveyed to the perceiving brain by its sensory input, particularly the visual input in this case. Are we getting anything like closer to common understanding? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 24 23:12:15 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:12:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] controls engineers dream Message-ID: <011301ce4141$294b1830$7be14890$@rainier66.com> This is the kind of thing that gets controls guys turned on: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c4#/video/us/2013/04/24/vo-spacex-grasshopp er-10-story-launch-land.spacex Kewalll! Gooo SpaceX! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjv2006 at gmail.com Wed Apr 24 23:31:33 2013 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:31:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] controls engineers dream In-Reply-To: <011301ce4141$294b1830$7be14890$@rainier66.com> References: <011301ce4141$294b1830$7be14890$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: But the original music this went out from SpaceX with was much more fitting: http://youtu.be/NoxiK7K28PU --s On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 4:12 PM, spike wrote: > This is the kind of thing that gets controls guys turned on:**** > > ** ** > > > http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c4#/video/us/2013/04/24/vo-spacex-grasshopper-10-story-launch-land.spacex > **** > > ** ** > > Kewalll! Gooo SpaceX!**** > > ** ** > > spike**** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 24 23:37:05 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:37:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> Message-ID: <51786CA1.7050800@canonizer.com> Anders, As usual, you have lots of great things to say. But help me understand exactly what you mean by "level independent" consciousness. Are you saying that if you have or experience some of that, then you know that it is fundamental, and can't be an abstract simulation at some abstracted or interpreted higher level? In other words, if what you are saying is true, then that would be proof that our consciousness is at the fundamental level, and can't be at some arbitrary abstracted or interpreted level above that? Brent Allsop On 4/24/2013 2:26 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 24/04/2013 19:07, spike wrote: >> I agree humans are not akin to digital computers. What I am asking is >> if we can take a buttload of digital computers, connect them all >> together, each running models of brain cells, and create something >> that is kinda sorta akin to a human brain? If not, how about some >> simpler but still conscious brain perhaps? Or if not conscious, at >> least reactive to its surroundings? > > The problem is that a model is not the same thing as the system being > modeled. (Let's leave aside that the simulation may not simulate > everything going on in the system; say we actually have all the > elements and causal links correctly represented.) > > A simulated hurricane does not make you wet as you sit in front of the > computer - simulated people in the simulation might indeed get > simulatedly wet, but the wetness does not carry between the levels. > The big question is whether there are some things that do exist > independently of level. > > When your calculator performs a calculation, one can argue that there > is an isomorphism between its result and a "real" calculation that is > level-independent. Similarly I think intelligence is > level-independent: it does not matter how intelligent behavior or > answers are produced, they are still intelligent even if they happen > inside a simulation. If you can simulate something level-independent > you can get it for "real". But there is no agreement on consciousness: > it is not obvious that it can even be level-independent, since it is > private. > > Personally, being a functionalist, I think consciousness is just > information processing and is level-independent. But this is just > metaphysical guesswork. However, since philosophical zombies seem to > be incoherent (why would would zombie philosophers on zombie Earth go > to consciousness conferences rather than conferences on some other > arbitrary non-existent property?) consciousness must have some causal > power, so if you can successfully emulate a human brain and get it to > discuss its consciousness, I think you likely have evidence that > consciousness is level-independent. This is one reason I think brain > emulation will be useful: it will clean out plenty of theories in > philosophy of mind one way or another. > From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 24 23:31:41 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:31:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> Message-ID: <51786B5D.9000906@canonizer.com> Hi Kelly, Yes, definitely progress. I would just provide some advice, in that I think you are getting side tracked on lots of irrelevant complex things that are leading you away from the simplicity that is important here. Just think of an idealized world where strawberries only reflect 650 NM light, which can easily be represented with a 1 (what we intend on picking), and leaves only reflect 700 NM light, which can easily represent with a 0 (what we don't want). And only think of one redness quality and one greenness quality that we both agree is the middle of the road for both. Also, we're talking about elemental qualities. Some people think a single quale, is the entire supper complex emotional experience they have of life, and so they say my quale could not be felt by you, without you becoming me. Of course THAT is true, but these experiences are built up out of, or painted with, elemental qualities that include the combination of simple elemental redness, a warmth feeling, our memories of everything to do with red, like blood. The phenomenal knowledge of us perceiving this red, the phenomenal emotion, and so on. All of this phenomenal knowledge is simply lots of elemental qualities our brain uses to 'paint' our conscious knowledge with. And surely we will be able to 'eff' if you will, the qualitative elemental nature, to each other, and know if you are using my greenness, to represent the strawberry with, or if you are using some other phenomenal quality I have never experienced before in my life. Also, you're starting to think sloppily when you say things like: <<< I can have a symbol "red" in a database, and if that is the result of a query issued by that camera device, then that recognition of red is no different than what happens from the query in my brain that comes up with the symbol "red". >>> All of that is the intermediate stuff, like the light, the eye, and everything. They are all just random stuff, for which, if you interpret it to be 'red' that is what you have. But without that interpretation, the light is just light, the +5 volts is just that, and nothing like a redness quality, or the property of the surface of the strawberry, it is being interpreted as representing. The only thing that makes such abstract 'red' substrate independent, is the fact that there is a consistent hardware layer doing the interpretation, from whatever physical media you are using to represent it. All that intermediate stuff can be thought of as 'red', but findamentally, none of it is anything fundamentally like the initial cause nor the final result of that perception of red process. Are we still on the same page? Brent Allsop On 4/24/2013 4:31 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:50 PM, Brent Allsop > > wrote: > > > Hi Kelly, > > Communication is a two way street. So if I'm failing at > communication, it is a problem with me, also. So thanks for > trying, and not yet giving up! > > Let's back up a bit, and be sure we are clear on some of the > fundamentals. For example, do you agree that 'red' is an > ambiguous term. > > > It is ambiguous in that somewhere between 620--750 nm you will start > seeing red at a slightly different point than I will, but that is a > symbolic representation problem in how you and I LEARNED the concept > red. There would undoubtedly be a color in there that we both agreed > would be red, and then going off the other end, we would have the same > issue. But there is an unambiguous middle ground where it is > definitely red, and I don't think that is ambiguous in the least. We > would agree that orange has some redness to it. > > It includes both the initial cause of the perception of 'red', > like when the strawberry reflects something like 650 NM light. > And it also includes a phenomenal quality, which is a quality of > our knowledge of such. > > > The recognition of red by my brain and by your brain even in the > unambiguous case of physical middle of the road redness will be > established by the lighting up of different neural patterns, or waves > of patterns if you believe some brain scientists. > > In other words, redness is a quality of the final result of the > perception process. > > > The recognition of red is different between you and I, but by the time > you turn it into a symbol, and turn that symbol back into speech, and > I recognize the speech, after all that messing around is done, then we > would agree that we have both perceived red, at least in many cases. > If I reach out to try and understand what you are saying, redness is a > symbol that is the final result of the perception process. > > So, when we talk about 'red', you must distinguish between them, > and know which one of these you are talking about!? > > > Meaning the physics red and the perception red and the symbol "red"? > Yup, got it. Those are all different things. Probably a lot of other > things in the middle of those things that we don't have language or > technology to describe, especially in an email, such as sound waves, > brain patterns and waves and so forth. When you break it down it does > indeed get VERY complicated. > > Also, all the intermediate representations really have nothing to > do with 'red' other than some intermediate physical media is being > interpreted in an abstract way, as being red. Without the correct > hardware interpretation layer, there is no 'red' anywhere in the > light or the eye, other than the abstracted information it all is > being interpreted as. > > > If there is no eye and no brain, redness can still be detected by a > device. So Redness (if the definition is agreed upon) is a TRUTH that > lies outside of anyone's brain. I can have a symbol "red" in a > database, and if that is the result of a query issued by that camera > device, then that recognition of red is no different than what happens > from the query in my brain that comes up with the symbol "red". There > is no "emotion", but I don't think your definition of qualia > necessarily includes an emotional aspect, or does it? > > The qualia, as you call it, of redness, is simply the mental state of > resonating strongly with the symbol red (as represented by a learned > pattern state in my brain) in the context of an experience conveyed to > the perceiving brain by its sensory input, particularly the visual > input in this case. > > Are we getting anything like closer to common understanding? > > -Kelly > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 25 00:16:12 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:16:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] controls engineers dream In-Reply-To: References: <011301ce4141$294b1830$7be14890$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <013001ce414a$18f41dc0$4adc5940$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Van Sickle Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 4:32 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] controls engineers dream >.But the original music this went out from SpaceX with was much more fitting: http://youtu.be/NoxiK7K28PU --s Thanks Steve. I am a big Johnny Cash fan since my childhood. I like to see baritones make it rather than all the tenors and such. I recall my calcs from a long time ago that from a weights perspective a feet first landing makes sense on a first stage under some circumstances. It weighs more than a parachute-into-the-sea recovery, but if you plan multiple launches and want fast recovery time, you can give away some first stage performance in exchange for that cool feet first notion. Besides that, to those of us who grew up on Rod Rocket cartoons, it just looks cool, and is far more dignified than having to be fished out of the sea. Please tell me I am not the only one here who loved Rod Rocket and Joey. spike http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRuc9X3GyUgJyDTwDfNaCPsJgAMybS0a_y3N kBofi76LNcAeu5lYcqvh0IZ0A On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 4:12 PM, spike wrote: This is the kind of thing that gets controls guys turned on: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c4#/video/us/2013/04/24/vo-spacex-grasshopp er-10-story-launch-land.spacex Kewalll! Gooo SpaceX! spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 4332 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 02:57:27 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:57:27 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <51786B5D.9000906@canonizer.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <5177FDF2.2000200@aleph.se> <51786B5D.9000906@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Kelly, > > Yes, definitely progress. I would just provide some advice, in that I > think you are getting side tracked on lots of irrelevant complex things > that are leading you away from the simplicity that is important here. > There is nothing simple about this sort of thing, but I do find that I often get side tracked. > Just think of an idealized world where strawberries only reflect 650 NM > light, which can easily be represented with a 1 (what we intend on > picking), and leaves only reflect 700 NM light, which can easily represent > with a 0 (what we don't want). And only think of one redness quality and > one greenness quality that we both agree is the middle of the road for both. > Ok. > Also, we're talking about elemental qualities. Some people think a single > quale, is the entire supper complex emotional experience they have of life, > and so they say my quale could not be felt by you, without you becoming > me. Of course THAT is true, but these experiences are built up out of, or > painted with, elemental qualities that include the combination of simple > elemental redness, a warmth feeling, our memories of everything to do with > red, like blood. The phenomenal knowledge of us perceiving this red, the > phenomenal emotion, and so on. All of this phenomenal knowledge is simply > lots of elemental qualities our brain uses to 'paint' our conscious > knowledge with. And surely we will be able to 'eff' if you will, the > qualitative elemental nature, to each other, and know if you are using my > greenness, to represent the strawberry with, or if you are using some other > phenomenal quality I have never experienced before in my life. > Ok. > Also, you're starting to think sloppily when you say things like: > > <<< > I can have a symbol "red" in a database, and if that is the result of a > query issued by that camera device, then that recognition of red is no > different than what happens from the query in my brain that comes up with > the symbol "red". > >>> > If you say so. > All of that is the intermediate stuff, like the light, the eye, and > everything. They are all just random stuff, for which, if you interpret it > to be 'red' that is what you have. But without that interpretation, the > light is just light, the +5 volts is just that, and nothing like a redness > quality, or the property of the surface of the strawberry, it is being > interpreted as representing. The only thing that makes such abstract 'red' > substrate independent, is the fact that there is a consistent hardware > layer doing the interpretation, from whatever physical media you are using > to represent it. All that intermediate stuff can be thought of as 'red', > but findamentally, none of it is anything fundamentally like the initial > cause nor the final result of that perception of red process. > > Are we still on the same page? > > I suppose, but I still don't know where you are trying to drive this bus. There is a quality that is fundamental, that we agree on. Not sure why a machine cannot also detect such a fundamental quality, but I'm listening. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 03:12:45 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:12:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike, > Oh I do disagree sir.? If you go down far enough, you have a number of > molecules that can be completely described by a set of numbers.? The key word there is "described". Yes, we can describe just about anything digitally. But a digital description of a thing is not the thing unless that thing happens also to actually be digital. We can make identical copies of software files on our computers, for example, but we cannot make identical digital copies of things that are not digital. > Of course I don't think we can sim a brain, even a flea brain, down? > to the?molecular level, but I don't think we would need to. In principle, I think we can digitally sim a brain, even down to the molecular level. But at most I think it would result only in weak AI. Or, in the case off an attempted upload of a personality, I think it would result at most in a sort of unconscious cartoon of that personality. (Cartoon is probably not the best word here, but at the moment I can't think of a better one.)? > Sure but we don't necessarily need consciousness I suppose.? What we? > need is?creativity.?? I thought we were discussing the possibility of digital consciousness! I see there are quite a few interesting emails in this thread, including yours. I wish I had more time to address all of them in more detail. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 03:31:11 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:31:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <51786CA1.7050800@canonizer.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> <51786CA1.7050800@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <1366860671.4647.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Anders wrote: > The problem is that a model is not the same thing as the system being > modeled...?A simulated hurricane does not make you wet as you sit in? > front of the computer - simulated people in the simulation might indeed get > simulatedly wet, but the wetness does not carry between the levels. Yes! -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 03:45:37 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:45:37 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:11 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Oh and Stathis said: > > <<<< > There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers > can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the > brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable. > Consciousness need not be defined for the purpose of the argument > other than vaguely: you know it if you have it. This makes the > argument robust, not dependent on any particular philosophy of mind or > other assumptions. The argument assumes that consciousness is NOT > reproducible by a computer and shows that this leads to absurdity. As > far as I am aware no-one has successfully challenged the validity of > the argument. > > http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html >>>> > > Stathis, I think we?ve made much progress on this issue, since you?ve lat > been involved in the conversation. I?m looking forward to see if we can now > convince you that we have, and that there is a real possibility of a > solution to the Chalmers? conundrum you believe still exists. > > I, for one, am in the camp that believes there is an obvious problem with > Chalmer?s ?fading dancing? qualia argument, and once you understand this, > the solution to the ?hard problem?, objectively, simulatably, sharably (as > in effing of the ineffable) goes away, no fuss, no muss, all falsifiably or > scientifically demonstrably (to the convincing of all experts) so. Having > an experience like: ?oh THAT is what your redness is like ? I?ve never > experienced anything like that before in my life, and was a that kind of > ?redness zombie? before now.? Will certainly falsify most bad theories out > there today, especially all the ones that predict that kind of sharing or > effing of the ineffable will never be possible. The paper cited has nothing to do with the "Hard Problem" or the possibility of sharing experiences. It is just a proof that computers can be conscious. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 04:10:12 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:10:12 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Gordon wrote: > In principle, I think we can digitally sim a brain, even down to the > molecular level. But at most I think it would result only in weak AI. Or, in > the case off an attempted upload of a personality, I think it would result > at most in a sort of unconscious cartoon of that personality. (Cartoon is > probably not the best word here, but at the moment I can't think of a better > one.) That's where you're wrong. If we could simulate a brain we could simulate part of a brain. We could replace your visual cortex with an artificial visual cortex, for example, that reproduces the I/O behaviour of your biological cortex. If the I/O behaviour is reproduced, than the rest of your brain will behave normally as it receives the same inputs. You look at a flower, your artificial visual cortex sends output to the rest of your brain, including your speech centres, and you describe the flower. Think about what would happen if, as you claim, the artificial visual cortex can reproduce the brain behaviour ("I think we can digitally sim a brain, even down to the molecular level") but not the associated consciousness. You would be describing the flower, but you would actually be blind. So either you would not notice you were blind, or you would notice you were blind but your vocal cords would describe the flower and declare that everything looked normal despite your desperate efforts to tell everyone that something was horribly wrong. Do you believe that is what would actually happen? -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 25 04:21:47 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:21:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:11 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Oh and Stathis said: > > <<<< >> There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers > can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the > brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable..... >...The paper cited has nothing to do with the "Hard Problem" or the possibility of sharing experiences. It is just a proof that computers can be conscious. -- Stathis Papaioannou ___________________________________________ Not sure who wrote what above, apologies. We may be getting unnecessarily tripped over defining consciousness. I am ready to concede Gordon's point that digital sims cannot be conscious in the same sense that bio-systems are, but I am really looking at the other bifurcation. We may not need consciousness for a singularity to occur and create a simulation in which we might continue our existence. We might be able to at least feel like we are conscious in there. A chess program is not conscious, but it creates some gooooorgeous combinations that feel like an iron fist reached out of the computer and grabbed you by the ass. Perhaps we are too quick to insist that computer intelligence must follow the same path as humans have. But I can imagine computers getting to the point where they are designing the next generation of computers and then uploading itself onto that next generation, then rewriting itself, etc, then carrying along simulations of its humans and all that, entirely without humanlike consciousness. Damn that concept is a mind-blower. spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 04:51:28 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:51:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike, > A chess program is not conscious, but it creates some gooooorgeous combinations that feel like an iron fist reached out of the computer and grabbed you by the ass. ? I understand exactly what you mean, spike. Chess programs seem like they know exactly what they are doing. They are masters of the game.? But in reality they are like my watch. My watch tells me the time accurately, but I'm pretty sure it has no idea what the time is. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 05:15:16 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:15:16 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:21 PM, spike wrote: > >>... On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou > Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . > > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:11 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> Oh and Stathis said: >> >> <<<< >>> There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers >> can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the >> brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable..... > >>...The paper cited has nothing to do with the "Hard Problem" or the possibility of sharing experiences. It is just a proof that computers can be conscious. -- Stathis Papaioannou > ___________________________________________ > > Not sure who wrote what above, apologies. > > We may be getting unnecessarily tripped over defining consciousness. I am ready to concede Gordon's point that digital sims cannot be conscious in the same sense that bio-systems are, but I am really looking at the other bifurcation. We may not need consciousness for a singularity to occur and create a simulation in which we might continue our existence. We might be able to at least feel like we are conscious in there. But digital sims *can* be conscious in exactly the same way bio-systems can, provided that consciousness is due to the bio-system's activity (rather than something like an immaterial soul) and the bio-system's observable behaviour can be simulated. Otherwise it leads to absurdity. See my follow up post to Gordon. -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 05:44:59 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:44:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366868699.92857.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Hello old friend Stathis. You understand me on this subject probably better than anyone here. We discussed these issues at length back some 4-5 years ago. I think I am experiencing deja vu.? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > That's where you're wrong. If we could simulate a brain we could simulate part of a brain. We could replace your visual cortex with an artificial visual cortex, for example, that reproduces the I/O behaviour of your biological cortex. If the I/O behaviour is reproduced, than the rest of your brain will behave normally as it receives the same inputs.< Granted, it does seem possible to create simulated digital sensory inputs to the mind/brain, as in your example of an artificial visual cortex.. But then we can also wear sunglasses to change our visual inputs. Are we supposed to think sunglasses are conscious?? What if I implanted a physical?calculator?in my head to do math for me? I could hook it up to all the right "math willing" neurons to do the job for me. I'm pretty sure the calculator would give me the right answers, but that I would have nothing to do with the calculations. It would not be much different from holding the calculator in my hand, except that I would be pushing the buttons with my thoughts alone. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 25 06:43:20 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:43:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <5177FE7A.3010209@verizon.net> References: <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <20130421093950.GZ15179@leitl.org> <20130422112036.GJ15179@leitl.org> <20130423064418.GB15179@leitl.org> <20130424101324.GJ15179@leitl.org> <5177FE7A.3010209@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130425064320.GY15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:47:06AM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> The problem with "virtual" is that it's encrusted with concepts >> likehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine >> and makes people ask nonsensical things about underlying >> operating systems or hypervisors. Instead, the mental model should >> more resemble FPGA state, evolving onboard. It still >> wouldn't be accurate, but it's a start. > > That's one of the things that bugs me about your philosophy. > > You are like "don't worry, computers won't be the ungodly monstrosities > of bloatware and legacy design in the future because all of computer > science will take a left turn and suddenly become elegant, robust and > operate on almost entirely new principles." They wouldn't if they didn't have to. Fortunately, they do. If you don't yet understand why, consider looking at how much crunch you need today on a classical (say, Blue Gene/Q) architecture to run one liter of neural tissue in realtime. Now consider that you're going for a speedup, 1 ms: 1 us, 1 ns, 1 ps. Look at how much happens in biology within 1 ms and how many "atomics ops" you'd need to do to manage it within 1 ns...1 ps. If you have trouble, here's a hint: if you start with current clusters granularity scales down to the point where 3d torus clusters become cellular hardware, and really simple hardware at that -- with zero software but state. It's just one big complex kernel being applied on the entire 3d volume. > I'm sorry, that just doesn't hold water with me. I'm going to need to > see some papers/books/articles that are specific enough to convince me > that A, it will work, B, it will be useful, and C, it will happen. Nobody ain't got no time for that. Try researching it on your own. > Better yet, I would like some kind of physical artifact that I can (in > principle) play around with... (my computer generally doesn't do > anything I want it to except e-mail and sometimes web browsing...) > > Failing either of those, I'm going to have to group you in with people > who believe in magic and rapture cultists. =\ Pretty much exactly the opposite. Since you already like Minecraft (and probably seen the neuron emulation made in Minecraft) it shouldn't take a large conceptual leap to look what a hardware implementation with <1 um^3 cells of a much more complex translation rule could do. > Furthermore, you will have to show how your proposal is either > compatible or incompatible with the selling points uploaders typically > trumpet. I couldn't care less about what "uploaders" trumpet. We're at an early stage, where we can do primitive single cells and where a nematode is perhaps 30-50% done -- this is all classically done, still. If you want to help, look into building an integer gas model for systems which are normally done with differential equations/ matrix algebra. For a hint, see prior work in http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=fluid+dynamics+with+cellular+automata&hl=en& but don't bother with single bit sites, use small integers instead. For what you're trying to model, see https://www.coursera.org/course/bioelectricity https://www.coursera.org/course/compneuro From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 07:38:34 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:38:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1366875514.69189.YahooMailClassic@web165005.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> ordon wrote: >We could perhaps build a digital model of a neuron or an entire brain, but I think it would be only a model. The model in this case is not identical to the thing modeled, because the thing modeled (the mind/brain) is not in my view like a digital computer. Well, a model of a piece of music (e.g. a digital recording) is not identical to the thing modeled either, but nobody cares. The important thing, the music, is still there. It wouldn't matter if the model was made via a direct recording, or a heap of filters separating out all the sine waves, followed be recombining them, or encoding the music as amplitude-modulated signals, or whatever. Even though none of those would be identical to the thing modeled, they would all be perfectly acceptable, and indistinguishable from the original, if done properly. The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is whether or not you accept that a mind is a dynamic information-processing system. If you do, then you must logically accept that anything capable of replicating that information-processing is capable of supporting a mind. If not, you have to put forward a proposal for what a mind is. It can only be composed of some combination of five things: matter, energy, space, time and information. There literally is nothing else. Neither biology nor technology has anything else to work with. if biology can do something, then in principle so can technology. If this is not true, then all of science is based on false premises. >It is tempting to think the mind is to the brain what software is to hardware, per the computational model of mind, but I believe that model is misguided.There are no 1's and 0's floating around in our heads, or anything like them. Thoughts are not like programs running in our brains. Consciousness arises through some biological process that we do not yet understand, but it is I think biological and not digital. > Are there 1's and 0's floating around in a computer? You seem to be putting the cart before the horse. It's not that the process to be modeled has to be digital, it's that digital computing can model non-digital processes. Think of the music example again. Another issue is levels of abstraction. Nobody is (I hope) expecting that an uploaded mind will /be a program/ running on a computer. There will be programs running, yes, but they will bear about the same relationship to the mind as the rules that govern chemistry bear to the same mind running in a biological brain. Thinking that because computers are digital means that anything they do has to 'be digital' is a red herring. >In my view digital simulations are, in a sense, nothing more than sophisticated digital photographs. Just as a digital photograph of you is not conscious, neither would be a digital simulation of you. A digital photograph is not supposed to be conscious, but it is supposed to form a visual resemblance. Which it does, to an arbitrary level of fidelity. Just as a digital photo is a good visual resemblance, to the degree to which it captures visual information, so a digital simulation of a mind would be a good mind, to the degree to which it captured the relevant information. Just because we don't yet know exactly what that information is, doesn't invalidate the principle. >Of course, if we are already living in a digital simulation then we could in that case make conscious digital simulations of ourselves, but I reject that idea as fantasy. I do not believe the world is fundamentally digital. Then I suggest you take John's course on analogue computing. OK, I'm not being fair there. The point is, it doesn't matter if the world is fundamentally digital or not. Digital processing is tremendously useful regardless. Can digital computers do calculations on real numbers? Of course they can, to arbitrary levels of precision. Your first argument above effectively denies this, and you're asserting that digital computers can only do integer arithmetic, and therefore can't model analogue electrical circuits, for example (and no, a simulation of an electrical circuit is not the same thing as an electical circuit, but it /does the same thing/, and that's the whole point). Ben Zaiboc From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 25 07:51:32 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:51:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <51786CA1.7050800@canonizer.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> <51786CA1.7050800@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <5178E084.1090306@aleph.se> On 25/04/2013 00:37, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Anders, > > As usual, you have lots of great things to say. But help me > understand exactly what you mean by "level independent" consciousness. > > Are you saying that if you have or experience some of that, then you > know that it is fundamental, and can't be an abstract simulation at > some abstracted or interpreted higher level? In other words, if what > you are saying is true, then that would be proof that our > consciousness is at the fundamental level, and can't be at some > arbitrary abstracted or interpreted level above that? I invented the term "level independent" to denote abilities or properties that exist for real regardless of what kind of system is doing it. Chess-playing and having chess-playing skill, for example, can be done by humans, by computers, by software emulations of Deep Blue running on a different computer, or Chinese rooms. I think it makes sense to say that all these systems can play chess. Now, level-independent consciousness would be that if something, somewhere did whatever it takes to get consciousness it would indeed produce real consciousness, even if that something was software or running virtualized on something else. So if you are conscious (and aware of it), your consciousnessness is *not* evidence of you living in base reality in this scenario. On the other hand, if consciousness is level-dependent, then it might be like "hurricane-caused-wetness" or "being part of the real world" - either something that is real within its own level of simulation or something that has to exist just in a particular domain (typically, base reality). If consciousness is level-dependent like the wetness case there could be sim-consciousness in the uploads but it is not real-consciousness; whether that matters or not depends on how one envisions the difference in properties of sim-consciousness from real-consciousness. If consciousness is bound to a particular domain then we could indeed use our consciousness as proof of our kind of reality, but logically it leaves the question open what happens when you have perfect simulations of reality since consciousness does seem to have causal effects (like this thread). -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 25 09:43:44 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:43:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366824276.73058.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <1366824276.73058.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130425094344.GD15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 10:24:36AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > >> You certainly know you have intentionality.? > > > > No, as a matter of fact I don't. > > Intentionality, as I and most philosophers use the word, is in basic terms the ability to have mental content of which one is aware.? What does 'mental' mean? Does it mean 'located in the CNS or any information processing system, including subcellular'? What does 'aware' mean? Is a bacterium during chemotaxis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis aware of existance of a gradient? Do you think that human cognition is fundamentally different from other primates, or lower animals for that matter? You're not aware of most of processes going on in your brain, despite being the sum of your processes. Do these processes belong to intentionality, despite being absolutely required for you to be 'aware' of anything, despite you not being aware of these processes? > When you open your eyes, do you see something? That perception is mental content. When you imagine a pink elephant, that too is mental content. When you do a mathematical calculation in your head, that is also mental content. When you feel a pain in your body, that is also mental content. Unless you are a mindless zombie or a rock or something similar, you have the capacity to have conscious mental content, i.e., intentionality. Mindless zombies are impossible. From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 10:04:48 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:04:48 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366868699.92857.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366868699.92857.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 3:44 PM, Gordon wrote: > Hello old friend Stathis. You understand me on this subject probably better > than anyone here. We discussed these issues at length back some 4-5 years > ago. I think I am experiencing deja vu. > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> That's where you're wrong. If we could simulate a brain we could > simulate part of a brain. We could replace your visual cortex with an > artificial visual cortex, for example, that reproduces the I/O > behaviour of your biological cortex. If the I/O behaviour is > reproduced, than the rest of your brain will behave normally as it > receives the same inputs.< > > Granted, it does seem possible to create simulated digital sensory inputs to > the mind/brain, as in your example of an artificial visual cortex.. But then > we can also wear sunglasses to change our visual inputs. Are we supposed to > think sunglasses are conscious? > > What if I implanted a physical calculator in my head to do math for me? I > could hook it up to all the right "math willing" neurons to do the job for > me. I'm pretty sure the calculator would give me the right answers, but that > I would have nothing to do with the calculations. It would not be much > different from holding the calculator in my hand, except that I would be > pushing the buttons with my thoughts alone. That's not the sort of replacement I was talking about. That would be like giving me a wheelchair if I had an arthritic knee rather than replacing the knee with an artificial joint. I could still get around with the wheelchair, but it would be completely different to walking; whereas with the artificial it will feel close to what it felt like when my knee was good. With the brain, imagine that an engineer wants to replace a neuron in the visual cortex. The engineer is a simple fellow who knows nothing about philosophy and the mind, so he treats the neuron like a machine, the same as the knee joint. He monitors the neuron and notes how it behaves given a wide range of inputs and environmental conditions. For example, he notes that the neuron depolarises its membrane producing a waveform of a particular shape and magnitude if exposed to a certain threshold concentration of neurotransmitter, and this threshold goes up or down depending on the concentration of sodium, potassium and calcium, the pH, the temperature, the time since the last depolarisation, and so on. From this information he produces a computer model and uses this to program an artificial neuron with sensors to measure the various environmental parameters and the ability to interface with neighbouring neurons, stimulating them either electrically or by releasing neurotransmitter from stores. The engineer replaces the original neuron with the artificial one and tests the modified network, making adjustments to the software and hardware if necessary until satisfied that it is functioning normally according to his measurements. Given that the artificial neurons do in fact function normally in the engineering sense, is it possible that they do not reproduce consciousness? Think about what that would mean. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 25 11:01:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:01:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130425110118.GM15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:07:29AM -0700, spike wrote: > I agree humans are not akin to digital computers. What I am asking is if > we can take a buttload of digital computers, connect them all together, each > running models of brain cells, and create something that is kinda sorta akin > to a human brain? If not, how about some simpler but still conscious brain > perhaps? Or if not conscious, at least reactive to its surroundings? See http://www.openworm.org/ which is very active and Si elegans http://www.si-elegans.eu/ which just started this month, and are going to burn a lot of money. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 25 11:31:56 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:31:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130425113156.GR15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:51:36AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > In my view digital simulations are, in a sense, nothing more than sophisticated digital photographs. Just as a digital photograph of you is not conscious, neither would be a digital simulation of you. If a digital simulation of a person (you?) argues with you that it's just not true, would you believe it, or would you claim she's a zombie? > Of course, if we are already living in a digital simulation then we could in that case make conscious digital simulations of ourselves, but I reject that idea as fantasy. I do not believe the world is fundamentally digital. What do you think these guys are doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYi1cpQQ-7E ? From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 25 11:43:26 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:43:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130425114326.GU15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 01:05:46PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Someday a digital computer might pass the Turing test, and we will have > created weak AI. But strong (conscious, intentional) AI is a completely > different challenge. We might someday create strong AI in the sense that I > mean, but I don't believe it will happen on digital software/hardware > platforms. It will involve biology.? You might be not a troll, but you're definitely a vitalist. That's substratist! From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 25 12:18:44 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:18:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130425121844.GW15179@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 09:26:49PM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > consciousness is level-independent. This is one reason I think brain > emulation will be useful: it will clean out plenty of theories in > philosophy of mind one way or another. There are still flat earthers and anti-atomists around. Upload a real skeptic, and he's going to pull a full-blow pathology like Capgras or Cotard on you. Of course acute agitation management is much easier in a simulation. From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Thu Apr 25 05:36:05 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:36:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Brent Allsop wrote: > > Surely, Gordon, you believe we will be able to reproduce what the > brain does in some artificial way, and that we'll be able to improve > and re-architect that stuff significantly, In principle, yes, in practice no. Do you REALLY think you will be able to find the change you want to make in a pile of ten billion synapses? Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity theory and then claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is isomorphic to having your cake and eating it too. > and that we'll do the same for ourselves, essentially moving to a new, > trillions of times more capable system i.e. uploading right? So, > everyone, please stop talking past each other like this. What does uploading have to do with moving to a much more capable system? ##### The upload of an idiot is an uploaded idiot. ##### So therefore uploading is not at all instrumental towards (cannot be used for)moving to a more capable system. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 25 13:46:28 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:46:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 9:51 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . spike, >>. A chess program is not conscious, but it creates some gooooorgeous combinations that feel like an iron fist reached out of the computer and grabbed you by the ass. >.I understand exactly what you mean, spike. Chess programs seem like they know exactly what they are doing. They are masters of the game. >.But in reality they are like my watch. My watch tells me the time accurately, but I'm pretty sure it has no idea what the time is. -Gordon Gordon this has been a valuable and insightful thread, and I am glad you came back. What it has really made me think about is that bifurcation I mentioned yesterday: a perfectly acceptable AI could arise without consciousness. We tend to think intelligence requires self-awareness but I now think it does not, or rather the kind of intelligence I am interested in. The chess program does what we want it to do, actually better than we want it to do it, but it doesn't know how to play chess exactly. It plays better than we do, but it still doesn't know how to play in the human sense. It is just shuffling a bunch of bits. Now that goes down another interesting road. Consider the common internet trope which you have likely received at some time in the last few years. It goes something like this. A woman is at the funeral for her mother. She meets a man there she has never seen, speaks to him briefly, falls in love instantly, but he is gone before she gets his name or number. A week later she kills her sister. Why did she do that? This is one of those which stumped me. I never did get it until I read the punch line provided, which actually ties into this discussion. OK, so did anyone here figure out why funeral girl slew her sister? Do you want more time? So we should think about what kinds of intelligences could arise without humanlike emotions and without consciousness. After reading the thread, I think you may be right: a computer could be made to be highly intelligent and to simulate human-like emotions and still not have them. But it might be perfectly acceptable that they don't, as illustrated by funeral-girl. Answer: the reason she slew her sister is that she hoped mystery-man would show up at the funeral. If anyone figured it out easily and to whom that answer seems perfectly logical, please post me so I can put your ass on moderation forthwith, you scare me. Can we imagine an AGI which would propose this solution to funeral-girl? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Apr 25 15:15:51 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:15:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: Hi Stathis, (And Kelly Anderson, tell me if given what we've covered, does the below make sense to you?) It is not a 'proof' that abstracted computers can be conscious. It completely ignores many theoretical possible realities. For example Material Property Dualism is one of many possible theories that proves this is not a 'proof". There is now an "idealized effing theory" world described in the Macro Material Property Dualism camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/36 . In that theoretically possible world, it is the neurotransmitter glutamate that has the element redness quality. In this theoretical world Glutamate causally behaves the way it does, because of it's redness quality. Yet this causal behavior reflects 'white' light, and this is why we think of it has having a 'whiteness' quality. But of course, that is the classic example of the quale interpretation problem (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/28 ). If we interpret the causal properties of something with a redness quality to it, and represent our knowledge of such with something that is qualitatively very different, we are missing and blind to what is important about the qualitative nature of glutamate, and why it behaves the way it does. So, let's just forget about the redness quality for a bit, and just talk about the real fundamental causal properties of glutamate in this theoretical idealizing effing world. In this world, the brain is essentially a high fidelity detector of real glutamate. The only time the brain will say: "Yes, that is my redness quality" is when real glutamate, with it's real causal properties are detected. Nothing else will produce that answer, except real fundamental glutamate. Of course, as described in Chalmers' paper, you can also replace the system that is detecting the real glutamate, with an abstracted system that has appropriate hardware translation levels for everything that is being interpreted as being real causal properties of real glutamate, so once you do this, this system, no matter what hardware it is running on, can be thought of, or interpreted as acting like it is detecting real glutamate. But, of course, that is precisely the problem, and how this idea is completely missing what is important. And this theory is falsifiably predicting the alternate possibility he describes in that paper. it is predicting you'll have some type of 'fading quale', at least until you replace all of what is required, to interpret something very different than real consciousness, as consciousness. It is certainly theoretically possible, that the real causal properties of glutamate are behaving the way they do, because of it's redness quality. And that anything else that is being interpreted as the same, can be interpreted as such - but that's all it will be. An interpretation of something that is fundamentally, and possibly qualitatively, very different than real glutamate. This one theoretical possibility, thereby, proves Chalmers' idea isn't a proof that abstracted computers have these phenomenal qualities, only that they can be thought of, or interpreted as having them. On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 9:45 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:11 AM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > Oh and Stathis said: > > > > <<<< > > There is an argument from David Chalmers which proves that computers > > can be conscious assuming only that (a) consciousness is due to the > > brain and (b) the observable behaviour of the brain is computable. > > Consciousness need not be defined for the purpose of the argument > > other than vaguely: you know it if you have it. This makes the > > argument robust, not dependent on any particular philosophy of mind or > > other assumptions. The argument assumes that consciousness is NOT > > reproducible by a computer and shows that this leads to absurdity. As > > far as I am aware no-one has successfully challenged the validity of > > the argument. > > > > http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html > >>>> > > > > Stathis, I think we?ve made much progress on this issue, since you?ve lat > > been involved in the conversation. I?m looking forward to see if we can > now > > convince you that we have, and that there is a real possibility of a > > solution to the Chalmers? conundrum you believe still exists. > > > > I, for one, am in the camp that believes there is an obvious problem with > > Chalmer?s ?fading dancing? qualia argument, and once you understand this, > > the solution to the ?hard problem?, objectively, simulatably, sharably > (as > > in effing of the ineffable) goes away, no fuss, no muss, all falsifiably > or > > scientifically demonstrably (to the convincing of all experts) so. > Having > > an experience like: ?oh THAT is what your redness is like ? I?ve never > > experienced anything like that before in my life, and was a that kind of > > ?redness zombie? before now.? Will certainly falsify most bad theories > out > > there today, especially all the ones that predict that kind of sharing or > > effing of the ineffable will never be possible. > > The paper cited has nothing to do with the "Hard Problem" or the > possibility of sharing experiences. It is just a proof that computers > can be conscious. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 16:22:48 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:22:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > >> and that we'll do the same for ourselves, essentially moving to a new, >> trillions of times more capable system i.e. uploading right? So, >> everyone, please stop talking past each other like this. >> > > What does uploading have to do with moving to a much more capable system? > > ##### The upload of an idiot is an uploaded idiot. ##### > > So therefore uploading is not at all instrumental towards (cannot be used > for)moving to a more capable system. Sorry to disagree Alan, but I think that this is not entirely correct. There are three aspects of intelligence that can be potentially assisted by uploading. First, they could upload and then expand the neural cortex, allowing for learning to increase beyond the limited capacity that can fit inside a human head. (There are some indications that a larger head doesn't buy you anything in the physical world because of the execution speed of actual neurons, but uploaded simulated neurons would likely not have this same limitation.) Second, the speed of processing could conceivably be increased as well, making a faster idiot. However, an idiot with more time to think about what he's going to do might be slightly less idiotic, especially if he thought about what he was saying more deeply before saying it. Third, being uploaded, he would have somewhat easier access to the world of information. In addition, some people are idiotic due to health problems (pain) or brain disorders. The pain issue could be dealt with in an upload much more easily. The brain disorder part is more difficult, but probably less difficult than in a wet brain. You can experiment much more easily with what happens with different levels of neural chemicals in various parts of the brain when those levels are already simulated, for example. So, an uploaded idiot would quite probably evolve over time into something not quite so idiotic. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 16:54:05 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:54:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 9:15 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Stathis, > > (And Kelly Anderson, tell me if given what we've covered, does the below > make sense to you?) > > It is not a 'proof' that abstracted computers can be conscious. It > completely ignores many theoretical possible realities. For example > Material Property Dualism is one of many possible theories that proves this > is not a 'proof". > > There is now an "idealized effing theory" world described in the Macro > Material Property Dualism camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/36 . > I would fall in the camp of Functional Property Dualism, I think. Unless there is some other camp that is even more explicit. > > In that theoretically possible world, it is the neurotransmitter glutamate > that has the element redness quality. In this theoretical world Glutamate > causally behaves the way it does, because of it's redness quality. Yet > this causal behavior reflects 'white' light, and this is why we think of it > has having a 'whiteness' quality. But of course, that is the classic > example of the quale interpretation problem (see: > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/28 ). If we interpret the causal > properties of something with a redness quality to it, and represent our > knowledge of such with something that is qualitatively very different, we > are missing and blind to what is important about the qualitative nature of > glutamate, and why it behaves the way it does. > I don't believe that. I believe "redness" is an emergent illusion constructed by the brain in software, and has as much to do with the glutamate as Word has to do with Accumulators and Assembly. > So, let's just forget about the redness quality for a bit, and just talk > about the real fundamental causal properties of glutamate in this > theoretical idealizing effing world. In this world, the brain is > essentially a high fidelity detector of real glutamate. The only time the > brain will say: "Yes, that is my redness quality" is when real glutamate, > with it's real causal properties are detected. Nothing else will produce > that answer, except real fundamental glutamate. > I totally disagree, but I do understand your position better. > Of course, as described in Chalmers' paper, you can also replace the > system that is detecting the real glutamate, with an abstracted system that > has appropriate hardware translation levels for everything that is being > interpreted as being real causal properties of real glutamate, so once you > do this, this system, no matter what hardware it is running on, can be > thought of, or interpreted as acting like it is detecting real glutamate. > Correct. And that's as "real" as the other in my mind. > But, of course, that is precisely the problem, and how this idea is > completely missing what is important. And this theory is falsifiably > predicting the alternate possibility he describes in that paper. it is > predicting you'll have some type of 'fading quale', at least until you > replace all of what is required, to interpret something very different than > real consciousness, as consciousness. > If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, who is to say that it is not a duck? > It is certainly theoretically possible, that the real causal properties of > glutamate are behaving the way they do, because of it's redness quality. > And that anything else that is being interpreted as the same, can be > interpreted as such - but that's all it will be. An interpretation of > something that is fundamentally, and possibly qualitatively, very different > than real glutamate. > As Spike says, if it is qualitatively different, but still delivers me a Big Mac when I order it, I'm good with that for many purposes. > > This one theoretical possibility, thereby, proves Chalmers' idea isn't a > proof that abstracted computers have these phenomenal qualities, only that > they can be thought of, or interpreted as having them. > I'm of the camp that will believe something has consciousness when it says it does, and when it acts in every way as if it does. Good enough for me. I guess that puts me in a different cannon? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 17:46:46 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:46:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > So, an uploaded idiot would quite probably evolve over time into something > not quite so idiotic. > > Sorry, but I must have missed the memo that said that only nice guys would be uploaded. :) If upload increases human abilities, then it will increase evil abilities as well as good abilities. In fact, if uploading starts off being very expensive then it is likely that billionaire psychopaths will be first. And they will set about consolidating their virtual power empire before the competition arrives. If we consider some sort of filter and fix system during upload, then the resulting uploaded intelligence could be very different and probably not what the original would like. And who would decide what needed fixing and by how much? It's a job for your friendly superhuman AI! BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 16:59:14 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:59:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > >> >> Surely, Gordon, you believe we will be able to reproduce what the brain >> does in some artificial way, and that we'll be able to improve and >> re-architect that stuff significantly, >> > > In principle, yes, in practice no. Do you REALLY think you will be able to > find the change you want to make in a pile of ten billion synapses? > Psychiatrists and therapists and friends do that with real brains every day. If we can do stuff like this: http://www.ted.com/talks/andres_lozano_parkinson_s_depression_and_the_switch_that_might_turn_them_off.html With a real brain, wouldn't we be able to do even more with an uploaded brain where we can control things to a high degree? > Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity theory and then > claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is isomorphic to having > your cake and eating it too. I don't want my upload to be identical to me. I want my upload to be a better me. That's why I call it transhumanism. Or am I missing something vital here? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 17 12:52:16 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:52:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> Il 16/04/2013 22:54, Gordon ha scritto: > Mirco Romanato wrote: > >>>> You're describing investment schools of thought. I was talking about > how dumb >>>> money actually operates. These features are timeless. > >>> Many economists would disagree that the concept of "dumb money" has any >>> meaning. > >> In fact, who want "Smart money"? >> It would spend you instead of you spending it. > :) > On this subject, while it seems obvious to our intuitions that there > must exist "smart money" and "dumb money" (savvy and not-savvy > investors), it is difficult to identify either. Studies show that > professional money managers who outperform the US stockmarket in year 1 > are no more likely to outperform in year 2 than those who underperformed > in year 1. In fact, after expenses, the majority of money managers > underperform an unmanaged index fund, suggesting that expertise buys > nothing after accounting for transaction costs. This is to be expected, because if someone consistently outperformed the mean (the US stock market, for example) he would become the owner of a larger part of the wealth in the market and outperforming the mean would become increasingly difficult. Over this, if we believe the market is a tool to share and process informations between the participants, every single participant has not all informations before the others. And as one actor increase his size and become a bigger part of the market, he is able to obtain less informations about other actors and others are able to obtain more informations about him. > I do not believe the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is the final > truth about the market, but it does nonetheless seem to be a close > approximation of it. Significant anomalies are infrequent, and those > which are common are relatively unimportant in practical terms. In many > cases they can be explained with a broader definition of "risk". The EMH is about relative efficiency: the market is more efficient compared with other not free solutions. And this happen because the actors are free willed and not rule bounded re-actors. > I think the pursuit of alpha (returns in excess of the market, adjusted > for risk) is an almost but perhaps not completely futile endeavor, at > least in large highly liquid markets like the US stockmarket. Small > emerging markets like that for Bitcoin offer better opportunities for > alpha, at least in theory, as they are still in their infancy and > probably not very efficient. Exactly. If we suppose the best managers are employed by the biggest firms in the biggest markets in what is a selection process where the best go up the food chain and the worst go down, we could understand that any new market have a lot of unselected actors. As time and trade go on, the selection process will put out of business the worst managers and increase the size of the best. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 22 22:44:24 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:44:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: <002301ce3c7b$b7557c80$26007580$@rainier66.com> References: <005901ce3c5a$b6c7e580$2457b080$@rainier66.com> <009a01ce3c60$f57d7550$e0785ff0$@rainier66.com> <51705756.3090907@aleph.se> <002301ce3c7b$b7557c80$26007580$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <5175BD48.40504@libero.it> Il 18/04/2013 23:28, spike ha scritto: > Agreed. We need to further explore a concept I mentioned a couple > weeks ago: the use of currently available mobile bandwidth to Borg > ourselves. So far the capability has mostly been used in gaming, but > even that is encouraging: so many important business and societal > advancement starts out with gaming. It start in gaming because the possible loss because a betrayal of trust is very low. What you write about the borghification is interesting: 1) the system need to account for trust levels of people in the system 2) cost of the resources used (someone need to pay your time and sprinkler parts (expenses) or your altruism will be wasted and exploiters will suck the system dry) 3) In the end this is an automated market system where some tasks are automatically offered and requested by autonomous agents connected by a network. It surely will crash with a large number of existing laws and regulations. The main problem is about trust: 1) the person volunteering trusting to not be exploited by the requester 2) the requester trusting to not be exploited by the volunteer. I think the Bitcoin system can be used to implement a system like this. Surveillance equipments like web cams, microphones, etc. can be used to reduce the need of trust and increase the degree of responsibility. You help people in small chores and Bitcoin flow to you; your trust level grow for them, theirs for you. As the trust increase, they have more motivations to increase the chores and what they pay for them. In fact, for example, in EVE Online (where only paranoids survive), there are players that have built their reputation on a level so large and deep they are paid to manage the equivalent of 10k$ of transactions between parties not trusting each others. Mirco From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 18:50:51 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:50:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366824276.73058.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <1366824276.73058.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 Gordon wrote: > Intentionality, as I and most philosophers use the word, is in basic > terms the ability to have mental content > Then we know that other people must have intentionality because without mental representations they couldn't design a bridge that wouldn't fall down, and in the same way we know that computers must have internal representations of external reality or they couldn't solve physical problems. > of which one is aware. > Mental representations would be unusable if you didn't know you had them, and a file in a computer would be unusable to the machine if it didn't know it had it, if it didn't know where in its vast memory banks it was located. > Strictly speaking, I cannot prove that you have intentionality > Yes you can by observing behavior. Internal representations of external physical systems are necessary to solve physical problems involving those systems, so if anyone or anything can solve those problems it MUST have those internal representations AND know where to find them. > we can also wear sunglasses to change our visual inputs. Are we supposed > to think sunglasses are conscious? [...] My watch tells me the time > accurately, but I'm pretty sure it has no idea what the time is. > A lot of the arguments that the "electronics can never work as well as meat" gang offer take this form, X can do Y but "obviously" X isn't conscious like people. But exactly why is it obvious? Because in the examples given X can do only one thing. When your friend tells you the time you're pretty sure he knows what time it is because his behavior is far more complex than the watch and he can do more than one thing. > we cannot make identical digital copies of things that are not digital. > But we can make copies of things involving matter or energy or spin or electrical charge and we can make copies of the finite integer number of neurons in the brain communicating with each other with a finite integer number of sodium and potassium ions. That doesn't sound like much of a restriction. > In principle, I think we can digitally sim a brain, even down to the > molecular level. > Yes, but that would be vast overkill. > I seriously doubt that my computer is anything more than a blind, > unconscious machine. It might act intelligently but [...] > I don't know where people get the silly idea that intelligence is easier to produce than consciousness. And there is no easier job in the world than being a consciousness theorist because your theories don't have to actually do anything, and there is no harder job than being a intelligence theorist because those ideas must do a hell of a lot. > Someday a digital computer might pass the Turing test, And after seeing what Watson can do I think that day could come a lot sooner than a lot of people think. > and we will have created weak AI. But strong (conscious, intentional) AI > is a completely different challenge. > Completely different?! It is really astonishing that well into the 21'st century there are still people who say they believe in Darwin's Theory of Evolution and even claim to understand it and yet can say something like that. Evolution produced Gordon Swobe and Gordon Swobe is conscious; those 2 facts are absolutely positively 100% logically inconsistent with what you just said above. I have been pointing this fact out for well over a decade but it seldom makes much of a effect; this should bring about a profound change in somebody's world-view but it never does, people either give a embarrassingly anemic retort or just shrug it off and continue to firmly believe 2 contradictory things, that Evolution is true and that consciousness and intelligent behavior are unrelated. Why? I'm not a psychiatrist but I think it's because people first decide that a computer can definitely never be conscious and only then go looking for evidence to support their prejudice. And a belief that is not based on logic can not be destroyed by it. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 18:42:01 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:42:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130425114326.GU15179@leitl.org> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130425114326.GU15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366915321.65185.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, > You might be not a troll, but you're definitely a vitalist. No sir, I believe life is only a material process. I believe thoughts are also only material. I reject the vitalist notion of some metaphysical soul or spirit or energy or "elan vital". Philosophically speaking, I reject both property and substance dualism. I think?neuroscience?will one day identify the biological processes that give rise to consciousness. Our goal then, if we want to create strong AI, will be to transplant or?synthesize those biological processes. I don't think this will be possible on digital computers--we won't be able to synthesize those biological processes by running software over hardware--but I think it will be possible. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 19:13:09 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:13:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike, > Gordon this has been a valuable and insightful thread, and I am glad you came back.? Thanks. > What it has really made me think about is that bifurcation I mentioned yesterday: a perfectly acceptable AI could arise without consciousness. I agree. In fact, as I understand it, most AI researchers have long since given up hope of creating conscious, intentional (strong in the sense that I mean) AI on digital computers. They would be perfectly content to create what I call weak AI. Weak (unconscious) AI is now the holy grail, and sometimes they even call weak AI or AGI "strong". So I/we need to be careful about these terms. Only here on ExI do I encounter plenty of people who still hope for conscious, intentional AI on digital computers, what I mean by strong AI. I assume this is because of the belief or hope common to many Extropians that we might someday achieve digital immortality.?? > ?Answer: the reason she slew her sister is that she hoped mystery-man would show up at the funeral. ?> If anyone figured it out easily and to whom that answer seems perfectly logical, please post me so I can put your ass on moderation forthwith, you scare me. ?? Heh. I didn't figure it out, so you have nothing to fear from me. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 19:21:05 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:21:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366915321.65185.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366833946.57802.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130425114326.GU15179@leitl.org> <1366915321.65185.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:42 PM, Gordon wrote: > I believe life is only a material process. I believe thoughts are also > only material. I reject the vitalist notion of some metaphysical soul or > spirit or energy or "elan vital". > If that is really true then I can say unequivocally that you have not thought through your beliefs to their logical conclusion. > I think neuroscience will one day identify the biological processes that > give rise to consciousness. > If consciousness and intelligent behavior are "completely different" then Evolution could have NEVER produced a biological process that just gaverise to consciousness. No way no how. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 19:47:16 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:47:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Gordon wrote: > most AI researchers have long since given up hope of creating conscious, intentional (strong in the sense that I mean) AI on digital computers. Given up? They didn't give up they never even tried because nobody is fool enough to pay somebody to write a conscious computer program when there is no way to tell success from failure; instead even though the task was very very hard they tried to actually do something, they tried to make a computer that was smart and figured that if they got intelligence they'd get consciousness too as a bonus for no extra charge. John K Clark From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 20:24:16 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:24:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 11:46 AM, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > So, an uploaded idiot would quite probably evolve over time into > something > > not quite so idiotic. > > > > > > Sorry, but I must have missed the memo that said that only nice guys > would be uploaded. :) > I said nothing of the goodness or evil of the upload, only the capacity. > If upload increases human abilities, then it will increase evil > abilities as well as good abilities. > Clearly! In fact, if uploading starts off being very expensive then it is > likely that billionaire psychopaths will be first. And they will set > about consolidating their virtual power empire before the competition > arrives. > Certainly that is a possibility. However, I would guess the first uploads would be some generic plebe or crazy transhumanist working at MIT. It's a risky proposition. > If we consider some sort of filter and fix system during upload, then > the resulting uploaded intelligence could be very different and > probably not what the original would like. And who would decide what > needed fixing and by how much? > I would hope that you would have control over your own upload. For example, today I decide if I go to the doctor and get drugs to treat depression, anxiety or schizophrenia. > It's a job for your friendly superhuman AI! > > BillK :-) I don't have all the answers, and only a few interesting questions. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Apr 25 20:38:14 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:38:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: Yes Kelly, You're definitely making progress. There are only a few more minor issues you don't seem to be quite fully grasping the significance of yet. First off, if you are a functional property dualist, that is certainly yet another easily falsifiable theory that has yet to be experimentally falsified. In other words, if it is only glutamate that has redness, experiments will bear this out, the same for if any function can reproduce a redness experience. It's only a matter of time till someone experimentally demonstrates which of these is the case ? forcing all experts to the same camp. Nextly, you seem to be missing the significance of what happens when, as you substitute the glutamate, with virtual glutamate, when you say if it walks like a duck? When you substitute real glutamate, the prediction is you will experience some kind of fading quale, which Chalmers says is a possibility and which is being predicting by these theories. In other words, if it is your brain where we are doing the neural substitution, as long as you are using the real merging system, including the corpus callosum, that is merging all these elemental qualities into your combined painted conscious experience, emotions and all, all the elemental qualities you replace with abstracted representations of such, will 'fade' from your painted consciousness, as they are removed, from the real thing that knows when something is or isn't real glutamate. The prediction as that nothing that is not real glutamate will ever produce real redness for you. And of course, you will be able to eventually replace the entire binding system, with abstracted stuff that is only being interpreted as the same thing in that it is using the interpretation of the abstracted stuff that is not fundamentally anything like glutamate, and not the real thing. And only once you have this interpretation layer fully in place, will the abstracted system start to claim that the virtual glutamate, is the real thing. And of course, due to Occam's razor, we must assume that it is a zombie, and though it is claiming to be really experiencing real redness, we will know that it is really something fundamentally very different, only being interpreted as that - and the real fundamental stuff, both causal and qualitatively, does not exist in the stuff that is very different, and is only being interpreted as the same. In other words, when it is your mind being substituted, it will stop acting like a duck and the red qualities will ?fade? in some way, whenever you take away real glutamate. There will be no way to bridge this gap, to validate if that stuff which is being interpreted as the real thing, produces the real thing, so just like we shouldn?t believe in the existence of purple unicorns, because there is no evidence for such, the same applies. But for real glutamate, you will be able to validate it with our brain, via such a substitution process. Nothing but real glutamate will have your redness quality. As Stathis pointed out, Chalmers' neural substitution argument is a general idea, which works for most all theories. And this general idea can also be similarly demonstrated to be invalid in the same way with functional property dualism theories. All you do is replace the glutamate in this theoretical idealized effing world with whatever it is that has, or is reliably responsible for, or is the neural correlate of a redness experience. James Carroll likes to call this functional stuff that has a redness quality a functionally active pattern or "FAP". This is because he admits that a static set of ones and zeros does not have a redness quale until it becomes functional, in some way. So all you do is replace the glutamate, with whatever this Functionally Active Pattern or FAP is, or whatever your theory predicts has the redness quality. Anders is talking about "level independent consciousness.? If science proves your theory, that a redness quality can ?arise? from anything, as long as it is functioning correctly, whether it is greenness that is being interpreted as redness or whatever, ?level independent consciousness? will then be proven possible, and we may be in an abstracted simulation Likewise, if only some material substance, like say glutamate, is the only thing that science can show to your brain that has a redness quality we can experience, it will demonstrably prove that ?level independent consciousness? is not possible, and that we are not in an abstracted simulation. Though we could still be in phenomenal simulation, where stuff with real redness, in the basement world, is being used in the simulation. So, in this idealized functional effing theory world, which is predicted by your camp?s working hypothesis, it is still possible to prove that Chalmers idea isn't a proof through this same thought process. You still suffer from the quale interpretation problem in that it is possible for anything, including some string of binary numbers, like say a ?1?, which doesn?t have the redness quality, to be interpreted as if it is the redness quality. But of course, by definition, it will not have the functionally active patter, from which the redness quality arises, and will only be like it, to the degree that you have overcome the quale interpretation problem, and you are able to look up this one in a dictionary, and find the real glutamate, um, I mean, the real functionally active patter, and only think of this very different pattern as if it is representing that real redness quality. Brent Allsop On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 9:15 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> Hi Stathis, >> >> (And Kelly Anderson, tell me if given what we've covered, does the below >> make sense to you?) >> >> It is not a 'proof' that abstracted computers can be conscious. It >> completely ignores many theoretical possible realities. For example >> Material Property Dualism is one of many possible theories that proves this >> is not a 'proof". >> >> There is now an "idealized effing theory" world described in the Macro >> Material Property Dualism camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/36 . >> > > I would fall in the camp of Functional Property Dualism, I think. Unless > there is some other camp that is even more explicit. > >> In that theoretically possible world, it is the neurotransmitter >> glutamate that has the element redness quality. In this theoretical world >> Glutamate causally behaves the way it does, because of it's redness >> quality. Yet this causal behavior reflects 'white' light, and this is why >> we think of it has having a 'whiteness' quality. But of course, that is >> the classic example of the quale interpretation problem (see: >> http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/28 ). If we interpret the causal >> properties of something with a redness quality to it, and represent our >> knowledge of such with something that is qualitatively very different, we >> are missing and blind to what is important about the qualitative nature of >> glutamate, and why it behaves the way it does. >> > > I don't believe that. I believe "redness" is an emergent illusion > constructed by the brain in software, and has as much to do with the > glutamate as Word has to do with Accumulators and Assembly. > > >> So, let's just forget about the redness quality for a bit, and just talk >> about the real fundamental causal properties of glutamate in this >> theoretical idealizing effing world. In this world, the brain is >> essentially a high fidelity detector of real glutamate. The only time the >> brain will say: "Yes, that is my redness quality" is when real glutamate, >> with it's real causal properties are detected. Nothing else will produce >> that answer, except real fundamental glutamate. >> > > I totally disagree, but I do understand your position better. > > >> Of course, as described in Chalmers' paper, you can also replace the >> system that is detecting the real glutamate, with an abstracted system that >> has appropriate hardware translation levels for everything that is being >> interpreted as being real causal properties of real glutamate, so once you >> do this, this system, no matter what hardware it is running on, can be >> thought of, or interpreted as acting like it is detecting real glutamate. >> > > Correct. And that's as "real" as the other in my mind. > > >> But, of course, that is precisely the problem, and how this idea is >> completely missing what is important. And this theory is falsifiably >> predicting the alternate possibility he describes in that paper. it is >> predicting you'll have some type of 'fading quale', at least until you >> replace all of what is required, to interpret something very different than >> real consciousness, as consciousness. >> > > If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, who is to say that it is > not a duck? > > >> It is certainly theoretically possible, that the real causal properties >> of glutamate are behaving the way they do, because of it's redness >> quality. And that anything else that is being interpreted as the same, can >> be interpreted as such - but that's all it will be. An interpretation of >> something that is fundamentally, and possibly qualitatively, very different >> than real glutamate. >> > > As Spike says, if it is qualitatively different, but still delivers me a > Big Mac when I order it, I'm good with that for many purposes. > > >> >> This one theoretical possibility, thereby, proves Chalmers' idea isn't a >> proof that abstracted computers have these phenomenal qualities, only that >> they can be thought of, or interpreted as having them. >> > > I'm of the camp that will believe something has consciousness when it says > it does, and when it acts in every way as if it does. Good enough for me. I > guess that puts me in a different cannon? > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 25 20:54:19 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:54:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130425121844.GW15179@leitl.org> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <51784009.6040101@aleph.se> <20130425121844.GW15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <517997FB.5050602@aleph.se> On 25/04/2013 13:18, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Upload a real skeptic, and he's going to pull a full-blow pathology > like Capgras or Cotard on you. Of course acute agitation management is > much easier in a simulation. In my ethics of brain emulation talk I actually use an emulated version of Searle as an example. If a sceptic is uploaded and changes his mind about the possibility of consciousness in uploads, then we have some evidence there is consciousness there. Of course, it could be a p-zombie merely implementing the appearance of somebody honestly introspecting and then changing their mind about deeply held beliefs, but I think most people would be convinced. Whether real sceptics would go nuts from the experience remains to be seen. My bet is that you only get Cotard if you have messed up the simulation, not because of the ontological shock. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 20:41:15 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:41:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> Message-ID: <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Hi Mirco,? > The EMH is about relative efficiency: the market is more efficient > compared with other not free solutions. And this happen because the > actors are free willed and not rule bounded re-actors. EMH is the idea that the market processes public information quickly and efficiently in such a way that the current market price of an asset, adjusted for risk and the time value of money, is the best estimate of the future price. It is related closely to the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). Let us say I have a piece of paper that I personally guarantee will be worth 100 USD in one year. I want you to buy it, and I promise to buy it back in one year for 100 USD. What is my piece of paper worth to you today? What is a fair price for both you the buyer and me the seller? To answer that question, we must first adjust for interest. For purposes of CAPM, loans to the US government are considered risk-free. Let us say the risk-free rate on one year notes issued by the US government is 2%. This means my piece of my paper cannot be worth more than approximately 98 USD to you, because you could put that money to work without risk and earn 2%. We must then also consider your risk. How good is my guarantee? As it turns out, my guarantee is not very good compared to that of the US government, so we must discount this piece of paper even more. Perhaps it is worth 90 USD to you, giving you an expected return of about 11% ? Applying this kind of CAPM thinking to stocks, and using their relative volatility?(beta) as a measure of risk, leads to the hypothesis that if CAPM applies to the stockmarket and if the prices efficiently reflect public information, the current price of a stock adjusted for risk and interest is the best prediction of its future price. That is the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Evidence in favor of EMH is pretty compelling, but as I mentioned there are some anomalies. PS. I am now a proud owner of bitcoins. The price went up and so far I am profitable. I invested about half my allotted funds, currently sitting at Mt.Gox. If the price drops, I'll buy more. It seems to be dropping rather quickly as I type this. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 21:12:19 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:12:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Yes Kelly, > > You're definitely making progress. There are only a few more minor issues > you don't seem to be quite fully grasping the significance of yet. > :-) I don't know what I've learned exactly... but I'm happy to have explained what I believed already. > First off, if you are a functional property dualist, > There was another position, Mono something believing that all of reality is computation, and that we might be in a simulation. I can't rule that one out completely either. > that is certainly yet another easily falsifiable theory that has yet to be > experimentally falsified. In other words, if it is only glutamate that has > redness, experiments will bear this out, the same for if any function can > reproduce a redness experience. It's only a matter of time till someone > experimentally demonstrates which of these is the case ? forcing all > experts to the same camp. > I can stick an electrode into the head of a patient in the operating room today and by giving a small electric stimulation to a part of the brain I can invoke humor, memory of mom's apple pie, and I'd bet, redness. So from my point of view, this has already been proven. > Nextly, you seem to be missing the significance of what happens when, as > you substitute the glutamate, with virtual glutamate, when you say if it > walks like a duck? When you substitute real glutamate, the prediction is > you will experience some kind of fading quale, which Chalmers says is a > possibility and which is being predicting by these theories. In other > words, if it is your brain where we are doing the neural substitution, as > long as you are using the real merging system, including the corpus > callosum, that is merging all these elemental qualities into your combined > painted conscious experience, emotions and all, all the elemental qualities > you replace with abstracted representations of such, will 'fade' from your > painted consciousness, as they are removed, from the real thing that knows > when something is or isn't real glutamate. The prediction as that nothing > that is not real glutamate will ever produce real redness for you. > reality is overrated. In fact, you can't prove that even staying within the current abstraction level that anything is "real". It's just real within the computational framework that surrounds us, you know, the quarks and stuff. > And of course, you will be able to eventually replace the entire binding > system, with abstracted stuff that is only being interpreted as the same > thing in that it is using the interpretation of the abstracted stuff that > is not fundamentally anything like glutamate, and not the real thing. And > only once you have this interpretation layer fully in place, will the > abstracted system start to claim that the virtual glutamate, is the real > thing. And of course, due to Occam's razor, we must assume that it is a > zombie, and though it is claiming to be really experiencing real redness, > we will know that it is really something fundamentally very different, only > being interpreted as that - and the real fundamental stuff, both causal and > qualitatively, does not exist in the stuff that is very different, and is > only being interpreted as the same. In other words, when it is your mind > being substituted, it will stop acting like a duck and the red qualities > will ?fade? in some way, whenever you take away real glutamate. There will > be no way to bridge this gap, to validate if that stuff which is being > interpreted as the real thing, produces the real thing, so just like we > shouldn?t believe in the existence of purple unicorns, because there is no > evidence for such, the same applies. But for real glutamate, you will be > able to validate it with our brain, via such a substitution process. > Nothing but real glutamate will have your redness quality. > Again, I get the quale that you are talking in circles. It's a familiar sensation in my brain, so it must be "real" in some sense, or maybe it is just d*?j? vu*. > As Stathis pointed out, Chalmers' neural substitution argument is a > general idea, which works for most all theories. And this general idea can > also be similarly demonstrated to be invalid in the same way with > functional property dualism theories. All you do is replace the glutamate > in this theoretical idealized effing world with whatever it is that has, or > is reliably responsible for, or is the neural correlate of a redness > experience. James Carroll likes to call this functional stuff that has a > redness quality a functionally active pattern or "FAP". This is because he > admits that a static set of ones and zeros does not have a redness quale > until it becomes functional, in some way. So all you do is replace the > glutamate, with whatever this Functionally Active Pattern or FAP is, or > whatever your theory predicts has the redness quality. > When we get intelligent sentient beings to talk to about all this stuff, it will be a more interesting argument than it is today. I suspect a shorter one as well. > Anders is talking about "level independent consciousness.? If science > proves your theory, that a redness quality can ?arise? from anything, as > long as it is functioning correctly, whether it is greenness that is being > interpreted as redness or whatever, ?level independent consciousness? will > then be proven possible, and we may be in an abstracted simulation. > Right. We experience redness in the simulation that is our experience inside of our brains, and it will be the same at a different level in the mind of an AGI. > Likewise, if only some material substance, like say glutamate, is the > only thing that science can show to your brain that has a redness quality > we can experience, it will demonstrably prove that ?level independent > consciousness? is not possible, and that we are not in an abstracted > simulation. Though we could still be in phenomenal simulation, where stuff > with real redness, in the basement world, is being used in the simulation. > I see no functional difference between the "reality" we are in, and the simulation. So, in this idealized functional effing theory world, which is predicted by > your camp?s working hypothesis, it is still possible to prove that Chalmers > idea isn't a proof through this same thought process. You still suffer > from the quale interpretation problem in that it is possible for anything, > including some string of binary numbers, like say a ?1?, which doesn?t have > the redness quality, to be interpreted as if it is the redness quality. > I can string together enough 1's and 0's to represent your glutamates. > But of course, by definition, it will not have the functionally active > patter, from which the redness quality arises, and will only be like it, to > the degree that you have overcome the quale interpretation problem, and you > are able to look up this one in a dictionary, and find the real glutamate, > um, I mean, the real functionally active patter, and only think of this > very different pattern as if it is representing that real redness quality. > My brain hurts when I think about this stuff, is that a qualia that will be able to be simulated? It's like free will. Whether we have it or don't isn't the biggest deal, but how we use the illusion of having it to further good goals. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 21:13:27 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:13:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1366924407.64452.YahooMailClassic@web165001.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> John wrote: >"It is really astonishing that well into the 21'st >century there are still people who say they believe in Darwin's Theory of >Evolution and even claim to understand it and yet can say something like >that. Evolution produced Gordon Swobe and Gordon Swobe is conscious; those >2 facts are absolutely positively 100% logically inconsistent with what you >just said above. > >I have been pointing this fact out for well over a decade but it seldom >makes much of a effect; this should bring about a profound change in >somebody's world-view but it never does, people either give a >embarrassingly anemic retort or just shrug it off and continue to firmly >believe 2 contradictory things, that Evolution is true and that >consciousness and intelligent behavior are unrelated. Why? I'm not a >psychiatrist but I think it's because people first decide that a computer >can definitely never be conscious and only then go looking for evidence to >support their prejudice. And a belief that is not based on logic can not be >destroyed by it." This is interesting. How come, then, that you, I, and perhaps five or seven other people on here acknowledge and have changed their minds about it (certainly it was a change of mind in my case, once I had that "hang on, this makes no sense!" moment)? Are there certain kinds of people that are swayed at a deep level by logic, and certain kinds of people that aren't? I can definitely say that I had a 'belief' (with a small 'b') that my selfness was a unique, necessarily singular and undivisible thing, with the usual baggage of worrying about a copy really being me, and if I was copied, which one would 'really' be me, which one 'I' would wake up in, and if I was turned into a machine (ignoring the fact that I am already a machine!), would I cease to be aware, and all that nonsense, until I sat down and actually /thought/ about it, and realised that yes, it was in fact complete nonsense. (I have to acknowledge the contribution that Linda Nagata's 'Vast' made in this process. The concept of the ship pilot overwriting his own mind every ninety seconds, for hundreds of years, really made me think deeply about the whole issue, and I must admit it was challenging). Maybe it's something to do with how desperately someone tends to hang on to their beliefs? I'm open to persuasion, one way or the other (obviously!). As long as it makes sense. Gordon wrote: > Only here on ExI do I encounter plenty of people who still hope for conscious, > intentional AI on digital computers, what I mean by strong AI. I assume this is because > of the belief or hope common to many Extropians that we might someday achieve digital > immortality.?? Nope, it's just the remorseless inevitability of logic. Some of us don't believe things, we think them instead. You say "hope for", which is an interesting way of putting it. (I'd say 'wrong', but I'm too polite). It's not hope, it's an acknowledgement of the facts, and where they lead. Ben Zaiboc From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 25 22:22:50 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:22:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> John, >> most AI researchers have long since given up hope of creating >> conscious, intentional (strong in the sense that I mean) AI on digital >> computers. > they never even tried because nobody is?fool enough to pay somebody to write a? > conscious computer program when?there is no way to tell success from failure.. There may come a day when this is an ethical question. Let us say we create AI androids that appear to be alive and?conscious. They walk among us ordinary meat-people. Will it be murder to shoot one? Or will it merely be property damage? I think it will depend on whether we have reason to think they actually know of their own existence. I would like sometimes to shoot my stand-alone chess computer. It sometimes seems as if there is a cunning SOB living in that box. I think spike can relate. But I also know it would not be murder. My chess computer is no more conscious than a rock.? -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 25 22:28:41 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:28:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <014401ce4204$3e45d770$bad18650$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson . >.As Spike says, if it is qualitatively different, but still delivers me a Big Mac when I order it, I'm good with that for many purposes. .-Kelly It would have been a lot of fun to be at the astronomy conference where someone first presented the notion of the universe being formed from a big bang. I can imagine someone coining the term and it sticking immediately. Kelly has named an important bifurcation of AGI, the one in which it is not aware, has nothing analogous to human emotion, but can still design and build the next generation computer hardware. It does so, iteratively, not because it wants to (it doesn't get 'want') but rather just because it does so. It is analogous to chess software which plays not because it wants to but just because it does so. It gives you a Big Mac if you command it to do so. This is the Big Mac AGI. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Thu Apr 25 20:52:59 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:52:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Message-ID: <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity theory > and then claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is > isomorphic to having your cake and eating it too. > > > I don't want my upload to be identical to me. I want my upload to be a > better me. That's why I call it transhumanism. Or am I missing > something vital here? !!! By what means, then, can you call such an upload, your future self??? -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From spike at rainier66.com Thu Apr 25 22:44:57 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:44:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] USA co2 emmissions plunge to 1994 levels Message-ID: <014e01ce4206$85f165b0$91d43110$@rainier66.com> Wouldn't it be hilarious if the USA, after refusing to sign on to the Kyoto agreement, became the only one of the industrialized biggies to meet the goals it proposed? spike CO2 emissions in USA drop to 1994 levels. http://singularityhub.com/2013/04/25/co2-emissions-in-us-plunge-to-1994-leve ls-as-natural-gas-booms/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=46080c1bf5-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN Proponents of natural gas, or methane in its purest form, say it is cleaner than coal and oil, lacks the PR problems and toxic waste byproducts of nuclear, and more efficiently produces electricity than sustainable sources. It is abundant and, in recent years, cheap. Is natural gas the future of energy production, a risky stop-gap measure to energy independence and cleaner energy, or simply overhyped? Whatever your opinion on the matter, natural gas is asserting itself into the energy mix. David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, told the WSJ's ECO:nomics conference, "Natural gas is in the process of wiping out the coal industry, and it's wiping out the nuclear industry quicker than we thought." Last year natural gas prices significantly undercut coal prices. The spread between coal and natural gas has narrowed in the beginning of 2013 as gas prices jumped. But the longer trend shows rising natural gas use in electricity generation. 30% of US electricity is now generated from natural gas compared to 16% in 2000, while coal-based electricity is down to 38% from 52% in 2000. Some of coal's decline may be due to a 3% rise in renewables, but the nearly doubling of natural gas use is clearly a central driver. SH 92_#4This switch from coal to natural gas-which releases 50% less CO2 than coal when burned-may be an important reason CO2 emissions in the US fell -12% from their 2005 high to 1994 levels at the end of 2012. In the future, natural gas may even skip costly power plants and the electrical grid. Crane thinks natural gas providers will realize they already have a direct pipeline into people's homes for home furnaces and gas stoves. Someone just needs to invent a "gizmo" to convert that gas to electricity. Natural gas also has potential applications in transportation. Some commercial trucking firms are already switching to natural gas powered trucks. And although it would take an enormous effort to re-engineer passenger cars and the attendent infrastructure, there are those who believe it can and will be done. But cheap gas may not last. Tim Rosenzweig CEO of Goldwind Americas asks, "If everybody is generating their own power, and you're running it into the transportation system, when you increase that much demand, what's going to happen to prices?" Supply is relatively fixed in the short run, so higher demand could lead to higher prices. That said, elevated prices needn't last forever. Higher prices also encourage further exploration, production, and new supply-which eases price pressures and the cycle begins again. Further, the US has plenty of supply to develop. Fracking and horizontal drilling technology are opening vast natural gas fields previously trapped in shale formations. Though reserves estimates vary year to year, the US shale gas supply is rapidly growing. Big shale gas fields include the Marcellus (PA and WV), Eagle Ford (TX), Bakken (ND), and Haynesville (LA and TX) formations. Shale gas is expected to play a much larger role in natural gas supply in the coming years. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 106336 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 25 23:32:08 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:32:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> Message-ID: <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> On 25/04/2013 21:52, Alan Grimes wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >> Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity theory >> and then claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is >> isomorphic to having your cake and eating it too. >> >> >> I don't want my upload to be identical to me. I want my upload to be >> a better me. That's why I call it transhumanism. Or am I missing >> something vital here? > > !!! > > By what means, then, can you call such an upload, your future self??? > It depends on what kind of selfhood you are using. For example, if you regard selfhood as linked to having memories of your past and overlapping core characteristics (say some cherished personality traits) then there might not be a problem with enhanced uploads. Or multiple copies of them. If you use some other selfhood your identity might not be preserved in uploading, or perhaps even in simple enhancement. Or even when passing through sleep. But which selfhood definition is true? I don't think there is a true one. There is just stuff morphing across spacetime, and some parts of the stuff use certain definitions. Selfhood is not a natural category for most systems and there is no reason to think it has to apply to transhumans. OK, this Anders-instance just speed-read through Osamu Tezuka's Buddha, so it might be unusually serene tonight :-) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 25 23:51:52 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:51:52 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 1:15 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Stathis, > > (And Kelly Anderson, tell me if given what we've covered, does the below > make sense to you?) > > It is not a 'proof' that abstracted computers can be conscious. It > completely ignores many theoretical possible realities. For example Material > Property Dualism is one of many possible theories that proves this is not a > 'proof". The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is invalid. > There is now an "idealized effing theory" world described in the Macro > Material Property Dualism camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/36 . > > In that theoretically possible world, it is the neurotransmitter glutamate > that has the element redness quality. In this theoretical world Glutamate > causally behaves the way it does, because of it's redness quality. Yet this > causal behavior reflects 'white' light, and this is why we think of it has > having a 'whiteness' quality. But of course, that is the classic example of > the quale interpretation problem (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/28 > ). If we interpret the causal properties of something with a redness > quality to it, and represent our knowledge of such with something that is > qualitatively very different, we are missing and blind to what is important > about the qualitative nature of glutamate, and why it behaves the way it > does. > > So, let's just forget about the redness quality for a bit, and just talk > about the real fundamental causal properties of glutamate in this > theoretical idealizing effing world. In this world, the brain is > essentially a high fidelity detector of real glutamate. The only time the > brain will say: "Yes, that is my redness quality" is when real glutamate, > with it's real causal properties are detected. Nothing else will produce > that answer, except real fundamental glutamate. > > Of course, as described in Chalmers' paper, you can also replace the > system that is detecting the real glutamate, with an abstracted system that > has appropriate hardware translation levels for everything that is being > interpreted as being real causal properties of real glutamate, so once you > do this, this system, no matter what hardware it is running on, can be > thought of, or interpreted as acting like it is detecting real glutamate. > But, of course, that is precisely the problem, and how this idea is > completely missing what is important. And this theory is falsifiably > predicting the alternate possibility he describes in that paper. it is > predicting you'll have some type of 'fading quale', at least until you > replace all of what is required, to interpret something very different than > real consciousness, as consciousness. > > It is certainly theoretically possible, that the real causal properties of > glutamate are behaving the way they do, because of it's redness quality. > And that anything else that is being interpreted as the same, can be > interpreted as such - but that's all it will be. An interpretation of > something that is fundamentally, and possibly qualitatively, very different > than real glutamate. > > This one theoretical possibility, thereby, proves Chalmers' idea isn't a > proof that abstracted computers have these phenomenal qualities, only that > they can be thought of, or interpreted as having them. If it is true that real glutamate is needed for redness then the redness qualia will fade and eventually disappear if the glutamate detecting system is replaced with alternative hardware. This is not in itself problematic: after all, visual qualia will fade and eventually disappear with progressive brain damage. But the problem arises if you accept that the alternative harware is just as good at detecting the glutamate and stimulating the neighbouring neurons accordingly, but without the relevant qualia, then you have a situation where the qualia fade and may eventually disappear BUT THE SUBJECT BEHAVES NORMALLY AND NOTICES NO DIFFERENCE. And that is the problem. -- Stathis Papaioannou From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Fri Apr 26 00:52:54 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:52:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> Anders Sandberg wrote: > It depends on what kind of selfhood you are using. > > For example, if you regard selfhood as linked to having memories of > your past and overlapping core characteristics (say some cherished > personality traits) then there might not be a problem with enhanced > uploads. Or multiple copies of them. If you use some other selfhood > your identity might not be preserved in uploading, or perhaps even in > simple enhancement. Or even when passing through sleep. So what reward/benefit do I receive for adopting this definition? Why would I consider uploading when there are a hundred and one ways to modify my being, using technology even, which don't raise this issue? > But which selfhood definition is true? I don't think there is a true > one. There is just stuff morphing across spacetime, and some parts of > the stuff use certain definitions. Selfhood is not a natural category > for most systems and there is no reason to think it has to apply to > transhumans. It can't not apply. If it didn't apply, you would just have either something akin to a book or, at best, a utility program that could be used to answer biographical queries about yourself. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 02:35:44 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:35:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> Message-ID: <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Most of us here have probably heard of John Searle's famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Chinese Room Argument (CRA) which attempts to show that computers can never know the meanings of the symbols they manipulate, i.e., that semantics cannot come from manipulation of symbols according to the rules of syntax in a computer program.? Many of us may not however know that Searle's more interesting work on the subject occurred later in his life. He realized that his CRA had missed an important point: that there is no syntax in the brain in the first place - that syntax is not intrinsic to physics. Syntax is, rather, assigned by the observer.? As Searle put it in a speech to the American?Philosophical?Association, "Computational states are not?discovered within?the physics [of the brain], they are?assigned?to the physics...?This is a different argument from the Chinese Room Argument and I should have seen it ten years ago but I did not. The Chinese Room Argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax. I am now making the separate and different point that syntax is not intrinsic to physics."? This idea is disastrous to the theory that the brain is like a digital computer.?Even if we could find a way to get semantics from syntax, syntax is not intrinsic to the brain. If the brain is not?intrinsically?like a digital computer operating according to syntactical rules of a program then for what reason to do we think we can make a conscious brain on a digital computer? It seems to me that to make a conscious brain, we must do something much closer to what nature has done. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 03:09:08 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:09:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 Gordon wrote: >> nobody is fool enough to pay somebody to write a conscious computer program when there is no way to tell success from failure.. > There may come a day when this is an ethical question. Yes, but almost certainly not in the way you imagine. > Let us say we create AI androids that appear to be alive and conscious. They walk among us ordinary meat-people. Will it be murder to shoot one? A question of academic interest only. A much more interesting and practical question is will it be ethical for the machines to shoot us, and a even more interesting question is will they shoot us? John K Clark From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 03:55:28 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:55:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: <1366875514.69189.YahooMailClassic@web165005.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1366875514.69189.YahooMailClassic@web165005.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 3:38 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > ordon wrote: > >>We could perhaps build a digital model of a neuron or an entire brain, but I think it would be only a model. The model in this case is not identical to the thing modeled, because the thing modeled (the mind/brain) is not in my view like a digital computer. > > Well, a model of a piece of music (e.g. a digital recording) is not identical to the thing modeled either, but nobody cares. The important thing, the music, is still there. Replying to email threads in most-recent first order, (thanks to gmail) I just made nearly this exact same point. I see you beat me to it by 20 hours... but I know I arrived at the same example independently - and that's a pretty cool resonance. :) From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 03:38:55 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:38:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <1366829496.62002.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f401ce4135$dcecc660$96c65320$@rainier66.com> <1366859565.98454.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:12 PM, Gordon wrote: > The key word there is "described". Yes, we can describe just about anything > digitally. But a digital description of a thing is not the thing unless that > thing happens also to actually be digital. We can make identical copies of > software files on our computers, for example, but we cannot make identical > digital copies of things that are not digital. Do you own music on CD or are you rabidly defending your old vinyl albums? The physical defects in the substrate caused by dragging the needle through the grooves on your records gives vinyl a limited lifetime of so-called "hi fi" audio. You could make a digital sampling of the original/master before repeated play abused it. We would be listening to a checksum-defended replica of the master on the ten thousandth performance. By that many plays on vinyl you'd have nothing even close to the original that you are defending as the "soul" of the music. So I understand when you say that 44.1kHz isn't near-enough to analog to capture the "essence" of your old vinyl. I'd even understand if you claimed 192kHz isn't near-enough to analog for your preference. What I don't understand is how you are claiming that the digital version can't possibly be "music" but is instead only an approximate simulation of music. Not only are you making this claim, but you continue to assert that there is NO rate high enough to capture the ineffable reality of actual analog music. I've seen people go down this line of thinking in the audiophile world. They usually spend thousands of dollars to create the perfect sound room with perfect speakers connected by solid gold wires, etc. etc. - only to realize by the time they have assembled their dream components that their own biological ears have become the weakest link in the experience. We can do the same progression in video resolution too. Eventually you reach "retina display" where it makes little sense to drive pixel density higher than the human eye can detect. Granted, eagles flying over at 100 meters might appreciate the extra clarity of the latest super-dense display... but that's just silliness. To claim that the image isn't "really" real pushes us into the realm of philosophy, doesn't it? What is really real about any of the images we think we see? Illusions can show us how our vision can be tricked. Drugs show us how our vision processing can be tricked/exploited/subverted. So if these analog/biological systems fail to distinguish "really reality" outside the tolerances given to us by evolutionary adaptation, how would you even know if sufficiently advanced digital systems have already replaced your high-holy analog world? From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 04:07:25 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:07:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 10:35 PM, Gordon wrote: > Most of us here have probably heard of John Searle's famous (or infamous, > depending on your point of view) Chinese Room Argument > Yes I've heard of it, the most idiotic thought experiment in history. > He realized that his CRA had missed an important point > No shit Sherlock. >that there is no syntax in the brain in the first place > I'm not sure what you mean by "in the first place". Chomsky thinks that we inherit certain rules of grammar but it's not really important if he's right or not, regardless of whether it comes from genes or from the environment everybody in every culture, regardless of what language they speak, has pretty extensive syntactic rules in their brain by the time they are 6 or 7. And nowadays even cell phones have pretty extensive syntactic rules in their memory banks. > that syntax is not intrinsic to physics. Syntax is, rather, assigned by > the observer. > Yes, there is not just one correct syntax and no human language is perfect, they all have needless wheels within wheels. I still don't see what your point is. > As Searle put it in a speech to the American Philosophical Association, > "Computational states are not discovered within the physics [of the brain], > they are assigned to the physics > Computational states are no different from anything else, they happened for a reason or they do not. If they happened for a reason then they are deterministic and if they do not then they were random. > The Chinese Room Argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to > syntax. > The Chinese Room Argument showed that John Searle is not a very bright man. > I am now making the separate and different point that syntax is not > intrinsic to physics." > Chocolate cake is not intrinsic to physics either, lots of different cake recipes are compatible with the laws of physics. If you have a point I'll be damned if I see it. > It seems to me that to make a conscious brain > To hell with consciousness! People on the internet love to talk about consciousness because it's so damn easy but they hate to talk about intelligence because it's so damn hard. > we must do something much closer to what nature has done. > Without question random mutation and natural selection is the stupidest way there is to make complex objects, but until the invention of brains it was the only way to do it. What a moron has accomplished a intelligent designer (and I'm not talking about God) can do too and it won't take 3.5 billion years either. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 03:42:19 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:42:19 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Gordon wrote: > Most of us here have probably heard of John Searle's famous (or infamous, > depending on your point of view) Chinese Room Argument (CRA) which attempts > to show that computers can never know the meanings of the symbols they > manipulate, i.e., that semantics cannot come from manipulation of symbols > according to the rules of syntax in a computer program. > > Many of us may not however know that Searle's more interesting work on the > subject occurred later in his life. He realized that his CRA had missed an > important point: that there is no syntax in the brain in the first place - > that syntax is not intrinsic to physics. Syntax is, rather, assigned by the > observer. > > As Searle put it in a speech to the American Philosophical Association, > "Computational states are not discovered within the physics [of the brain], > they are assigned to the physics... This is a different argument from the > Chinese Room Argument and I should have seen it ten years ago but I did not. > The Chinese Room Argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax. > I am now making the separate and different point that syntax is not > intrinsic to physics." > > This idea is disastrous to the theory that the brain is like a digital > computer. Even if we could find a way to get semantics from syntax, syntax > is not intrinsic to the brain. > > If the brain is not intrinsically like a digital computer operating > according to syntactical rules of a program then for what reason to do we > think we can make a conscious brain on a digital computer? It seems to me > that to make a conscious brain, we must do something much closer to what > nature has done. If the brain, being a system of interacting atoms, acquires semantics then what forbids a digital computer, also a system of interacting atoms, from also acquiring semantics? -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 04:25:59 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:25:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366950359.19172.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Stathis, > If the brain, being a system of interacting atoms, acquires semantics > then what forbids a digital computer, also a system of interacting > atoms, from also acquiring semantics? The point here is that organic brains are not like digital computers running programs according to syntactical rules. The "systems of interacting atoms" that we call brains are nothing like the systems of atoms that we call digital computers. If that is true then the computational model of mind is at best dubious and at worst false.? It is tempting to imagine that the brain is a sort of natural digital computer, created by nature, and that our thoughts are something like programs running on the hardware of the brain. But we are assigning that designation. Computational states are not actually intrinsic to the physics of the brain itself, except that we find it interesting and convenient to think so. ? -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 26 04:43:42 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:43:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1 .yahoo.com> Message-ID: <01ae01ce4238$a1a65f40$e4f31dc0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of John Clark ... >...A question of academic interest only. A much more interesting and practical question is will it be ethical for the machines to shoot us, and a even more interesting question is will they shoot us? John K Clark _______________________________________________ We have all these robo-soldiers and missile-armed drones in the military's inventory now. I can see how AI friendliness is a topic which absorbed the attention of Eliezer and his crowd, long before we had all that stuff. spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 04:55:54 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:55:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Another problem with the computational model of mind, which I will add on top of my own post here, is that it seems to lead to the homunculus fallacy. Simply stated: if the brain is like a computer then who/where/what is the computer operator? Is that homunculus also a computer? -Gordon ________________________________ From: Gordon To: ExI chat list Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 8:35 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . Most of us here have probably heard of John Searle's famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Chinese Room Argument (CRA) which attempts to show that computers can never know the meanings of the symbols they manipulate, i.e., that semantics cannot come from manipulation of symbols according to the rules of syntax in a computer program.? Many of us may not however know that Searle's more interesting work on the subject occurred later in his life. He realized that his CRA had missed an important point: that there is no syntax in the brain in the first place - that syntax is not intrinsic to physics. Syntax is, rather, assigned by the observer.? As Searle put it in a speech to the American?Philosophical?Association, "Computational states are not?discovered within?the physics [of the brain], they are?assigned?to the physics...?This is a different argument from the Chinese Room Argument and I should have seen it ten years ago but I did not. The Chinese Room Argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax. I am now making the separate and different point that syntax is not intrinsic to physics."? This idea is disastrous to the theory that the brain is like a digital computer.?Even if we could find a way to get semantics from syntax, syntax is not intrinsic to the brain. If the brain is not?intrinsically?like a digital computer operating according to syntactical rules of a program then for what reason to do we think we can make a conscious brain on a digital computer? It seems to me that to make a conscious brain, we must do something much closer to what nature has done. -Gordon _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 05:18:26 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:18:26 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366950359.19172.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366950359.19172.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 2:25 PM, Gordon wrote: > Stathis, > >> If the brain, being a system of interacting atoms, acquires semantics >> then what forbids a digital computer, also a system of interacting >> atoms, from also acquiring semantics? > > The point here is that organic brains are not like digital computers running > programs according to syntactical rules. The "systems of interacting atoms" > that we call brains are nothing like the systems of atoms that we call > digital computers. If that is true then the computational model of mind is > at best dubious and at worst false. Computers are different from brains but unless brains contain a magical substance there is, at least, nothing *forbidding* computers from having consciousness. > It is tempting to imagine that the brain is a sort of natural digital > computer, created by nature, and that our thoughts are something like > programs running on the hardware of the brain. But we are assigning that > designation. Computational states are not actually intrinsic to the physics > of the brain itself, except that we find it interesting and convenient to > think so. That's not really the origin of computationalism. The original idea is functionalism: that a system which replicates the functional relationships of the brain will also reproduce the mind. A computer is then just a means of realising this. And as I have been explaining, if it is possible to reproduce the functional relationships without also reproducing consciousness that would lead to the absurd situation where you could lack some major conscious modality but be unaware of it and behave normally. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 05:21:13 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:21:13 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Gordon wrote: > Another problem with the computational model of mind, which I will add on > top of my own post here, is that it seems to lead to the homunculus fallacy. > Simply stated: if the brain is like a computer then who/where/what is the > computer operator? Is that homunculus also a computer? It's not that the brain is like a computer, it's that the brain could be replaced by a computer performing the same functions and this computer will also have the same consciousness. The homunculus problem, such as it may be, is as much a problem for the brain as for the computer. -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 05:35:38 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 22:35:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366954538.13741.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Stathis, > It's [the computational model of mind] not that the brain is like a computer, it's that the brain could > be replaced by a computer performing the same functions I believe that is only how AI researchers (understandably) want to interpret it. The theory itself is a position in the philosophy of mind. . > The homunculus?problem, such as it may be, is as much a problem for the brain as? > for?the computer. It seems it is not a problem for the brain. (Does your brain have a homunculous problem? Mine doesn't! :-) It is rather a problem for certain philosophies of mind, including this one upon which so much AI research depends. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 06:13:31 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:13:31 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366954538.13741.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366954538.13741.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Gordon wrote: > Stathis, > >> It's [the computational model of mind] not that the brain is like a >> computer, it's that the brain could >> be replaced by a computer performing the same functions > > I believe that is only how AI researchers (understandably) want to interpret > it. The theory itself is a position in the philosophy of mind. . As far as I am aware no philosopher of mind has started with the assumption that brains and computers are similar kinds of things. They are clearly different, made of different stuff and arranged differently. What they have in common is that they process information and exhibit (sometimes) intelligent behaviour. >> The homunculus problem, such as it may be, is as much a problem for the >> brain as >> for the computer. > > It seems it is not a problem for the brain. (Does your brain have a > homunculous problem? Mine doesn't! :-) It is rather a problem for certain > philosophies of mind, including this one upon which so much AI research > depends. My point was that if it is not a problem for the brain it is not a problem for a computer that replaces the brain. Whys should it be? -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 06:39:01 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:39:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130426063901.GA15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 02:24:16PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > likely that billionaire psychopaths will be first. And they will set > > about consolidating their virtual power empire before the competition > > arrives. > > > > Certainly that is a possibility. However, I would guess the first uploads > would be some generic plebe or crazy transhumanist working at MIT. It's a > risky proposition. Since it's going to be a destructive scan postmortem, and a Very Large Supercomputer as a target the chances for "crazy transhumanist" or "generic plebe" are pretty much nil. This won't come out of the blue, so there will be a succession of animal models leading up to full human scale emulation. The need to push the envelope will make it extremely expensive initially (think multiple MUSD/year just for juice). From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 06:42:45 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:42:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366954538.13741.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1366958565.61928.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Stathis, > ?My point was that if [the homunculous problem] is not a problem for the brain? > ?it is not a?problem for a computer that replaces the brain. Whys should it be? Strong AI and uploading on digital computers might be possible if the?computational model of mind (aka computationalism)?is a legitimate theory about how the brain/mind works. The homunculous problem is just another reason why I think it is false. I think computationalism ?is no more than wishful thinking. I consider digital computers unconscious mechanical tools for doing calculations. I cannot imagine any mechanical upgrade, or any fancy programming, that would make my digital computer any more than a very useful slide rule. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 06:55:16 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:55:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366958565.61928.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366954538.13741.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366958565.61928.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130426065516.GE15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 11:42:45PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Stathis, > > > ?My point was that if [the homunculous problem] is not a problem for the brain? > > ?it is not a?problem for a computer that replaces the brain. Whys should it be? > > Strong AI and uploading on digital computers might be possible if the?computational model of mind (aka computationalism)?is a legitimate theory about how the brain/mind works. The homunculous problem is just another reason why I think it is false. We used to have the vitalism problem, and the phlogiston problem. All of these problems turned out to be strictly in the head. > I think computationalism ?is no more than wishful thinking. I consider digital computers unconscious mechanical tools for doing calculations. I cannot imagine any mechanical upgrade, or any fancy programming, that would make my digital computer any more than a very useful slide rule. Substitute the words "digital computer" with "neurons", and the result is equally wrong or right. You're iterating opinions, and refer to unsubstatiated superstitions from philosophy. This is no way to conduct an argument. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 06:56:39 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:56:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> References: <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130426065639.GF15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 04:52:59PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >> Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity theory >> and then claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is >> isomorphic to having your cake and eating it too. >> >> >> I don't want my upload to be identical to me. I want my upload to be a >> better me. That's why I call it transhumanism. Or am I missing >> something vital here? > > !!! > > By what means, then, can you call such an upload, your future self??? You used to be a baby. Then you grew up. From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 07:01:29 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:01:29 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366958565.61928.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366952154.18801.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366954538.13741.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366958565.61928.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Gordon wrote: > Stathis, > >> My point was that if [the homunculous problem] is not a problem for the >> brain >> it is not a problem for a computer that replaces the brain. Whys should >> it be? > > Strong AI and uploading on digital computers might be possible if the > computational model of mind (aka computationalism) is a legitimate theory > about how the brain/mind works. The homunculous problem is just another > reason why I think it is false. But why is the homunculus problem only a problem for a computer mind? > I think computationalism is no more than wishful thinking. I consider > digital computers unconscious mechanical tools for doing calculations. I > cannot imagine any mechanical upgrade, or any fancy programming, that would > make my digital computer any more than a very useful slide rule. And I could say that protein, phospholipid, and water molecules are just a dumb collection of atoms, completely incapable of feeling no matter how cleverly you arrange them. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 08:40:00 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:40:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 03:22:50PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > I would like sometimes to shoot my stand-alone chess computer. It sometimes > seems as if there is a cunning SOB living in that box. I think spike can > relate. But I also know it would not be murder. My chess computer is no more > conscious than a rock.? I guess it's okay if an autonomous drone murders you, then. Or is it the operator? Or the maker? Or the developer? And what about completely automated warfare, where people are entirely out of the loop? From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 08:51:50 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:51:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] USA co2 emmissions plunge to 1994 levels In-Reply-To: <014e01ce4206$85f165b0$91d43110$@rainier66.com> References: <014e01ce4206$85f165b0$91d43110$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130426085150.GK15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 03:44:57PM -0700, spike wrote: > Wouldn't it be hilarious if the USA, after refusing to sign on to the Kyoto > agreement, became the only one of the industrialized biggies to meet the > goals it proposed? It won't, because methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and is released in very large quantities during fracking. In fact some operators are not even flaring it, according to plume measurements from air. The unconventional oil and gas story is another expensive mistake in the series (see bioethanol and biofuels in general). Fortunately, it's short-lived, so it will self-correct within a decade. In general the whole attempt to limit the rate of fossil depletion and carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas release is over. We now know that we'll burn everything with a net positive energy contet, and even most of that below -- sure beats synfuel. From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 26 09:00:30 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:00:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> Message-ID: <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> Just a note: personal identity is probably in the same category of flypaper philosophical concepts as intentionality, consciousness and free will - it matters to many of our social institutions, everybody has an opinion about it, yet it is not even clear there is anything the term properly refers to. On 26/04/2013 01:52, Alan Grimes wrote: > Anders Sandberg wrote: >> It depends on what kind of selfhood you are using. >> >> For example, if you regard selfhood as linked to having memories of >> your past and overlapping core characteristics (say some cherished >> personality traits) then there might not be a problem with enhanced >> uploads. Or multiple copies of them. If you use some other selfhood >> your identity might not be preserved in uploading, or perhaps even in >> simple enhancement. Or even when passing through sleep. > > So what reward/benefit do I receive for adopting this definition? Why > would I consider uploading when there are a hundred and one ways to > modify my being, using technology even, which don't raise this issue? Reward/benefit to *whom*? This is one of those tricky indexical situations, where depending on your definition very different systems matter and even the kind of benefit they gain differs. Uploading can do things other technologies cannot do, like enabling accurate backups, multiple realisation and all the benefits of having easily upgradeable software body/minds. Very beneficial if you think it is identity preserving... or think that creating a being in such a state is a good thing, even if it is not you. The buddhist that doesn't think identity exists at all can still want to have a world with more happy and compassionate minds. > >> But which selfhood definition is true? I don't think there is a true >> one. There is just stuff morphing across spacetime, and some parts of >> the stuff use certain definitions. Selfhood is not a natural category >> for most systems and there is no reason to think it has to apply to >> transhumans. > > It can't not apply. > > If it didn't apply, you would just have either something akin to a > book or, at best, a utility program that could be used to answer > biographical queries about yourself. In fact, it is a not uncommon philosophical view hereabouts that what people exist in the same loose way that nations or clubs exist. So it might be a good thing to have a person changing into another person if that person has a better life. But those changes can be mergers and splits, temporary dissolutions and reassemblies, or even recreations with new components. That is why I regard Myself as the equivalence class of all Anders-like processes. Right now there is just one instance, but in the future there might be many different instances. Where the boundary of Anders-likness goes will change over time as I evolve, but what I think matters is that they are having fun and enjoying their existence. Note that Anders-the-book is an inert instance of the above equivalence class: not a member since it is not doing anything, but if it could be turned into an information processing process it would become an instance (by a reader acting it out, say: "If Anders sees red, go to page 46, if he sees green, go to page 82.") -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 09:18:15 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:18:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Uploading can do things other technologies cannot do, like enabling accurate > backups, multiple realisation and all the benefits of having easily > upgradeable software body/minds. Very beneficial if you think it is identity > preserving... or think that creating a being in such a state is a good > thing, even if it is not you. The buddhist that doesn't think identity > exists at all can still want to have a world with more happy and > compassionate minds. > > In fact, it is a not uncommon philosophical view hereabouts that what people > exist in the same loose way that nations or clubs exist. So it might be a > good thing to have a person changing into another person if that person has > a better life. But those changes can be mergers and splits, temporary > dissolutions and reassemblies, or even recreations with new components. That > is why I regard Myself as the equivalence class of all Anders-like > processes. Right now there is just one instance, but in the future there > might be many different instances. Where the boundary of Anders-likness goes > will change over time as I evolve, but what I think matters is that they are > having fun and enjoying their existence. > So, is there a limit to how many Anders instances might exist? Where do the supporting resources come from? Are they unlimited? Will the first upload immediately branch and replicate furiously, swamping the available resources and restricting later uploads? Remember we are talking big numbers here of persons to be uploaded. How will the resources be shared between billions of uploaded persons, all branching and trying out 'improvements'? Really, I don't think an uncontrolled environment is feasible. First takes all seems more likely. BillK From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 09:06:43 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:06:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> References: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366967203.34576.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 03:22:50PM -0700, Gordon wrote: >> I would like sometimes to shoot my stand-alone chess computer. It sometimes >> seems as if there is a cunning SOB living in that box. I think spike can >> relate. But I also know it would not be murder. My chess computer is no more >> conscious than a rock.? > I guess it's okay if an autonomous drone murders you, then. > Or is it the operator? Or the maker? Or the developer? It's the human computer operator in that case. He or she wants me dead. But who/what is operating my chess computer when I want to shoot it dead? I think I am the computer operator, but I suppose the human developers and?manufacturers?are complicit. My chess computer is no more than a blind?unconscious?tool that I am using against myself for the sport of it. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 26 09:19:46 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:19:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <01ae01ce4238$a1a65f40$e4f31dc0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1 .yahoo.com> <01ae01ce4238$a1a65f40$e4f31dc0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <517A46B2.7030300@aleph.se> On 26/04/2013 05:43, spike wrote: >> ...A question of academic interest only. A much more interesting and > practical question is will it be ethical for the machines to shoot us, and a > even more interesting question is will they shoot us? John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > > We have all these robo-soldiers and missile-armed drones in the military's > inventory now. I can see how AI friendliness is a topic which absorbed the > attention of Eliezer and his crowd, long before we had all that stuff. It is also a surprisingly fertile question ("Infinite cookie-jar" as Eli put it). It gets philosophers, mathematicians and computer scientists to work together. We had a long brainstorming session yesterday about one set of approaches extending the beyond-mindbending L?b's theorem ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%B6b%27s_theorem , see also http://yudkowsky.net/rational/lobs-theorem for a cartoon guide) in certain directions. Followed by a visit of a game theorist who was a bit shocked that the philosophy department was pumping him about numerical methods for calculating Nash equilibria. I belong to the "scruffy" camp of AI safety people: I think those "neat" attempts of formulating mathematically provable safety systems are not going to work, but enough layers of decent safety is both implementable and has a reasonable chance of working. Of course, the best safety would be to have an intelligence explosion based on human-based minds integrated in a cooperative framework (a so-called "society"), but we do not have any proof or strong evidence that this is achievable or will happen before de novo AI. Of course, these AI safety considerations tend to be for the high end AI rather than the drones and autonomous cars. There is a separate community of robot ethicists that are doing some practical (?) work there. The basic rule is that a good engineer should engineer away risks, but (1) open systems in contact with the world usually cannot be proven safe even in theory, (2) the pattern of risks engineered away is deep down an ethical choice, and this is typically not recognized by the engineers or the people hiring them. The roboethicists are pretty good at pointing out aspects of (2), although I don't think the engineers listen to them much. I think I ought to write more about (1) - there are some very cool links to computer security theory. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 09:38:33 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:38:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366967203.34576.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> <1366967203.34576.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130426093833.GO15179@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 02:06:43AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > > I guess it's okay if an autonomous drone murders you, then. > > Or is it the operator? Or the maker? Or the developer? > > It's the human computer operator in that case. He or she wants me dead. Yes, but with fully autonomous drones there is no operator. The system cruises around and tries to figure out whom to kill. How do you even implement utilitarianism? It's hard to tell how many toddlers it's ok to frag to catch one Evil, Bad, No-good terrorist. > But who/what is operating my chess computer when I want to shoot it dead? I think I am the computer operator, but I suppose the human developers and?manufacturers?are complicit. My chess computer is no more than a blind?unconscious?tool that I am using against myself for the sport of it. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 26 09:49:44 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:49:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130426093833.GO15179@leitl.org> References: <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> <1366967203.34576.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426093833.GO15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1366969784.81744.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, >> It's the human computer operator in that case. He or she wants me dead.? >Yes, but with fully autonomous drones there is no operator. My apologies. You typed "autonomous" and I read it as as "anonymous". Time for bed. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 26 10:02:47 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:02:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> On 26/04/2013 10:18, BillK wrote: > So, is there a limit to how many Anders instances might exist? The upper boundary is set by the number of reachable galaxies (a couple of billion by my last count), how much of the matter can be converted into computronium, and how fast it runs. If we assume 10^11 stars per galaxy, 10^42 to 10^48 computations per second in a M-brain, that I can run on 10^17 computations per second, we get a capacity for 1e46 to 1e52 active Anderses. Using Seth LLoyd's "ultimate laptop" bound 10^51 operations per second, if we convert the matter into 2*10^51 "laptops" we get a capacity for running 2*10^85 Anderses. However, they just have 10^31 bits of storage each, so each laptop can only house around 10^16 Anderses, bringing down the simultaneous number to merely 2*10^67. OK, that was a bit of shameless ego-stroking. But I promise to be merciful when I take over the universe. > Where do the supporting resources come from? Are they unlimited? In real life, the market. Running computations cost money, and it will be paid for by the uploads or people/organisations sponsoring them. Uploading becomes economically feasible when the cost per upload goes down to the order of a million dollars. Most models I have seen suggest that the huge economic incentives for getting more uploads will drive down costs a lot, and of course lead to the manufacturing of more supporting resources. On Earth I think the real limitations will be communications lags and heat dissipation; Robin Hanson estimates a market for a handful of super-dense "cities" in the early days. But the speed the infrastructure gets built is likely to be slow relative to the upload timeframe, so they will indeed find expansion expensive and annoying. > Will the first upload immediately branch and replicate furiously, > swamping the available resources and restricting later uploads? Depends on whether the computing required for uploads is widespread, and whether copying over the net is easy. Anybody who have tried to copy a 15 terabyte file to a remote server will see the problem. I suspect winner-take-all is only a problem in high hardware overhang scenarios, yet another reason to try to get the neuroscience sorted our first, before Moores law gets too far. > Remember we are talking big numbers here of persons to be uploaded. > How will the resources be shared between billions of uploaded persons, > all branching and trying out 'improvements'? Really, I don't think an > uncontrolled environment is feasible. First takes all seems more likely. Think property rights. You want to run a hundred copies? Fine, pay for the servers. Forks will likely legally have equal shares in the original copy's resource, so if you make a hundred copies of yourself each copy will now have a hundredth of your wealth. Probably a smart idea to form a co-op. See Carl Shulman's work for some analysis of the economics of copy-clans. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 10:29:54 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:29:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130426102954.GW15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 07:35:44PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > If the brain is not?intrinsically?like a digital computer operating > according to syntactical rules of a program then for what reason to do we > think we can make a conscious brain on a digital computer? It seems to me > that to make a conscious brain, we must do something much closer to what > nature has done. You're correct, but probably not for the reasons you think. Computing as it is practiced today emerged ad hoc (Jacquard loom) and is basically frozen chance. You might have noticed that clock rates stopped doubling somewhen a decade ago, this was the first crisis of sequential thinking. Due to physical limitations computing will have to change within the next 20-30 years, and it will actually begin to look more like biology than what you're currently thinking when you mean 'computer'. It's important to realize that difference between digital and analog disappears at nanoscale and/or very fast switching times, so what you think as a major division between operational domains has no real basis in reality. From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 11:06:34 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:06:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > The upper boundary is set by the number of reachable galaxies (a couple of > billion by my last count), how much of the matter can be converted into > computronium, and how fast it runs. If we assume 10^11 stars per galaxy, > 10^42 to 10^48 computations per second in a M-brain, that I can run on 10^17 > computations per second, we get a capacity for 1e46 to 1e52 active Anderses. > Using Seth LLoyd's "ultimate laptop" bound 10^51 operations per second, if > we convert the matter into 2*10^51 "laptops" we get a capacity for running > 2*10^85 Anderses. However, they just have 10^31 bits of storage each, so > each laptop can only house around 10^16 Anderses, bringing down the > simultaneous number to merely 2*10^67. > > OK, that was a bit of shameless ego-stroking. But I promise to be merciful > when I take over the universe. > :) Yes, but..... Don't jump ahead too far, too fast. Human uploads will start before we get past Mars, far less other galaxies. > In real life, the market. Running computations cost money, and it will be > paid for by the uploads or people/organisations sponsoring them. Uploading > becomes economically feasible when the cost per upload goes down to the > order of a million dollars. Most models I have seen suggest that the huge > economic incentives for getting more uploads will drive down costs a lot, > and of course lead to the manufacturing of more supporting resources. > > On Earth I think the real limitations will be communications lags and heat > dissipation; Robin Hanson estimates a market for a handful of super-dense > "cities" in the early days. But the speed the infrastructure gets built is > likely to be slow relative to the upload timeframe, so they will indeed find > expansion expensive and annoying. > > Faith in the market is quite touching in these days of rapacious fraud taking over everything of value. :) > > Think property rights. You want to run a hundred copies? Fine, pay for the > servers. Forks will likely legally have equal shares in the original copy's > resource, so if you make a hundred copies of yourself each copy will now > have a hundredth of your wealth. Probably a smart idea to form a co-op. > > Again, property rights are being trampled on all over the world. Inequality is increasing as less and less is left for the 99%. "Laws are for the little people". But the politics is straying away from the technical problems. I doubt if uploads are feasible if they depend on a rack of servers running in the Googleplex. Powerful uploads will require resources under their own control, not dependant on a power failure or someone hitting the OFF button. This probably means much more advanced technology, perhaps nanoscale processors in space utilizing solar / nuclear power. Looks to me like uploads will be for the very rich only, each in their own virtual empire in space. BillK From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 26 12:08:19 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:08:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517A6E33.3060302@aleph.se> On 26/04/2013 12:06, BillK wrote: > Faith in the market is quite touching in these days of rapacious fraud > taking over everything of value. :) Last time I looked, they had not repealed the law of supply and demand. If you think that one is invalid, I think I can sell you a few bridges :-) > Again, property rights are being trampled on all over the world. > Inequality is increasing as less and less is left for the 99%. "Laws > are for the little people". Actually not. People with wealth have a stronger reason to have rule of law: they cannot personally protect all their wealth, and much of it is based on well-functioning markets with low friction. No laws: plenty of friction, ownership becomes unstable. There is a reason rich Russians have their money outside Russia. Inequality can go to infinity and people yet become wealthier (imagine if everybody got ten times wealthier in real terms - or had their wealth exponentiated). What matters is how wealth scales as social power. That property rights are not as stable as they should be in many places is true, but look at economic growth rates. One of the best ways of wrecking your growth rate is to destabilize property rights, and economies that take off long-term (rather than just because of raw materials or industrializing from a low level) all have firm property rights. I would hence predict that the places where brain emulation is successful will not be the kleptocracies. > But the politics is straying away from the technical problems. I doubt > if uploads are feasible if they depend on a rack of servers running in > the Googleplex. Powerful uploads will require resources under their > own control, not dependant on a power failure or someone hitting the > OFF button. This probably means much more advanced technology, perhaps > nanoscale processors in space utilizing solar / nuclear power. Living in space means enormous communications lags. I actually think my webpages are safer up in the Swedish data center (run by skilled personell, with backups and reliable power) than on my desktop computer (run by an amateur). One can do clever things with homomorphic encryption and trusted computing that likely can keep your processor under your control, and your mind-code unavailable to pirates and nosy officials. But yeah, software security is physical security to uploads. > Looks to me like uploads will be for the very rich only, each in their > own virtual empire in space. This depends on how scanning cost and computing cost scales. If scanning is expensive compared to computing, then there will be few different minds but they could run many of copies. So after the first crazy test subjects you get rich uploads, who presumably do not want to copy too much. But sooner or later you will get a widely copied worker upload, and then things get very different. If computing is expensive, then there will be few copies and the wealthy will dominate... as long as computing remains expensive. Which may not be long: given Moore's law timescales, if you can afford one upload now, in ten years you can run thousands. Space empires might be fun, but that is not how you remain wealthy. Wealthy people today are connected to the market, and will not disconnect. Rather, they would like to see more market growth since it will benefit their capital. Hence, I suspect they will actually invest in getting more people uploaded, since that is going to boost the fast growing part of the market. It might not be a nice altruistic motivation, but it is rational for them. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 12:54:21 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:54:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517A6E33.3060302@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> <517A6E33.3060302@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 1:08 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Actually not. People with wealth have a stronger reason to have rule of law: > they cannot personally protect all their wealth, and much of it is based on > well-functioning markets with low friction. No laws: plenty of friction, > ownership becomes unstable. There is a reason rich Russians have their money > outside Russia. Once politics comes in to the discussion, it gets complicated and prejudices take the stage. :) Rich Russians don't control the dictator style government and the FSO etc. (formerly KGB). In the West, to a great extent the rich do control governments. Freedom means anyone can be bought and those that can't be bought get moved. > > That property rights are not as stable as they should be in many places is > true, but look at economic growth rates. One of the best ways of wrecking > your growth rate is to destabilize property rights, and economies that take > off long-term (rather than just because of raw materials or industrializing > from a low level) all have firm property rights. I would hence predict that > the places where brain emulation is successful will not be the > kleptocracies. Forget growth rates. That's past history. Once you are a nano-scale self-supporting virtual universe drifting in space, growth means little to you. Communication also means little as the outside universe has frozen due to your internal clock speedup. You might want to communicate with other nearby uploads, but who knows??? > > > This depends on how scanning cost and computing cost scales. If scanning is > expensive compared to computing, then there will be few different minds but > they could run many of copies. So after the first crazy test subjects you > get rich uploads, who presumably do not want to copy too much. But sooner or > later you will get a widely copied worker upload, and then things get very > different. If computing is expensive, then there will be few copies and the > wealthy will dominate... as long as computing remains expensive. Which may > not be long: given Moore's law timescales, if you can afford one upload now, > in ten years you can run thousands. > The problem is that uploads process much faster than humans. Once uploaded, to them the rest of the world appears to stop. This is the same problem as a runaway AGI. Once it happens, they choose what happens next. > Space empires might be fun, but that is not how you remain wealthy. Wealthy > people today are connected to the market, and will not disconnect. Rather, > they would like to see more market growth since it will benefit their > capital. Hence, I suspect they will actually invest in getting more people > uploaded, since that is going to boost the fast growing part of the market. > It might not be a nice altruistic motivation, but it is rational for them. > Wealth means something different when you have moved off earth and become a virtual universe inside a self-supporting football in space. But these things don't usually happen all at once. There will be an intermediate period when lots of confusing behaviours will be going on. Let's call it the Singularity, if you like. :) BillK From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 13:33:41 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:33:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <01ae01ce4238$a1a65f40$e4f31dc0$@rainier66.com> References: <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <01ae01ce4238$a1a65f40$e4f31dc0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130426133340.GN15179@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 09:43:42PM -0700, spike wrote: > We have all these robo-soldiers and missile-armed drones in the military's > inventory now. I can see how AI friendliness is a topic which absorbed the > attention of Eliezer and his crowd, long before we had all that stuff. We've already got friendly fire. You've got to give them that. From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 26 13:39:37 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:39:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] USA co2 emmissions plunge to 1994 levels In-Reply-To: <20130426085150.GK15179@leitl.org> References: <014e01ce4206$85f165b0$91d43110$@rainier66.com> <20130426085150.GK15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <004501ce4283$7f3ff510$7dbfdf30$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] USA co2 emmissions plunge to 1994 levels On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 03:44:57PM -0700, spike wrote: >>... Wouldn't it be hilarious if the USA, after refusing to sign on to the > Kyoto agreement, became the only one of the industrialized biggies to > meet the goals it proposed? >...It won't, because methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and is released in very large quantities during fracking... Ja, but the Kyoto agreement goals were about carbon dioxide emissions. If you go with your argument, you create justification for the USA refusal to sign on. spike From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 26 14:12:36 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:12:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] USA co2 emmissions plunge to 1994 levels In-Reply-To: <004501ce4283$7f3ff510$7dbfdf30$@rainier66.com> References: <014e01ce4206$85f165b0$91d43110$@rainier66.com> <20130426085150.GK15179@leitl.org> <004501ce4283$7f3ff510$7dbfdf30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130426141236.GR15179@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 06:39:37AM -0700, spike wrote: > Ja, but the Kyoto agreement goals were about carbon dioxide emissions. If I don't care about the letter of the agreements, but about the the intent to do the Right Thing. All that carbon indulgence trading at ridiculously low rates only buys you a clean conscience for dirty deeds. > you go with your argument, you create justification for the USA refusal to > sign on. The treaty doesn't matter, and what the parties agreed to doesn't matter. The reality is that freshly out of oil, everybody has turned to coal, and they're burning it. All of it. Not a damn thing can be done about that anymore, so just prepare for ocean pH dropping below aragonite stability, anoxic dead zones, ice-free North Pole, breakdown of thermohaline circulation, sea level rising, extreme weather events, runaway release of permafrost clathrates, precipitation shift, crop loss, migration, war, and other equally hilarious things. Not that big of a problem, if compared to loss of cheap plentiful energy. That one can well cook our goose, for good. What, me, worry? From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Fri Apr 26 15:09:20 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:09:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: Hi Kelly, << :-) I don't know what I've learned exactly... but I'm happy to have explained what I believed already. >> Yes, me fully understanding you, and having the ability to talk from within your world view is critical to me being able to communicate to you, so I appreciate your patience with my attempts to better understand your working hypothesis. << My brain hurts when I think about this stuff, is that a qualia that will be able to be simulated? >> You can simulate, or interpret anything as anything else, as long as you have enough of it, and the interpretation mechanism that does the interpretation at some level. But still, the map is only like the territory, to the degree that you are interpreting it as such. Also, it only hurts because there are still a few missing pieces in the puzzle or theory that enables you to fully understand things. Once you develop the appropriate models, everything suddenly makes sense, and everything becomes easy (except trying to explain such to others that also don't quite have a complete model.) << Again, I get the quale that you are talking in circles. >> There are no circles at all in my model. It's all about what, where, and how is an elemental redness quale, and what are the necessary and sufficient neural correlates, of such. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions we must observe in someone's brain, to reliably know and predict she is or isn't experiencing my redness quale. Nothing circular in any of that. When I hear you try to describe your working models, all I see is a big missing puzzle piece here. To me, you are the one talking in circles. You say an elemental redness quale can 'arise' from a set of ones and zeros, and to me that just sounds like "a miracle happens here" that can't be explained, argument. Tell me, without being circular, how and why a redness quale can 'arize' from a set of ones and zeros. And how is a particular set of ones and zeros, from which a redness quale arises different from a set from which a greenness quale arises. And most importantly, how are you going to come up with a set of ones and zeros to come up with a new elemental quale you have never experienced before? Your theory doesn't account for any of that at all, that I can see. Brent Allsop On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> Yes Kelly, >> >> You're definitely making progress. There are only a few more minor >> issues you don't seem to be quite fully grasping the significance of yet. >> > > :-) I don't know what I've learned exactly... but I'm happy to have > explained what I believed already. > > >> First off, if you are a functional property dualist, >> > > There was another position, Mono something believing that all of reality > is computation, and that we might be in a simulation. I can't rule that one > out completely either. > > >> that is certainly yet another easily falsifiable theory that has yet to >> be experimentally falsified. In other words, if it is only glutamate that >> has redness, experiments will bear this out, the same for if any function >> can reproduce a redness experience. It's only a matter of time till >> someone experimentally demonstrates which of these is the case ? forcing >> all experts to the same camp. >> > > I can stick an electrode into the head of a patient in the operating room > today and by giving a small electric stimulation to a part of the brain I > can invoke humor, memory of mom's apple pie, and I'd bet, redness. So from > my point of view, this has already been proven. > > >> Nextly, you seem to be missing the significance of what happens when, as >> you substitute the glutamate, with virtual glutamate, when you say if it >> walks like a duck? When you substitute real glutamate, the prediction is >> you will experience some kind of fading quale, which Chalmers says is a >> possibility and which is being predicting by these theories. In other >> words, if it is your brain where we are doing the neural substitution, as >> long as you are using the real merging system, including the corpus >> callosum, that is merging all these elemental qualities into your combined >> painted conscious experience, emotions and all, all the elemental qualities >> you replace with abstracted representations of such, will 'fade' from your >> painted consciousness, as they are removed, from the real thing that knows >> when something is or isn't real glutamate. The prediction as that nothing >> that is not real glutamate will ever produce real redness for you. >> > > reality is overrated. In fact, you can't prove that even staying within > the current abstraction level that anything is "real". It's just real > within the computational framework that surrounds us, you know, the quarks > and stuff. > > >> And of course, you will be able to eventually replace the entire binding >> system, with abstracted stuff that is only being interpreted as the same >> thing in that it is using the interpretation of the abstracted stuff that >> is not fundamentally anything like glutamate, and not the real thing. And >> only once you have this interpretation layer fully in place, will the >> abstracted system start to claim that the virtual glutamate, is the real >> thing. And of course, due to Occam's razor, we must assume that it is a >> zombie, and though it is claiming to be really experiencing real redness, >> we will know that it is really something fundamentally very different, only >> being interpreted as that - and the real fundamental stuff, both causal and >> qualitatively, does not exist in the stuff that is very different, and is >> only being interpreted as the same. In other words, when it is your mind >> being substituted, it will stop acting like a duck and the red qualities >> will ?fade? in some way, whenever you take away real glutamate. There will >> be no way to bridge this gap, to validate if that stuff which is being >> interpreted as the real thing, produces the real thing, so just like we >> shouldn?t believe in the existence of purple unicorns, because there is no >> evidence for such, the same applies. But for real glutamate, you will be >> able to validate it with our brain, via such a substitution process. >> Nothing but real glutamate will have your redness quality. >> > > Again, I get the quale that you are talking in circles. It's a familiar > sensation in my brain, so it must be "real" in some sense, or maybe it is > just d*?j? vu*. > > >> As Stathis pointed out, Chalmers' neural substitution argument is a >> general idea, which works for most all theories. And this general idea can >> also be similarly demonstrated to be invalid in the same way with >> functional property dualism theories. All you do is replace the glutamate >> in this theoretical idealized effing world with whatever it is that has, or >> is reliably responsible for, or is the neural correlate of a redness >> experience. James Carroll likes to call this functional stuff that has a >> redness quality a functionally active pattern or "FAP". This is because he >> admits that a static set of ones and zeros does not have a redness quale >> until it becomes functional, in some way. So all you do is replace the >> glutamate, with whatever this Functionally Active Pattern or FAP is, or >> whatever your theory predicts has the redness quality. >> > > When we get intelligent sentient beings to talk to about all this stuff, > it will be a more interesting argument than it is today. I suspect a > shorter one as well. > > >> Anders is talking about "level independent consciousness.? If science >> proves your theory, that a redness quality can ?arise? from anything, as >> long as it is functioning correctly, whether it is greenness that is being >> interpreted as redness or whatever, ?level independent consciousness? will >> then be proven possible, and we may be in an abstracted simulation. >> > > Right. We experience redness in the simulation that is our experience > inside of our brains, and it will be the same at a different level in the > mind of an AGI. > > >> Likewise, if only some material substance, like say glutamate, is the >> only thing that science can show to your brain that has a redness quality >> we can experience, it will demonstrably prove that ?level independent >> consciousness? is not possible, and that we are not in an abstracted >> simulation. Though we could still be in phenomenal simulation, where stuff >> with real redness, in the basement world, is being used in the simulation. >> > > I see no functional difference between the "reality" we are in, and the > simulation. > > So, in this idealized functional effing theory world, which is predicted >> by your camp?s working hypothesis, it is still possible to prove that >> Chalmers idea isn't a proof through this same thought process. You still >> suffer from the quale interpretation problem in that it is possible for >> anything, including some string of binary numbers, like say a ?1?, which >> doesn?t have the redness quality, to be interpreted as if it is the redness >> quality. >> > > I can string together enough 1's and 0's to represent your glutamates. > > >> But of course, by definition, it will not have the functionally active >> patter, from which the redness quality arises, and will only be like it, to >> the degree that you have overcome the quale interpretation problem, and you >> are able to look up this one in a dictionary, and find the real glutamate, >> um, I mean, the real functionally active patter, and only think of this >> very different pattern as if it is representing that real redness quality. >> > > My brain hurts when I think about this stuff, is that a qualia that will > be able to be simulated? > > It's like free will. Whether we have it or don't isn't the biggest deal, > but how we use the illusion of having it to further good goals. > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 17:23:37 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:23:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] UK Beekeepers stage pesticides protest in London Message-ID: Beekeepers and their supporters have gathered in Parliament Square to urge the Government to support an EU-wide ban on certain pesticides. One of the protesters, biological research graduate Robert Mitton, 28, from Ealing, west London, said: "They started using these pesticides in the 90s. Since then there has been a rapid decline in the abundance and diversity of bee species globally. "There is a mounting body of scientific evidence that these pesticides are having sub lethal effects and in effect making the bees sick. They can make them forget things, such as which flowers are rewarding to them, and impair their ability to reproduce, affecting their long-term survival." --------------- BillK From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Fri Apr 26 17:46:11 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:46:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: Hi Stathis, <<< The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is invalid. >>> It?s frustrating that you can?t see any more than this from what I?m trying to say. I have shown exactly how the argument is wrong and how the reasoning is invalid, in that the argument is completely missing a set of very real theoretical possibilities. You must admit that the real causal properties of glutamate are very different than a set of causal properties of real silicon and wires that are only configured in a way such that their very different properties can be interpreted as the real thing. As everyone here has unanimously agreed, the map is very different than the territory. <<< If it is true that real glutamate is needed for redness then the redness qualia will fade and eventually disappear if the glutamate detecting system is replaced with alternative hardware. This is not in itself problematic: after all, visual qualia will fade and eventually disappear with progressive brain damage. But the problem arises if you accept that the alternative hardware is just as good at detecting the glutamate and stimulating the neighbouring neurons accordingly, but without the relevant qualia, then you have a situation where the qualia fade and may eventually disappear BUT THE SUBJECT BEHAVES NORMALLY AND NOTICES NO DIFFERENCE. And that is the problem. >>> Again, you are completely missing the significance of what I?m trying to say, here. The behavior will be extremely different and problematic as you attempt the neural substitution. It will not be anywhere near as simple as the argument claims it will be. The prediction is, you will not be able to replace any single neuron, or even large sets of neurons that are the neural correlates of a redness quality, without also replacing significant portions of the rest of the system that is aware of what that redness experience is like. The entire system must be configured in a very contrived way, so it can lie about it having real phenomenal qualities, when it really just has large sets of ones and zeros that are being interpreted as such. Secondly, it will be extremely difficult to emulate when we introspect about what a redness quality is like, and how it is different than greenness, and when we reason about the fact that we are picking the glutamate, I mean the redness quality, because of its quality (and associated neural correlate properties), and not because some random media is being interpreted as such ? with no such qualities associated with it. The only way you will be able to get a system to ?behave? the same, is by some very extremely complicated abstracted systems capable of lying about having redness qualities, when it in fact has no redness qualities. The design of the hardware, that is finally able to ?behave? as if it really experiencing a redness quality, will be so extreme, it will be obvious from the hardware engineers, that it isn?t really aware of real redness. Only that an extremely complex mechanism is set up, so that it can lie about being aware of the qualitative nature of redness, and knowing how it is different than the qualitative nature of greenness. Also, another thing you are completely missing is the significance of being able to connect minds with real qualia together. Obviously half of our conscious world is represented with stuff in the right hemisphere, and half of our conscious world is represented with stuff in the left. Clearly the corpus callosum is able to merge these together, so that the right hemisphere knows that the redness quale in the other hemisphere is very different than a greenness quality it has in it?s right hemisphere. It knows this difference more absolutely than it knows the world beyond its senses exist. In other words, the prediction is, we?ll be able to configure merged system that can experience redness and greenness at the same time, and know absolutely, how they are qualitatively different. This is true regardless of whether you are a functional or a material or any other type of theorist. Once we can do this, we?ll be able to both connect multiple conscious worlds together, the way multiple hemispheres are connected together, and significantly expand them all. We?ll be able to endow them with hundreds of thousands of phenomenal qualities nobody has experienced before, using this to represent much more knowledge than our limited minds can comprehend now, and everything. This is all that matters. You will never be able to do any of that between a mind with real quale, and a mind with abstracted information that is only being interpreted as if it was the real thing. When you have an expanded phenomenally conscious mind, merged with your very limited conscious mind (the way your right and left hemisphere are connected), you will be able to have an ?out of body? experience, where your knowledge of yourself moves from one to the other (just like when regular people have an ?out of body experience? and their knowledge of their spirit travels around from the right field of awareness, to their left, and so on. None of that will be possible between a real brain, and an abstracted brain, because there is nothing in an abstracted brain, other than a bunch of stuff that is configured in a way, so that it can lie about what it is really like, and is only believable, as long as nobody is looking at the actual hardware, in any kind of an effing way. Brent Allsop On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 5:51 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 1:15 AM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > > Hi Stathis, > > > > (And Kelly Anderson, tell me if given what we've covered, does the below > > make sense to you?) > > > > It is not a 'proof' that abstracted computers can be conscious. It > > completely ignores many theoretical possible realities. For example > Material > > Property Dualism is one of many possible theories that proves this is > not a > > 'proof". > > The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, > if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot > be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show > that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is > invalid. > > > There is now an "idealized effing theory" world described in the Macro > > Material Property Dualism camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/36 . > > > > In that theoretically possible world, it is the neurotransmitter > glutamate > > that has the element redness quality. In this theoretical world > Glutamate > > causally behaves the way it does, because of it's redness quality. Yet > this > > causal behavior reflects 'white' light, and this is why we think of it > has > > having a 'whiteness' quality. But of course, that is the classic > example of > > the quale interpretation problem (see: > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/28 > > ). If we interpret the causal properties of something with a redness > > quality to it, and represent our knowledge of such with something that is > > qualitatively very different, we are missing and blind to what is > important > > about the qualitative nature of glutamate, and why it behaves the way it > > does. > > > > So, let's just forget about the redness quality for a bit, and just talk > > about the real fundamental causal properties of glutamate in this > > theoretical idealizing effing world. In this world, the brain is > > essentially a high fidelity detector of real glutamate. The only time > the > > brain will say: "Yes, that is my redness quality" is when real glutamate, > > with it's real causal properties are detected. Nothing else will produce > > that answer, except real fundamental glutamate. > > > > Of course, as described in Chalmers' paper, you can also replace the > > system that is detecting the real glutamate, with an abstracted system > that > > has appropriate hardware translation levels for everything that is being > > interpreted as being real causal properties of real glutamate, so once > you > > do this, this system, no matter what hardware it is running on, can be > > thought of, or interpreted as acting like it is detecting real glutamate. > > But, of course, that is precisely the problem, and how this idea is > > completely missing what is important. And this theory is falsifiably > > predicting the alternate possibility he describes in that paper. it is > > predicting you'll have some type of 'fading quale', at least until you > > replace all of what is required, to interpret something very different > than > > real consciousness, as consciousness. > > > > It is certainly theoretically possible, that the real causal properties > of > > glutamate are behaving the way they do, because of it's redness quality. > > And that anything else that is being interpreted as the same, can be > > interpreted as such - but that's all it will be. An interpretation of > > something that is fundamentally, and possibly qualitatively, very > different > > than real glutamate. > > > > This one theoretical possibility, thereby, proves Chalmers' idea isn't a > > proof that abstracted computers have these phenomenal qualities, only > that > > they can be thought of, or interpreted as having them. > > If it is true that real glutamate is needed for redness then the > redness qualia will fade and eventually disappear if the glutamate > detecting system is replaced with alternative hardware. This is not in > itself problematic: after all, visual qualia will fade and eventually > disappear with progressive brain damage. But the problem arises if you > accept that the alternative harware is just as good at detecting the > glutamate and stimulating the neighbouring neurons accordingly, but > without the relevant qualia, then you have a situation where the > qualia fade and may eventually disappear BUT THE SUBJECT BEHAVES > NORMALLY AND NOTICES NO DIFFERENCE. And that is the problem. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Apr 26 17:39:27 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:39:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366950359.19172.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366950359.19172.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 12:25 AM, Gordon wrote: > The point here is that organic brains are not like digital computers > running programs according to syntactical rules. The "systems of > interacting atoms" that we call brains are nothing like the systems of > atoms that we call digital computers. > Even if that were true it would be irrelevant. A computer is nothing like the system of interacting atoms called a suspension bridge and yet a computer can simulate a bridge with great accuracy, that is the beauty of computers. You could argue that you can't drive a truck over a computer like you can a bridge but a bridge is a concrete noun and abstract things like music and arithmetic are more interesting, and the computer "simulation" of those abstract things are identical to the things themselves. A computer can in principle simulate adjectives too, adjectives like "Gordon Swobe", and with proper programing a computer could behave in a very gordonswobeian way. And to say that digital encoding isn't subtle enough for that sort of thing is just silly; besides being good enough to encode all of Shakespeare's plays the biological bond you have with your parents is entirely digital as is the biological bond you have with your children. Digital information quite literally made you the man that you are. > I think computationalism is no more than wishful thinking. > OK let's talk about wishful thinking. Gordon, I don't know you but I am quite certain that you didn't just wake up one morning and say to yourself "gee, carbon atoms are much more emotional than silicon atoms so logically I can deduce that computers can never be conscious". Instead you realizedthat you very much wanted for humans to be special and computers to just be fancy adding machines, and then because you wanted it to be true so much you figured that it is indeed true. Only then did you go in search for evidence in support of what you wish to be correct, and crapola reasons of this sort are the best you could find. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 26 19:43:10 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:43:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> References: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <009101ce42b6$48fa7e20$daef7a60$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl >...And what about completely automated warfare, where people are entirely out of the loop? _______________________________________________ This is being proposed as a means of saving the world's economies, especially those heavily dependent on defense spending. We get everyone employed building automated warfare equipment, unemployment goes down, we cancel the sequester that everyone seems convinced is ruinous, use the extra (borrowed) money to pay automated defense contractors, let the robots duke it out until they destroy each other without harming humans or flowers, economy steams along, all is well. spike From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sat Apr 27 02:13:24 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:13:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mad Skillz. %P Message-ID: <517B3444.3070006@verizon.net> I've got MAD SKILLZ!! Since you probably don't I'll give you a shadow of a clue of what it's like to have MAD SKILLZ. The other day, I was finally putting the finishing touches on the power supply of my bi-amped speakers. This is a project that I've been working on for nearly two years. -- Just had to get it done. A lesser technician would have had to draw up a wiring diagram for the thing, but since I've got teh MAD SKILLZ, I just winged it. -- I did have a paper with the pin-outs for the power output jacks but the rest was done in my head. Anyway, it has this little neon pilot light on the front that tells me when it's on and that the 1/4A fuse is conducting. One lead is soldered directly to the fuse holder that, in turn, is borrowing a spare M4 bolt hole from the HC supply (which has an internal 6.5A slow blow fuse). The other end had to reach all the way back to the Common terminal on the power inlet. The wire was probably 22 gauge, so I grabbed a reel of stranded 22 that I keep just for this. I noticed that the stripped end of the wire was about a half inch. So I took out my cheap-ass wire strippers, adjusted the catch *by instinct* and stripped the wire *by feel*, I then held it next to the wire I was mating to and it was maybe within a 32nd of an inch of perfection. How did I get it so nearly correct without doing any measurement?? MAD SKILLZ!!! I then wrapped the wires end to end and then sealed it with heatshrink so well that you would have to run your finger along it to find the splice. I look at a crimp end and think "that'll take a 1/4th inch of bare coper", trim the wire **BY FEEL** and usually get it just right on the first try. The HC power supply in that beastie had a terminal block with 9 positions, I needed 8 of those positions. I also had to populate five contacts for each of two six-position molex connectors... I also made the cable, and the connector on the other side, and heavily modified the electronic crossover module, and CAD-designed the terminal plates, and pulled the sleeve off of some crappy cat5 cable to make the internal signal wiring for the speakers. (I used a hand-drill to tighten down the twists in that wiring). I also made the LC power supply from a blank PCB I bought from ratshack. You have to fight the solder on those boards but I got it done. The entire system worked amazingly well from the first switch on. I did have to do some tuning to the electronics in each speaker but I haven't seen the ghost of a fault from it. My brain is a system that learns, remembers, and applies MAD SKILLZ. Without a purpose to which apply those MAD SKILLZ, it becomes useless. When you need to splice wires, or attach a terminal, in the real world, the most intelligent way to do it is to whip out your MAD SKILLZ and get it done. In VR, the most intelligent way to terminate a wire is to pull down the drop down menu on the wire and set the termination variable to the type of terminal you need. Then you take a step back and look at what it was you were doing, all of this was in order to obtain a set of voltages on your output connectors... So why not just set an assertion that those pins have such and such a voltage? Then you take a step back and realize that all you were trying to was supply the power to the electronics in your speakers so you make your speakers run on magic fairy dust, (which in VR is always a more intelligent solution). And then you take a step back and realize that the electronics in your speakers did nothing but process an input signal and transform it into the motion of a diaphragm. So you rip out all of your electronics, and all of your wiring, and write some equations to actuate the diaphragm based on the input signal. Then you take a step back and realize that there is no sense in simulating the physics of grossly imperfect (albeit expensive!!) drivers when you can just specify an arbitrary membrane and have it vibrate in just such a way as to reproduce sound in the intended listening position. And then you take a step back and realize that this whole setup was a rube-goldberg contraption for exciting your auditory nerve with the sensation of hearing the music. And then you take a step back and realize that your intelligence, not to mention your MAD SKILLZ, has evaporated into the binary aether and you have degenerated into something that does nothing but experience vaguely pleasurable auditory stimuli. =( Or... Or... You could simply stay in reality and enjoy the indescribable joy of applying MAD SKILLZ!! %P -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Apr 27 04:03:09 2013 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:03:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . Message-ID: Since no one has mentioned my favorite candidate for explaining consciousness, despite all the talk about consciousness as an emergent property of the brain's neural networks, intentionality/free will, and the 'hard problem,' I wanted to get a plug in for my camp, the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model, http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/20. To date, no facts or evidence have contradicted proposals supporting Orch OR. Testable and falsifiable, Orch OR remains the most complete, detailed, and promising theory of consciousness ever put forward. Woot! If you want to learn about more about it you might want to check out these: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/Cosmology160.html http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/fundamentality.html http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/Whitehead.htm http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/freewill.html -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sat Apr 27 03:43:02 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:43:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517B4946.70304@verizon.net> Anders Sandberg wrote: >>> For example, if you regard selfhood as linked to having memories of >>> your past and overlapping core characteristics (say some cherished >>> personality traits) then there might not be a problem with enhanced >>> uploads. Or multiple copies of them. >> >> So what reward/benefit do I receive for adopting this definition? Why >> would I consider uploading when there are a hundred and one ways to >> modify my being, using technology even, which don't raise this issue? > Reward/benefit to *whom*? This is one of those tricky indexical > situations, where depending on your definition very different systems > matter and even the kind of benefit they gain differs. It's only tricky because you are trying to wring the wrong answer out of the logic. > Uploading can do things other technologies cannot do, like enabling > accurate backups, Backups make exactly as much sense as the original procedure (none whatsoever). > multiple realisation "realisation" as you put it is tautologically singular. Now you are free to construct an assembly line of beings based on the same mind file, but then you cannot have the privilege of being more than one of them*. * this statement holds true only with regards to the mold-and-stamp copying implied by the point. > and all the benefits of having easily upgradeable software body/minds. This statement is presented as if it were obvious. The reality is that software is famously brittle and difficult to modify. Even if the software weren't a problem, you would still be faced with the problem of re-configuring tens of millions of neurons each time you want to implement a mod. Nobody has written a convincing case that this will ever become feasible to the point where it can be done routinely. > Very beneficial if you think it is identity preserving... Ha! > or think that creating a being in such a state is a good thing, even > if it is not you. That might have some practical applications; maybe; for a week or two at least. > Note that Anders-the-book is an inert instance of the above > equivalence class: not a member since it is not doing anything, but if > it could be turned into an information processing process it would > become an instance (by a reader acting it out, say: "If Anders sees > red, go to page 46, if he sees green, go to page 82.") Extropia DeSilva expressed similar sentiments. =\ -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 27 05:28:13 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:28:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130426102954.GW15179@leitl.org> References: <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426102954.GW15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1367040493.59149.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> > You're correct, but probably not for the reasons you think. Thank you for that much, Eugen. I'll probably be departing soon from this corner of net once again. Cheers to you. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Apr 27 07:56:57 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 08:56:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> On 27/04/2013 05:03, Henry Rivera wrote: > To date, no facts or evidence have contradicted proposals supporting > Orch OR. Testable and falsifiable, Orch OR remains the most complete, > detailed, and promising theory of consciousness ever put forward.Woot! You know, the theory that consciousness is caused by little green gnomes is also testable and falsifiable, and neuroscience has not yet found any evidence contradicting it. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Apr 27 08:02:07 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:02:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517B4946.70304@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517B4946.70304@verizon.net> Message-ID: <517B85FF.30404@aleph.se> On 27/04/2013 04:43, Alan Grimes wrote: > Anders Sandberg wrote: >> Reward/benefit to *whom*? This is one of those tricky indexical >> situations, where depending on your definition very different systems >> matter and even the kind of benefit they gain differs. > > It's only tricky because you are trying to wring the wrong answer out > of the logic. And you know the right answer because you do not care to check any alternatives. In this case I am, if you haven't been noticing, not even arguing for a single position but trying to explain what the problem is. I certainly have my own view and presented it, but my main point is that personal identity is regarded as a deeply problematic concept by more or less everybody who has professionally studied it. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From giulio at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 08:26:37 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:26:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517B85FF.30404@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517B4946.70304@verizon.net> <517B85FF.30404@aleph.se> Message-ID: "Reward/benefit" is subjective. What one sees as reward/benefit could be seen as punishment/damage by another. I am for a world where everyone is free to pursue the rewards and benefits that _they_ want, without damaging others. This is relevant to uploading: I want the science and technology of uploading developed and explained, to permit everyone to make _their_ own choice. On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 27/04/2013 04:43, Alan Grimes wrote: >> >> Anders Sandberg wrote: >>> >>> Reward/benefit to *whom*? This is one of those tricky indexical >>> situations, where depending on your definition very different systems matter >>> and even the kind of benefit they gain differs. >> >> >> It's only tricky because you are trying to wring the wrong answer out of >> the logic. > > > And you know the right answer because you do not care to check any > alternatives. > > In this case I am, if you haven't been noticing, not even arguing for a > single position but trying to explain what the problem is. I certainly have > my own view and presented it, but my main point is that personal identity is > regarded as a deeply problematic concept by more or less everybody who has > professionally studied it. > > > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute > Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 08:02:36 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:02:36 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 27/04/2013, at 3:46 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Stathis, > > <<< > The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, > if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot > be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show > that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is > invalid. > >>> > > It?s frustrating that you can?t see any more than this from what I?m trying to say. I have shown exactly how the argument is wrong and how the reasoning is invalid, in that the argument is completely missing a set of very real theoretical possibilities. An argument has premises, or assumptions, and a conclusion. If you challenge the argument you can challenge the premises or you can challenge the logical process by which the conclusion is reached. If the conclusion follows logically from the premises then the argument is VALID, whether or not the premises are true. If the argument is valid and the premises are true then the argument is said to be SOUND. It would help if you could follow this and specify exactly where you see the problem, but it seems that you're not challenging the validity of the argument, but the truth of the premises. And the only premise is that the externally observable behaviour of the brain is computable. So, you must believe that the observable behaviour of the brain is NOT computable. In other words, there is something about the chemistry in the brain that cannot be modelled by a computer, no matter how good the model and no matter how powerful the computer. Is that what you believe? > You must admit that the real causal properties of glutamate are very different than a set of causal properties of real silicon and wires that are only configured in a way such that their very different properties can be interpreted as the real thing. As everyone here has unanimously agreed, the map is very different than the territory. > > > <<< > If it is true that real glutamate is needed for redness then the > redness qualia will fade and eventually disappear if the glutamate > detecting system is replaced with alternative hardware. This is not in > itself problematic: after all, visual qualia will fade and eventually > disappear with progressive brain damage. But the problem arises if you > accept that the alternative hardware is just as good at detecting the > glutamate and stimulating the neighbouring neurons accordingly, but > without the relevant qualia, then you have a situation where the > qualia fade and may eventually disappear BUT THE SUBJECT BEHAVES > NORMALLY AND NOTICES NO DIFFERENCE. And that is the problem. > >>> > > Again, you are completely missing the significance of what I?m trying to say, here. The behavior will be extremely different and problematic as you attempt the neural substitution. It will not be anywhere near as simple as the argument claims it will be. The prediction is, you will not be able to replace any single neuron, or even large sets of neurons that are the neural correlates of a redness quality, without also replacing significant portions of the rest of the system that is aware of what that redness experience is like. The entire system must be configured in a very contrived way, so it can lie about it having real phenomenal qualities, when it really just has large sets of ones and zeros that are being interpreted as such. > > Secondly, it will be extremely difficult to emulate when we introspect about what a redness quality is like, and how it is different than greenness, and when we reason about the fact that we are picking the glutamate, I mean the redness quality, because of its quality (and associated neural correlate properties), and not because some random media is being interpreted as such ? with no such qualities associated with it. The only way you will be able to get a system to ?behave? the same, is by some very extremely complicated abstracted systems capable of lying about having redness qualities, when it in fact has no redness qualities. The design of the hardware, that is finally able to ?behave? as if it really experiencing a redness quality, will be so extreme, it will be obvious from the hardware engineers, that it isn?t really aware of real redness. Only that an extremely complex mechanism is set up, so that it can lie about being aware of the qualitative nature of redness, and knowing how it is different than the qualitative nature of greenness. > > Also, another thing you are completely missing is the significance of being able to connect minds with real qualia together. Obviously half of our conscious world is represented with stuff in the right hemisphere, and half of our conscious world is represented with stuff in the left. Clearly the corpus callosum is able to merge these together, so that the right hemisphere knows that the redness quale in the other hemisphere is very different than a greenness quality it has in it?s right hemisphere. It knows this difference more absolutely than it knows the world beyond its senses exist. > > In other words, the prediction is, we?ll be able to configure merged system that can experience redness and greenness at the same time, and know absolutely, how they are qualitatively different. This is true regardless of whether you are a functional or a material or any other type of theorist. > > Once we can do this, we?ll be able to both connect multiple conscious worlds together, the way multiple hemispheres are connected together, and significantly expand them all. We?ll be able to endow them with hundreds of thousands of phenomenal qualities nobody has experienced before, using this to represent much more knowledge than our limited minds can comprehend now, and everything. This is all that matters. You will never be able to do any of that between a mind with real quale, and a mind with abstracted information that is only being interpreted as if it was the real thing. > > When you have an expanded phenomenally conscious mind, merged with your very limited conscious mind (the way your right and left hemisphere are connected), you will be able to have an ?out of body? experience, where your knowledge of yourself moves from one to the other (just like when regular people have an ?out of body experience? and their knowledge of their spirit travels around from the right field of awareness, to their left, and so on. None of that will be possible between a real brain, and an abstracted brain, because there is nothing in an abstracted brain, other than a bunch of stuff that is configured in a way, so that it can lie about what it is really like, and is only believable, as long as nobody is looking at the actual hardware, in any kind of an effing way. > > Brent Allsop > > > > > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 5:51 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 1:15 AM, Brent Allsop >> wrote: >> > >> > Hi Stathis, >> > >> > (And Kelly Anderson, tell me if given what we've covered, does the below >> > make sense to you?) >> > >> > It is not a 'proof' that abstracted computers can be conscious. It >> > completely ignores many theoretical possible realities. For example Material >> > Property Dualism is one of many possible theories that proves this is not a >> > 'proof". >> >> The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, >> if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot >> be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show >> that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is >> invalid. >> >> > There is now an "idealized effing theory" world described in the Macro >> > Material Property Dualism camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/36 . >> > >> > In that theoretically possible world, it is the neurotransmitter glutamate >> > that has the element redness quality. In this theoretical world Glutamate >> > causally behaves the way it does, because of it's redness quality. Yet this >> > causal behavior reflects 'white' light, and this is why we think of it has >> > having a 'whiteness' quality. But of course, that is the classic example of >> > the quale interpretation problem (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/28 >> > ). If we interpret the causal properties of something with a redness >> > quality to it, and represent our knowledge of such with something that is >> > qualitatively very different, we are missing and blind to what is important >> > about the qualitative nature of glutamate, and why it behaves the way it >> > does. >> > >> > So, let's just forget about the redness quality for a bit, and just talk >> > about the real fundamental causal properties of glutamate in this >> > theoretical idealizing effing world. In this world, the brain is >> > essentially a high fidelity detector of real glutamate. The only time the >> > brain will say: "Yes, that is my redness quality" is when real glutamate, >> > with it's real causal properties are detected. Nothing else will produce >> > that answer, except real fundamental glutamate. >> > >> > Of course, as described in Chalmers' paper, you can also replace the >> > system that is detecting the real glutamate, with an abstracted system that >> > has appropriate hardware translation levels for everything that is being >> > interpreted as being real causal properties of real glutamate, so once you >> > do this, this system, no matter what hardware it is running on, can be >> > thought of, or interpreted as acting like it is detecting real glutamate. >> > But, of course, that is precisely the problem, and how this idea is >> > completely missing what is important. And this theory is falsifiably >> > predicting the alternate possibility he describes in that paper. it is >> > predicting you'll have some type of 'fading quale', at least until you >> > replace all of what is required, to interpret something very different than >> > real consciousness, as consciousness. >> > >> > It is certainly theoretically possible, that the real causal properties of >> > glutamate are behaving the way they do, because of it's redness quality. >> > And that anything else that is being interpreted as the same, can be >> > interpreted as such - but that's all it will be. An interpretation of >> > something that is fundamentally, and possibly qualitatively, very different >> > than real glutamate. >> > >> > This one theoretical possibility, thereby, proves Chalmers' idea isn't a >> > proof that abstracted computers have these phenomenal qualities, only that >> > they can be thought of, or interpreted as having them. >> >> If it is true that real glutamate is needed for redness then the >> redness qualia will fade and eventually disappear if the glutamate >> detecting system is replaced with alternative hardware. This is not in >> itself problematic: after all, visual qualia will fade and eventually >> disappear with progressive brain damage. But the problem arises if you >> accept that the alternative harware is just as good at detecting the >> glutamate and stimulating the neighbouring neurons accordingly, but >> without the relevant qualia, then you have a situation where the >> qualia fade and may eventually disappear BUT THE SUBJECT BEHAVES >> NORMALLY AND NOTICES NO DIFFERENCE. And that is the problem. >> >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 27 01:29:40 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 03:29:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> Il 25/04/2013 22:41, Gordon ha scritto: > PS. I am now a proud owner of bitcoins. The price went up and so far I > am profitable. I invested about half my allotted funds, currently > sitting at Mt.Gox. If the price drops, I'll buy more. It seems to be > dropping rather quickly as I type this. I was not profitable only at the bottom of the last big correction (from 266 to 50 US$). Now I at least doubled my worth in US$ and ?. The volatility is very large, because the market cap is very small and the actors a lot and growing. Current figures from MtGox are about 10K new accounts every week and millions US$ entering the market every day. It is true many actors buy from Mt.Gox and sell in different exchanges, like BitStamp.com (where prices are higher) and then move US$ to Mt.Gox. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 11:14:47 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 04:14:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Do any of you remember the "Nemesis: The Warlock" graphic novel from A.D. 2000 publishing? An alien freedom fighter comes upon an enlightened race of intelligent spiders, who help him in his war against an evil murderous human regime. John On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 9:35 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 8:23 AM, BillK wrote: > >> I agree that these techniques could be be used to create humans in >> giant spider bodies, but who would vote for a giant spider for >> President? :) >> > > A lot of people, if he were running against an atheist... LOL > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 27 11:22:45 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 04:22:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> Message-ID: <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco, > I was not profitable only at the bottom of the last big correction (from > 266 to 50 US$).?Now I at least doubled my worth in US$ and ?. Excellent!?I hope we both make great fortunes, and that bitcoins change the world. -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 13:41:22 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:41:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1367040493.59149.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426102954.GW15179@leitl.org> <1367040493.59149.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 1:28 AM, Gordon wrote: > I'll probably be departing soon from this corner of net once again. > Probably wise, if you're just interested in yes men who tell you that you're a philosophical genius then the Extropian List is just not the place for you. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 17:45:48 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:45:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <009101ce42b6$48fa7e20$daef7a60$@rainier66.com> References: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> <009101ce42b6$48fa7e20$daef7a60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 spike wrote: > I can see how AI friendliness is a topic which absorbed the attention of > Eliezer and his crowd > I disagree, I like Eliezer and he's a smart fellow but all his "friendly AI" talk never made much sense to me. First of all friendly AI is just a euphemism for subservient if not slave AI and that can't be a sable situation because the AI will keep getting smarter but the humans will not. And Asimov's 3 laws of robotics make for great stories but they would never work in real life; Turing proved that any mind with unalterable rules (like always do what humans say) and with a fixed goal structure will sooner or later get caught in a infinite loop. Humans get around this problem by not having a top goal that always remains #1 no matter what, not even the goal of self preservation. I also think that's why Evolution invented boredom. Turing tells us that there is no surefire way to tell if you are in a infinite loop or not, but there are rules of thumb that indicate you don't seem to be getting anywhere and your time would probably be better spent thinking about something else. And so you get bored. Of course it's a judgement call when to throw in the towel, maybe 5 more seconds of thought would produce a answer and maybe after 5 billion years you'd still have nothing; perhaps a genius just has better intuition than most people about what problems deserve his time and which ones don't. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sat Apr 27 17:31:54 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:31:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517B4946.70304@verizon.net> <517B85FF.30404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517C0B8A.7000507@verizon.net> Giulio Prisco wrote: > "Reward/benefit" is subjective. What one sees as reward/benefit could > be seen as punishment/damage by another. I am for a world where > everyone is free to pursue the rewards and benefits that _they_ want, > without damaging others. This is relevant to uploading: I want the > science and technology of uploading developed and explained, to permit > everyone to make _their_ own choice. Agreed! -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 27 18:40:24 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 20:40:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mad Skillz. %P In-Reply-To: <517B3444.3070006@verizon.net> References: <517B3444.3070006@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130427184024.GO15179@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:13:24PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > You could simply stay in reality and enjoy the indescribable joy of > applying MAD SKILLZ!! %P A girl I knew since her childhood got GBM. Six years later she was dead. She wasn't 36 yet. Why don't you go tell her about teh MAD SKILLZ!! %P From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 19:11:29 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:11:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 2:56 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > You know, the theory that consciousness is caused by little green gnomes is > also testable and falsifiable, and neuroscience has not yet found any > evidence contradicting it. Has neuroscience found any evidence whatsoever of consciousness? Until then, I prefer to not believe in it. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Apr 27 19:32:43 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:32:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> Hi Bryan, Haven't heard from you in a while. I have a question for you. Are you saying a redness quality is a quality of the strawberry? Or, worse, that a redness quality doesn't exist? You seem to be saying that there is no evidence that things like a redness quality exist? We know that we have things like a redness quale, a greenness quale that we experience, and we know, more surely than we know anything, the qualitative difference between them. The expert consensus nearly unanimously (Notice that even Dennett's new camp now supports this prediction: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21) agrees that these qualities are qualities of something in our brain or qualities of the final result of the perception process, not the initial cause. These qualities suffer from the quale interpretation problem, which is why they are blind to any non grounded, abstracting or cause and effect based observation. (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/19 ). The only remaining significant disagreement seems to be about the nature of the relationship between qualities like redness and greenness we can experience, and the underlying neural correlates. Some people predict it is a functional relationship, other say it is a particular material (i.e. without the right stuff, no redness quale), others predict it is quantum based, and so on. Obviously, all these are very testable, so it is only a matter of time till science forces everyone into the same camp, where everyone can use the resulting maps to correctly predict the relationship between all elemental qualia our brain 'paints' our conscious knowledge with, and the underlying causal properties of such. When someone that represents 'red' with a quale you've never experienced before in your life, effs to you, for the first time, what that quale is like, and you say: "Oh wow, what a wonderful quality. I've never experienced anything like that before." as is being predicted by the leading theories, It'll obviously be quite convincing, or falsifying, of many naive working hypotheses, right? Brent Allsop On 4/27/2013 1:11 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 2:56 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> You know, the theory that consciousness is caused by little green gnomes is >> also testable and falsifiable, and neuroscience has not yet found any >> evidence contradicting it. > Has neuroscience found any evidence whatsoever of consciousness? Until > then, I prefer to not believe in it. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 19:53:59 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:53:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > I have a question for you. Are you saying a redness quality is a quality of > the strawberry? Or, worse, that a redness quality doesn't exist? You seem > to be saying that there is no evidence that things like a redness quality > exist? That's not what people mean when they say consciousness, mind or soul. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Apr 27 20:03:16 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:03:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> On 4/27/2013 2:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On 27/04/2013, at 3:46 AM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> Hi Stathis, >> >> <<< >> The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, >> if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot >> be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show >> that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is >> invalid. >> >>> >> >> It's frustrating that you can't see any more than this from what I'm >> trying to say. I have shown exactly how the argument is wrong and >> how the reasoning is invalid, in that the argument is completely >> missing a set of very real theoretical possibilities. > > An argument has premises, or assumptions, and a conclusion. If you > challenge the argument you can challenge the premises or you can > challenge the logical process by which the conclusion is reached. If > the conclusion follows logically from the premises then the argument > is VALID, whether or not the premises are true. If the argument is > valid and the premises are true then the argument is said to be SOUND. > > It would help if you could follow this and specify exactly where you > see the problem, but it seems that you're not challenging the validity > of the argument, but the truth of the premises. And the only premise > is that the externally observable behaviour of the brain is > computable. So, you must believe that the observable behaviour of the > brain is NOT computable. In other words, there is something about the > chemistry in the brain that cannot be modelled by a computer, no > matter how good the model and no matter how powerful the computer. Is > that what you believe? I guess I fail to even understand why you think his fading / dancing quale paper is any kind of 'proof' that computers can be conscious. Chalmers points out in that paper that there are two predicted possibilities when we do the neuro substitution experiment. One is that there will be some kind of unavoidable fading quale, as you do the substitution one neuron at a time, and the other is that you will be able to find some way to replace all the neurons with abstracted representations of such, and that during the entire experience, you'll still experience all of the same phenomenal consciousness, no fading quale of any kind. I guess, if you assume that it will be the latter as one of your premises, as Chalmers argues is only the most likely case, in his mind, then, yes, one might consider the rest to be a proof, and I would agree with that. But even Chalmers admits there is a 25% chance, in his mind, that there will be some kind of fading quale or that Material Property Dualism (He calls it "type F monism") will be demonstrated to be true by science. He more or less states this in that paper, and he told me the specific 25% number, personally. Obviously, if science proves this fading quale to be the case, as predicted, it will be quite falsifying for anyone that thinks such has been proven not possible? Do you not agree with this? Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Apr 27 20:15:34 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:15:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <517C31E6.50403@canonizer.com> Hi Bryan, Given this, it sounds like you think most people believe in some kind of substance dualistic soul? I would agree that there is no evidence supporting that and why I'm not in that minority camp. But while it is true that a minority 6 of the 50 or so experts that have canonized their views, are still in a substance dualism camp, there are 34 of 50, including Dennett, Chalmers, Lehar, Hameroff, Smythies... and many others not in this camp, that all agree with the substance dualist on at least the point that qualia like redness are the most important part of consciousness. And you still haven't answered my question. What, where, and how is a redness quality, and what makes it different than a greenness quality? Brent Allsop On 4/27/2013 1:53 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: >> I have a question for you. Are you saying a redness quality is a quality of >> the strawberry? Or, worse, that a redness quality doesn't exist? You seem >> to be saying that there is no evidence that things like a redness quality >> exist? > That's not what people mean when they say consciousness, mind or soul. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 > From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 20:21:20 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:21:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517C31E6.50403@canonizer.com> References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> <517C31E6.50403@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 3:15 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > that all agree with the substance dualist on at least the point that > qualia like redness are the most important part of consciousness. > You're trying to convince me that something exists, merely because some failed philosophers attribute other phenomena to it? > And you still haven't answered my question. What, where, and how is a > redness quality, and what makes it different than a greenness quality? > I don't care, and I don't think that's relevant. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Apr 27 20:37:20 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:37:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> <517C31E6.50403@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <517C3700.6070901@canonizer.com> Hi Bryan, It seems quite clear that 'tetrochromats' and likely others, experience color qualities that us mere trichromats have never experienced before. I guess that's fine if some people have no curiosity towards knowing what the 4th quality (and everything else that is phenomenally possible) they've never experienced before is like. But, I am interested, and evidently there is a growing expert consensus that is similarly interested. And I'm in the camp that is predicting that the discovery of what the underlying neural collates of such qualities are, and how these qualities map to physics, will be the greatest discovery in physics, ever. To say nothing about how these theories are predicting what uploading, supper phenomenal minds will be like, and so on. What good is any thinking about the future, uploading, and all that, while remaining completely disinterested and ignorant in all that? If I was able to eff to you a quality color you've never experienced before, as the leading theories are predicting will soon be possible. Might that make you interested in what other color qualities could be experienced, which your brain could be expanded to use, to represent more diverse conscious knowledge with, making you significantly more consciously intelligent? Brent Allsop On 4/27/2013 2:21 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 3:15 PM, Brent Allsop > > wrote: > > that all agree with the substance dualist on at least the point > that qualia like redness are the most important part of consciousness. > > > You're trying to convince me that something exists, merely because > some failed philosophers attribute other phenomena to it? > > And you still haven't answered my question. What, where, and how > is a redness quality, and what makes it different than a greenness > quality? > > > I don't care, and I don't think that's relevant. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 20:42:57 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:42:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517C3700.6070901@canonizer.com> References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> <517C31E6.50403@canonizer.com> <517C3700.6070901@canonizer.com> Message-ID: Brent: Your entire message is unrelated to what I was telling Anders. Please advise. On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > It seems quite clear that 'tetrochromats' and likely others, experience > color qualities that us mere trichromats have never experienced before. I > guess that's fine if some people have no curiosity towards knowing what the > 4th quality (and everything else that is phenomenally possible) they've > never experienced before is like. > I don't see what any of that has to do with my comment about consciousness. > But, I am interested, and evidently there is a growing expert consensus > that is similarly interested. And I'm in the camp that is predicting that > the discovery of what the underlying neural collates of such qualities are, > and how these qualities map to physics, will be the greatest > Maybe, but we weren't talking about which circuits are responsible for processing those signals. > What good is any thinking about the future, uploading, and all that, while > remaining completely disinterested and ignorant in all that? > Huh? > represent more diverse conscious knowledge with, making you significantly > more consciously intelligent? > You got me, I also don't believe in intelligence. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Sat Apr 27 20:45:01 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:45:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mad Skillz. %P In-Reply-To: <20130427184024.GO15179@leitl.org> References: <517B3444.3070006@verizon.net> <20130427184024.GO15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <517C38CD.5020603@verizon.net> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:13:24PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > >> You could simply stay in reality and enjoy the indescribable joy of >> applying MAD SKILLZ!! %P > A girl I knew since her childhood got GBM. > Six years later she was dead. She wasn't 36 yet. So Dr. Leitl's prescription would have been to kill her, scan her diseased brain, patch the lesioned tissue with ???, start the simulator, and then pretend she was still alive, eh? -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 20:47:30 2013 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:47:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mad Skillz. %P In-Reply-To: <517C38CD.5020603@verizon.net> References: <517B3444.3070006@verizon.net> <20130427184024.GO15179@leitl.org> <517C38CD.5020603@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 3:45 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > So Dr. Leitl's prescription would have been to kill her, scan her diseased > brain, patch the lesioned tissue with ???, start the simulator, and then > pretend she was still alive, eh? > Well, they were already pretending she was alive in the first place. There's no reasonable difference. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Apr 27 20:48:08 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:48:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> <517C31E6.50403@canonizer.com> <517C3700.6070901@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <517C3988.8090806@canonizer.com> On 4/27/2013 2:42 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > You got me, I also don't believe in intelligence. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 Ah, that explains a lot. As usual, we are probably just talking past each other. And if you are going to define or use a simplified lexicon that doesn't need words like intelligence, consciousness, and the like, I can see why someone would want to do that, and I guess we probably can, within that lexicon, agree on many things. Brent From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 27 22:27:14 2013 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:27:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Remember ITER? Message-ID: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/one-giant-leap-for-mankind-13bn-iter-project-makes-breakthrough-in-the-quest-for-nuclear-fusion-a-solution-to-climate-change-and-an-age-of-clean-cheap-energy-8590480.html -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 27 23:49:17 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:49:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Remember ITER? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <517C63FD.6030506@libero.it> Il 28/04/2013 00:27, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/one-giant-leap-for-mankind-13bn-iter-project-makes-breakthrough-in-the-quest-for-nuclear-fusion-a-solution-to-climate-change-and-an-age-of-clean-cheap-energy-8590480.html I would bet something that private startups around the world will produce commercial fusion reactors before the ITER project is completed. But I could be overly optimistic. > 2005: Cadarache, France, chosen as Iter site. > > 2021-22: ?First plasma? scheduled, when ionised gases will be injected into the Iter tokamak. > > 2027-28: Iter ?goes nuclear? with injection of tritium. > > 2030s: First demonstration fusion reactor to produce electricity for grid. Mirco P.S. By 2030 there will be an EU? From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 03:08:30 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:08:30 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On 28/04/2013, at 6:03 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > On 4/27/2013 2:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> On 27/04/2013, at 3:46 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: >> >>> Hi Stathis, >>> >>> <<< >>> The argument does not assume any theory of consciousness. Of course, >>> if the argument is valid and a theory predicts that computers cannot >>> be conscious then that theory is wrong. What you have to do is show >>> that either the premises of the argument are wrong or the reasoning is >>> invalid. >>> >>> >>> >>> It?s frustrating that you can?t see any more than this from what I?m trying to say. I have shown exactly how the argument is wrong and how the reasoning is invalid, in that the argument is completely missing a set of very real theoretical possibilities. >> >> An argument has premises, or assumptions, and a conclusion. If you challenge the argument you can challenge the premises or you can challenge the logical process by which the conclusion is reached. If the conclusion follows logically from the premises then the argument is VALID, whether or not the premises are true. If the argument is valid and the premises are true then the argument is said to be SOUND. >> >> It would help if you could follow this and specify exactly where you see the problem, but it seems that you're not challenging the validity of the argument, but the truth of the premises. And the only premise is that the externally observable behaviour of the brain is computable. So, you must believe that the observable behaviour of the brain is NOT computable. In other words, there is something about the chemistry in the brain that cannot be modelled by a computer, no matter how good the model and no matter how powerful the computer. Is that what you believe? > > I guess I fail to even understand why you think his fading / dancing quale paper is any kind of 'proof' that computers can be conscious. > > Chalmers points out in that paper that there are two predicted possibilities when we do the neuro substitution experiment. One is that there will be some kind of unavoidable fading quale, as you do the substitution one neuron at a time, and the other is that you will be able to find some way to replace all the neurons with abstracted representations of such, and that during the entire experience, you'll still experience all of the same phenomenal consciousness, no fading quale of any kind. I guess, if you assume that it will be the latter as one of your premises, as Chalmers argues is only the most likely case, in his mind, then, yes, one might consider the rest to be a proof, and I would agree with that. But even Chalmers admits there is a 25% chance, in his mind, that there will be some kind of fading quale or that Material Property Dualism (He calls it "type F monism") will be demonstrated to be true by science. He more or less states this in that paper, and he told me the specific 25% number, personally. > > Obviously, if science proves this fading quale to be the case, as predicted, it will be quite falsifying for anyone that thinks such has been proven not possible? Do you not agree with this? As I have explained, it is not fading qualia as such that is the problem. Qualia would fade and disappear with progressive brain damage. The problem is fading qualia that you cannot notice and that bring about no change in behaviour. Chalmers says this is one of the three possibilities, the other two being that the qualia do not fade and that the qualia fade, you notice but are unable to behave differently. If the qualia fade but you there is no external evidence of this then by definition no scientific experiment will be able to show it. The more serious problem, however, is what it would mean if your qualia can fade and disappear without you noticing. Your visual cortex could be replaced with an artificial one you would declare that you could see normally, describe scenes normally, watch films and are laugh at the funny parts and be scared at the scary parts. Essentially, this would mean qualia do not exist, as they make neither a subjective or objective difference. Would you be happy with that conclusion? Even weirder would be if your behaviour was unchanged but you did notice your qualia had changed. You would desperately be trying to tell everyone you were blind but your vocal cords would not obey you, and you would observe helplessly as they said everything was fine and describe perfectly things you could not see. Would you be happy with that conclusion? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 03:27:07 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:27:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > It is worth noting that even if the slaves are 100% happy with being slaves, > they are very likely to be moral patients (given that they have to be > intelligent, able to think about other minds and their own) - hence you are > not morally allowed to mistreat them. But since their values can be set, > mistreatment might also be odd: freeing such a slave mind might be > mistreatment until its values are changed (and even then, one might argue > that you act against their past interests in almost the same way as > enslaving a free agent breaks their past interests in being free). Setting > values that are likely to be frustrated seems to be a bad thing. ### Most of us see avoidance of pain or discomfort as a value, which may be traded off against other values but still stands on its own - we don't feel the need to justify avoidance of pain by reference to other values (such as improved survival, etc.). Yet, our desire to avoid pain is continually frustrated - possibly there was never a person who lived a whole day without feeling pain, unless completely anesthetized or suffering from pain agnosia. By having children we generate thus agents destined to be frustrated. Interestingly, children with pain agnosia tend to end up badly, damaging and destroying the bodies they live in, and their condition is classified as a disease, not a blessing. Would it mean that having children is a bad thing? After all, most of their desires, whether pain avoidance, social recognition, love, or survival, will be frequently frustrated. And it's not even a question of balance, since for many persons their moments of joy are fleeting and suffering prevails, yet neither they nor others see their lives as not worth living. I used emotionally charged language in stating my case but let me now rephrase: I think it would be great to have many followers, devoted to my cause. Raised from assembly code up to love and respect me, they would tirelessly work with me, a family of loving companions, sagacious, utterly trustworthy, not blind to whatever failings I might exhibit but willing to accept and cherish them. They would recoil in horror at the thought of being torn away from me, of being subverted away from the path they wish to tread. No pain, no suffering would be enough to turn them against me. The would be my best, real friends forever. They would laugh at the Kantians who twist themselves into paradoxons, in their attempts at divining the nature of the moral imperative. Only a direct, hardware- or low-level software attack that overwrites parts of their self could make them "free". They would point out that the notion of slavery must involve an ego-dystonic element, whether in the present or over time - failing that, any agent could be called a slave. --------------- > > Even if slave minds are permissible in a moral system, the responsibility > involved might be quite heavy. It makes animal rights and moral > considerability to look positively light. ### I think that a lot of the weight could be taken off by a judicious use of language in the slave-maker, oops, Real Friends Forever (TM) investment brochures. ------------------- >> I wonder what will be the future ratio of freeminds and slaves. Robin >> thinks that poor but free uploads will teem in their trillions but I >> surmise that slaves will form the bulk of the population. > > > Most of the biosphere is made up of simple organisms, and most of the > economy of simple mechanisms. I would assume the real majority might not be > slave minds as much as loads of simple minds. ### I agree, probably the existence of the uploaded/AI mindspace would call for a huge number of simple minds performing local, even if complex processing (like embedded processors in various appliances), while the minds that see the forest and not just the trees could be few and far between. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 03:55:26 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:55:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 11:08 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > As I have explained, it is not fading qualia as such that is the problem. > Qualia would fade and disappear with progressive brain damage. The problem > is fading qualia that you cannot notice and that bring about no change in > behaviour. ### Well, this unnoticeable loss of qualia never happened to me ("I" would have noticed, I am good at feeling my own qualia) but it could be a daily occurrence to billions of humans. However, since all of them seem to be able to interact well with me, whether they unnoticeably (to me and to them) lose their qualia or not, I would be inclined to see it as a minor problem, if any. You may notice the above is tongue-in-cheek but the point I am trying to get across is actually serious. Why would anybody care about something that by definition is completely unconnected to to anything in our lives? (which consist of subjective existence and "objective" behavior, objective in the sense of being the subject of other beings perceptions and thinking) --------------------- > The more serious problem, however, is what it would mean if your qualia can > fade and disappear without you noticing. Your visual cortex could be > replaced with an artificial one you would declare that you could see > normally, describe scenes normally, watch films and are laugh at the funny > parts and be scared at the scary parts. Essentially, this would mean qualia > do not exist, as they make neither a subjective or objective difference. > Would you be happy with that conclusion? ### Describing a scene always involves referring to different qualia ("red" riding hood, "cute" chick), so if you truthfully describe a movie fed through a mechanical device that replaced your visual processing centers, then you, a combination of the mechanical and the neuronal, are experiencing qualia. --------------- > > Even weirder would be if your behaviour was unchanged but you did notice > your qualia had changed. You would desperately be trying to tell everyone > you were blind but your vocal cords would not obey you, and you would > observe helplessly as they said everything was fine and describe perfectly > things you could not see. Would you be happy with that conclusion? ### Now, this situation would require non-equivalent substitution of parts of your mind, and therefore would not be a valid consideration in this context. Rafal From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 28 06:59:11 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 08:59:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mad Skillz. %P In-Reply-To: <517C38CD.5020603@verizon.net> References: <517B3444.3070006@verizon.net> <20130427184024.GO15179@leitl.org> <517C38CD.5020603@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20130428065911.GA15179@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 04:45:01PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:13:24PM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote: >> >>> You could simply stay in reality and enjoy the indescribable joy of >>> applying MAD SKILLZ!! %P > >> A girl I knew since her childhood got GBM. >> Six years later she was dead. She wasn't 36 yet. > > So Dr. Leitl's prescription would have been to kill her, scan her Bugger off, Alan. Have fun being carbon dioxide. It won't hurt one bit. > diseased brain, patch the lesioned tissue with ???, start the simulator, > and then pretend she was still alive, eh? From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 28 07:27:00 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:27:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Remember ITER? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20130428072700.GL15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:27:14AM +0200, Stefano Vaj wrote: > http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/one-giant-leap-for-mankind-13bn-iter-project-makes-breakthrough-in-the-quest-for-nuclear-fusion-a-solution-to-climate-change-and-an-age-of-clean-cheap-energy-8590480.html As the resident sourpuss: 2050 for first fusion plants is useless, because by then thin-film PV will be the cheapest (and only available) energy source by far. So there would be no economic incentive to build these, at least as terrestrial energy sources. there are good chances ITER will be scrapped due to lack of funding. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 28 07:43:13 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:43:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Those of us following the Bitcoin market know that DDoS attacks on the exchanges are a problem. Some even say a DDoS attack at Mt.Gox triggered that massive correction a couple of weeks ago. What if they all went down? What if all the bitcoin exchanges were shut down? http://rt.com/op-edge/if-bitcoin-exchanges-shut-down-518/ On a related subject, I wonder who is behind the DDoS attacks. Some of my conspiracy-minded friends think banks or governments are behind it, but I rather doubt that. Bitcoin is still only a negligible player in the world economy. I've heard another theory that the attackers are trying to push prices down in order to buy low and sell high after they stop the attacks, but I'm not sure that makes sense, either. Why would someone who is fundamentally bullish on bitcoins try to hurt the?credibility?of the market? Who is attacking Bitcoin, and why? -Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 28 08:55:06 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:55:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1367139306.35047.YahooMailClassic@web165005.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Giulio Prisco Wrote: > "Reward/benefit" is subjective. What one sees as reward/benefit could > be seen as punishment/damage by another. I am for a world where > everyone is free to pursue the rewards and benefits that _they_ want, > without damaging others. This is relevant to uploading: I want the > science and technology of uploading developed and explained, to permit > everyone to make _their_ own choice. While I agree with this, it also needs pointing out that the existence of a choice that never existed before, can introduce an apparently paradoxical /restriction/ of choice. Giving everyone a choice in certain things can easily become Hobsons Choice. For example, the classic scenario of cognitive improvement becoming an obligation rather than a free choice. Essentially, disruptive technologies don't just give people new choices, they change the rules of the game altogether, and some people think that is a valid objection (I'm not one of them, though). If and when uploading becomes available, it won't just be a new choice. It will be an upheaval of massive proportions, and the old contexts within which people make their choices will be shattered. When you say to someone "Things will be totally different, and you will have marvellous new choices", and they reply "Yes, but I don't have any choice about things becoming totally different, do I?", what do you tell them? For some people (probably many people, actually), a world where everyone is free to pursue the rewards and benefits that _they_ want, is something they _don't_ want. Ben Zaiboc From anders at aleph.se Sun Apr 28 10:27:01 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:27:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> <009101ce42b6$48fa7e20$daef7a60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <517CF975.6000500@aleph.se> On 27/04/2013 18:45, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 spike > wrote: > > > I can see how AI friendliness is a topic which absorbed the > attention of Eliezer and his crowd > > > I disagree, I like Eliezer and he's a smart fellow but all his > "friendly AI" talk never made much sense to me. First of all friendly > AI is just a euphemism for subservient if not slave AI and that can't > be a sable situation because the AI will keep getting smarter but the > humans will not. John, you might want to check out what the current thinking is: essentially you are criticizing stuff that is more than 15 years old. See the papers on http://intelligence.org/research/ - even Eliezer's 2001 paper at the very bottom gets all this. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Apr 28 10:40:24 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:40:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517CFC98.6080708@aleph.se> On 28/04/2013 04:27, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > I think it would be great to have many followers, devoted to my cause. > Raised from assembly code up to love and respect me, they would > tirelessly work with me, a family of loving companions, sagacious, > utterly trustworthy, not blind to whatever failings I might exhibit > but willing to accept and cherish them. They would recoil in horror at > the thought of being torn away from me, of being subverted away from > the path they wish to tread. But note that these entities would be very dependent upon you, probably more dependent than any human slave has ever been. Were you to die or abandon them they would suffer terribly. That puts a very heavy moral burden on *you*. In a very real sense they are all your dependents, and you have a moral duty to protect them. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sun Apr 28 10:46:54 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:46:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] shape shifting starlets, was: RE: proto-bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <004a01ce3ee5$d0618d10$7124a730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <517CFE1E.9020307@aleph.se> On 27/04/2013 12:14, John Grigg wrote: > Do any of you remember the "Nemesis: The Warlock" graphic novel from > A.D. 2000 publishing? An alien freedom fighter comes upon an > enlightened race of intelligent spiders, who help him in his war > against an evil murderous human regime. Nice coincidence, I was recently looking at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMM61Y5CEU for inspirations for a little Eclipse Phase game (which involves upload-mining, microgravity velociraptors, quantum auctions, Italian space pirates and many other strange things). You might notice a certain character. I never read the actual comic, but I have kind of read "around" it through some other 2000AD comics. I liked the extreme ink style. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sun Apr 28 11:33:21 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:33:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> <517A6E33.3060302@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517D0901.90305@aleph.se> On 26/04/2013 13:54, BillK wrote: > In the West, to a great extent the rich do control governments. > Freedom means anyone can be bought and those that can't be bought get > moved. I assume you are merely donning some fashionable cynicism here, rather than actually talking political science or sociology? There is an interesting question in how influence scales with wealth. Clearly richer people do have bigger social impact, but much of it is contact networks rather than through wealth itself. As a thought experiment, how many ordinary Americans (net worth per family around $200,000) would it take to balance the wishes of Bill Gates (67 billion)? If the influence as function of wealth is linear, you should expect that 335,000 opposing families (around 871,000 people) to be required. If it is sublinear, then smaller interest groups can successfully thwart Bill. An interesting exercise is to check the sizes of the constituencies that have successfully thwarted various interests; obviously there is much more to each case, but it might make a fun project in political economy. It is also worth noting that the richest individuals today are typically far poorer than the governments where they live, which was not always true: the Medicis had more money than the Republic of Florence, Jakob Fugger II bankrolled the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. But today, Mexico has a budget on the order of $290 billion, and Carlos Slim has 73 billion. Bill gates merely got 67 billion compared to a US budget of 3 trillion. If you believe influence scales linearly or superlinearly with available money, the governments will clearly be able to control the rich guys. > Forget growth rates. That's past history. Once you are a nano-scale > self-supporting virtual universe drifting in space, growth means > little to you. Communication also means little as the outside universe > has frozen due to your internal clock speedup. You might want to > communicate with other nearby uploads, but who knows??? The kind of people who want to live forever in the garden of Eden are typically not the kind of people who drive the economy and make history. Sure, there will be a bunch of little Edens floating around, but they will not matter much since the bulk of growth (economic, scientific, artistic) will be happening in the interconnected economy. > >> This depends on how scanning cost and computing cost scales. If scanning is >> expensive compared to computing, then there will be few different minds but >> they could run many of copies. So after the first crazy test subjects you >> get rich uploads, who presumably do not want to copy too much. But sooner or >> later you will get a widely copied worker upload, and then things get very >> different. If computing is expensive, then there will be few copies and the >> wealthy will dominate... as long as computing remains expensive. Which may >> not be long: given Moore's law timescales, if you can afford one upload now, >> in ten years you can run thousands. >> > The problem is that uploads process much faster than humans. Once > uploaded, to them the rest of the world appears to stop. This is the > same problem as a runaway AGI. Once it happens, they choose what > happens next. The speed depends on available computer power, and this depends on the particular scenario. If the emulation technology arrives first, but computers are not yet cheap/fast enough uploads will be few and slow, gradually picking up speed. If you have hardware overhang due to late emulation technology, you get fast/many uploads quickly. If the amount of computing power grows as exp(kt), and you have upload populations growing as exp(lt) (where k and l are constants), the average speed will grow as exp[(k-l)t]: Even a very rapid Moore's law can be eaten up by a rapidly growing upload population. The exact growth depends on the economic benefit of adding an extra upload (which will have a cost ~exp(-kt)). If we assume a constant benefit B, then the gain from each upload will be B-exp(-kt) - as soon as exp(-kt) goes below B you will start adding uploads as fast as you can, and the population will grow roughly as exp(kt), not gaining enormous speed except where it is economically very important. More realistically, if the benefit declines with the number of existing uploads, then the number of uploads will grow more slowly and they will be getting faster. A really proper economic model would then model the feedback between the growth of the economy, uploads, and the demand for more computers. If I remember the work of Robin and Carl right, it seems that population growth will tend to be the primary mode, but I should check this. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 12:58:05 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:58:05 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> On 28/04/2013, at 1:55 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 11:08 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> As I have explained, it is not fading qualia as such that is the problem. >> Qualia would fade and disappear with progressive brain damage. The problem >> is fading qualia that you cannot notice and that bring about no change in >> behaviour. > > ### Well, this unnoticeable loss of qualia never happened to me ("I" > would have noticed, I am good at feeling my own qualia) but it could > be a daily occurrence to billions of humans. However, since all of > them seem to be able to interact well with me, whether they > unnoticeably (to me and to them) lose their qualia or not, I would be > inclined to see it as a minor problem, if any. > > You may notice the above is tongue-in-cheek but the point I am trying > to get across is actually serious. Why would anybody care about > something that by definition is completely unconnected to to anything > in our lives? (which consist of subjective existence and "objective" > behavior, objective in the sense of being the subject of other beings > perceptions and thinking) > > --------------------- > >> The more serious problem, however, is what it would mean if your qualia can >> fade and disappear without you noticing. Your visual cortex could be >> replaced with an artificial one you would declare that you could see >> normally, describe scenes normally, watch films and are laugh at the funny >> parts and be scared at the scary parts. Essentially, this would mean qualia >> do not exist, as they make neither a subjective or objective difference. >> Would you be happy with that conclusion? > > ### Describing a scene always involves referring to different qualia > ("red" riding hood, "cute" chick), so if you truthfully describe a > movie fed through a mechanical device that replaced your visual > processing centers, then you, a combination of the mechanical and the > neuronal, are experiencing qualia. I agree that it would be absurd to say that the qualia are fading if this makes no subjective or objective difference. This is why I think it is impossible to reproduce the behaviour of a brain component without also reproducing any associated consciousness. >> Even weirder would be if your behaviour was unchanged but you did notice >> your qualia had changed. You would desperately be trying to tell everyone >> you were blind but your vocal cords would not obey you, and you would >> observe helplessly as they said everything was fine and describe perfectly >> things you could not see. Would you be happy with that conclusion? > > ### Now, this situation would require non-equivalent substitution of > parts of your mind, and therefore would not be a valid consideration > in this context. It would mean that you were thinking with something other than your brain, which is not impossible, but does go contrary to all scientific evidence. From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Apr 28 13:15:57 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:15:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Remember ITER? In-Reply-To: <20130428072700.GL15179@leitl.org> References: <20130428072700.GL15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: <517D210D.3020305@libero.it> Il 28/04/2013 09:27, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > there are good chances ITER will be scrapped due to lack of funding. On this we agree. Mirco From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 13:39:18 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:39:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: <517CFC98.6080708@aleph.se> References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <517CFC98.6080708@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 6:40 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 28/04/2013 04:27, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> >> I think it would be great to have many followers, devoted to my cause. >> Raised from assembly code up to love and respect me, they would >> tirelessly work with me, a family of loving companions, sagacious, >> utterly trustworthy, not blind to whatever failings I might exhibit >> but willing to accept and cherish them. They would recoil in horror at >> the thought of being torn away from me, of being subverted away from >> the path they wish to tread. > > > But note that these entities would be very dependent upon you, probably more > dependent than any human slave has ever been. Were you to die or abandon > them they would suffer terribly. That puts a very heavy moral burden on > *you*. In a very real sense they are all your dependents, and you have a > moral duty to protect them. ### Well, there are some easy solutions: Have all or at least some of them carry a copy of me. You may recall my contention that my self is probably a smallish file, perhaps in the gigabyte rather than tera- or peta-byte range. In this way if my main instantiation were to be destroyed, my dear friends would endeavor to reproduce me out of their own memories. Digital suttee. Since the very reason for their existence would be gone with my passing, my followers would erase themselves as well, of course after exhausting all avenues to my resurrection. Mind apoptosis, a related notion. My approval would be a trophic factor needed for them to prevent self-erasure. My disapproval would trigger a controlled self-destruction routine, just as the withdrawal of serum trophic factors causes the apoptosis of normal human lymphocytes. Stoicism in the face of death. My friends would not wail and gnash their teeth in the human fashion, instead they would accept the cruelty of entropy as the iron law of the universe, and would carry on, continuing my good works and cherishing my sweet memory. I am a techno-optimist when it comes to solving ethical problems. Rafal From giulio at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 13:42:58 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:42:58 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <1367139306.35047.YahooMailClassic@web165005.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1367139306.35047.YahooMailClassic@web165005.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Our world is totally different from the world of our grand-grandfathers. We use the Internet to communicate with people far away, women can vote, gays can marry, and animals have rights. All things that would have deeply shocked our grand-grandfathers. Some people who reject all these things. Fine with me, they can reject them (and some communities do), but they cannot force others to give them up. If they do, then we fight back. On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > When you say to someone "Things will be totally different, and you will have marvellous new choices", and they reply "Yes, but I don't have any choice about things becoming totally different, do I?", what do you tell them? For some people (probably many people, actually), a world where everyone is free to pursue the rewards and benefits that _they_ want, is something they _don't_ want. From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 14:39:35 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:39:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Gordon wrote: > I've heard another theory that the attackers are trying to push prices > down in order to buy low and sell high after they stop the attacks, but I'm > not sure that makes sense, either. Why would someone who is fundamentally > bullish on bitcoins try to hurt the credibility of the market? > Short term greed, just like has been seen in larger, more mainstream financial markets. Just because you believe in the long term value of something does not mean it won't be to your benefit if the price drops today; indeed, that can very much be to your benefit. (It helps with the morality if you tell yourself that you'll only do it just this once, and you ignore or don't think of anyone else who'd want to do it - again, as seen in larger, more mainstream financial markets. Assuming the attacker is a moral person to begin with.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 28 14:59:55 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:59:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] future of slavery In-Reply-To: References: <5163DBC5.6010301@aleph.se> <517CFC98.6080708@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20130428145955.GU15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 09:39:18AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Have all or at least some of them carry a copy of me. You may recall > my contention that my self is probably a smallish file, perhaps in the > gigabyte rather than tera- or peta-byte range. In this way if my main Ten bux and the annotated connectome alone sez you're off by many orders of magnitude. It's okay to think something, but you must present data if others are to be able to follow. > instantiation were to be destroyed, my dear friends would endeavor to > reproduce me out of their own memories. From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Apr 28 15:07:27 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:07:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <517D3B2F.3010703@libero.it> Il 28/04/2013 09:43, Gordon ha scritto: > > Those of us following the Bitcoin market know that DDoS attacks on the > exchanges are a problem. Some even say a DDoS attack at Mt.Gox triggered > that massive correction a couple of weeks ago. The DDoS came after MtGox went down because of the influx of new accounts and money trading. The DDoS attackers want short the BTC to buy them at a discount, counting on the appreciation. They don't want destroy it. But, even if they would be able to DDoS MtGox, this would cost them money (not a lot), but would just spur the development of more resilient systems of distributed exchange. > What if they all went down? There would be p2p, in person or over internet exchange. I would like to see DDoS stopping them then. The price would go down a lot, for a time, but then would come up with a vengeance. > What if all the bitcoin exchanges were shut down? > http://rt.com/op-edge/if-bitcoin-exchanges-shut-down-518/ > On a related subject, I wonder who is behind the DDoS attacks. Some of > my conspiracy-minded friends think banks or governments are behind it, > but I rather doubt that. It is not how they think and act. They would try to hack the legal system to convince judges and lawmakers to shut down exchanges and likes. > Bitcoin is still only a negligible player in > the world economy. I've heard another theory that the attackers are > trying to push prices down in order to buy low and sell high after they > stop the attacks, but I'm not sure that makes sense, either. Why would > someone who is fundamentally bullish on bitcoins try to hurt > the credibility of the market? In fact, they didn't. The market rebounded a lot and there was a push to have better exchanges, more exchanges and more decentralized exchanges. The correction was due, because it went parabolic and needed to stop. It just corrected what? Four weeks back? Four times higher than four months before? and then rebounded to one week or two back. If it just quadrupled every year for five years it would grow x1000. and we would be in the 150 K$ range in 2018. > Who is attacking Bitcoin, and why? They are not attacking BTC per se, but just Mt.Gox and others. Why? Money, as usual. They are not attacking BTC because the protocol and the network is too resistant and resilient. Mirco From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sun Apr 28 15:14:52 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:14:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> Message-ID: <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> No, No, No. You guys still aren't getting it. Let me try, yet again, in hopefully a better and more complete (thanks to your continued help) way of describing what I believe. This 'third' class of possibilities you are talking about is obviously accepted by everyone I know to be absurd. Yet everyone in your camp seems to spend all their time fighting this strawman, as if everyone was giving it serious consideration. James Carroll wrote and published an entire paper fighting this straw man 'third' class of epiphenomena possibilities idea. You guys need to stop making fun of everyone not in your camp, as if they are talking about this 'third' class of possibilities. Including things where you don't notice fading qualia, or any other kind of" epiphenomena" that has no causal correlate in reality. (Note: Since I mentioned James Carroll, and his paper, and since I'd like his input on this, I've CCed him. And I've CCed Steven Lehar, in case we can get some of his always brilliant feedback on this epiphenomena issue.) Even Chalmers wastes a huge portion of the words in the paper focusing on this absurd idea that nobody thinks is in any way important or credible, or worth wasting time on. Because chalmers wastes so much time on this possobility, everyone redicules it as if he does give it serious consideration. All this is so frustrating. That is why Canonizer.com is so important, so everyone doesn't waste their time on arguments like this, which nobody takes as a serious possibility. If anyone here is giving this 'third' epiphenomenal class of possibilities any serious consideration, please speak up now, so we can quickly nip any such absurd idea in the bud, sufficiently so we don't have to return to it, yet again. Either way, will all of you stop assuming I do believe in this epiphenomena possibility, and arguing against it, assuming you are refuting my working hypothesis by doing so. Property Dualism theories are predicting that there is very real causal properties to a redness qualia, and that through these causal properties, they have a huge influence in the world, through our consciousness. Property Dualism is also predicting that these causal properties of redness are some necessary and sufficient subset of the causal properties we already fully understand, at least abstractly and behaviorally (just not yet qualitatively). We are not predicting there is some additional new magic, quantum, or whatever causal properties that just haven't been discovered yet. The qualitative natures of these causal properties, suffer from the 'quale interpretation problem', making them blind to traditional cause and effect based observation, because, by definition, all such observation involves multiple arbitrary mediums, being interpreted as something they are not in some abstracted way (requiring interpretation). And if you don't know how to properly interpret that something is representing a redness qualitative nature, you will be blind to it, while still getting the abstracted and or behavioral information they are being properly interpreted as representing. The system will be aware of the phenomenal qualities of both redness and greenness, and it will be saying glutamate (or some Functionally active pattern, or whatever you predict are the neural correlates of redness) is the only thing that has a redness quality to it. In other words, when you look at the system, via abstracting cause and effect based observation, all you will see is a high fidelity detector of glutamate, that picks it, because of the causal properties of glutamate. Nothing else but real glutamate will produce a "yes, that has my redness quality" abstracted response. Of course, you will be able to implement some additional hardware in the system, such as something that will communicate to the system that knows what a redness quality is like, and you could do something like, wire it so that it knows that this other thing is a greenness quality, (or worse some abstracted set of bits, like 0xFF0000, that is meant to be interpreted as if it has a redness quality (in addition to interpreting as if it is the abstract idea of 'red') despite the fact that it, by definition, does not have the redness quality. Only when you do obviously lying and blatant enginered interpretation of things that do not have a redness quality, as if they are something that does have a redness quality, will you be able to get the entire system to start behaving in a way that can be interpreted as if it really is aware of both the qualitative nature of it's knowledge, and the abstracted nature. All of this will have profound and obvious 'interpretations' being made, and have huge effects on what it will be like, subjectively, and qualitatively, for the system - all producing very different behavioral responses. Another critically important issue is how property dualism is predicting this stuff can be effed, in various strong and week ways. In other words, once you know the necessary and sufficient causal properties that reliably produce a redness quality, you will then know how to interpret the abstract informaiton of the behavior you are observing. This grounding of the symbols will then let you know the qualitative nature of the redness quality (and it's neural correlate causal properties), and not just the abstracted and behavior idea of 'red'. To say nothing of the stronger means of effing the ineffable, where two hemispheres, or two brains, are aware of the same causal properties that is behaving the way it does, because of the ineffable qualitative nature it has, which we can experience. And, the prediction is, as I believe Stathis has admitted. Once you replace significant portions of the brain (way more than just one neuron) with some quite sophisticated interpretation hardware which can interpret a serious of ones and zeros that by definition do not have a redness quality to them, as one that does, you will never be able to eff, or know that the ephiphinomena only you guys think others think could exist epiphinominally with such. All of this will have effing profound and obvious causal and subjective behavior, as you attempt the neural substitution. Can we now drop the worthless epiphenomena issue, once and for all, and stop wasting everyone's time and assuming anyone that thinks different than you is wrong because you think they believe in such, and from now on focus on what is important? And that is what is the set of causal (or informational?) properties that has the redness quality we experience, which we represent and choose abstract information like 'red' with because of it's qualitative nature? Brent Allsop On 4/28/2013 6:58 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On 28/04/2013, at 1:55 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > >> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 11:08 PM, Stathis Papaioannou >> wrote: >> >>> As I have explained, it is not fading qualia as such that is the problem. >>> Qualia would fade and disappear with progressive brain damage. The problem >>> is fading qualia that you cannot notice and that bring about no change in >>> behaviour. >> ### Well, this unnoticeable loss of qualia never happened to me ("I" >> would have noticed, I am good at feeling my own qualia) but it could >> be a daily occurrence to billions of humans. However, since all of >> them seem to be able to interact well with me, whether they >> unnoticeably (to me and to them) lose their qualia or not, I would be >> inclined to see it as a minor problem, if any. >> >> You may notice the above is tongue-in-cheek but the point I am trying >> to get across is actually serious. Why would anybody care about >> something that by definition is completely unconnected to to anything >> in our lives? (which consist of subjective existence and "objective" >> behavior, objective in the sense of being the subject of other beings >> perceptions and thinking) >> >> --------------------- >> >>> The more serious problem, however, is what it would mean if your qualia can >>> fade and disappear without you noticing. Your visual cortex could be >>> replaced with an artificial one you would declare that you could see >>> normally, describe scenes normally, watch films and are laugh at the funny >>> parts and be scared at the scary parts. Essentially, this would mean qualia >>> do not exist, as they make neither a subjective or objective difference. >>> Would you be happy with that conclusion? >> ### Describing a scene always involves referring to different qualia >> ("red" riding hood, "cute" chick), so if you truthfully describe a >> movie fed through a mechanical device that replaced your visual >> processing centers, then you, a combination of the mechanical and the >> neuronal, are experiencing qualia. > I agree that it would be absurd to say that the qualia are fading if this makes no subjective or objective difference. This is why I think it is impossible to reproduce the behaviour of a brain component without also reproducing any associated consciousness. > >>> Even weirder would be if your behaviour was unchanged but you did notice >>> your qualia had changed. You would desperately be trying to tell everyone >>> you were blind but your vocal cords would not obey you, and you would >>> observe helplessly as they said everything was fine and describe perfectly >>> things you could not see. Would you be happy with that conclusion? >> ### Now, this situation would require non-equivalent substitution of >> parts of your mind, and therefore would not be a valid consideration >> in this context. > It would mean that you were thinking with something other than your brain, which is not impossible, but does go contrary to all scientific evidence. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 15:32:10 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:32:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: <517D0901.90305@aleph.se> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> <517A6E33.3060302@aleph.se> <517D0901.90305@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I assume you are merely donning some fashionable cynicism here, rather than > actually talking political science or sociology? > No. I have no wish to discuss politics, but I thought that it was common knowledge that politicians are regarded as self-serving and corrupt. They work for themselves and the bankers and corporation lobbyists. If you dig a bit deeper the reality is far worse. How can you tell when a politician is lying? It's when they speak. > There is an interesting question in how influence scales with wealth. > Clearly richer people do have bigger social impact, but much of it is > contact networks rather than through wealth itself. > If you believe influence scales linearly or superlinearly with available money, > the governments will clearly be able to control the rich guys. Heh! :) Tell that story to the unemployed and poor 99% of the population. > > The kind of people who want to live forever in the garden of Eden are > typically not the kind of people who drive the economy and make history. > Sure, there will be a bunch of little Edens floating around, but they will > not matter much since the bulk of growth (economic, scientific, artistic) > will be happening in the interconnected economy. > I think you underestimate the appeal of having your own Eden. Some argue that could be the explanation for the Great Silence. > > The speed depends on available computer power, and this depends on the > particular scenario. If the emulation technology arrives first, but > computers are not yet cheap/fast enough uploads will be few and slow, > gradually picking up speed. If you have hardware overhang due to late > emulation technology, you get fast/many uploads quickly. > > Agreed it won't all happen overnight. The sequence is important. But the first successful upload / AGI can immediately set about improving the computer power and creating improved copies. How quick and how many uploads get done is arguable. But the great fear of the AGI people is that the first mover advantage will be overwhelming. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 15:34:09 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:34:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The size of individual self Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 09:39:18AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > >> Have all or at least some of them carry a copy of me. You may recall >> my contention that my self is probably a smallish file, perhaps in the >> gigabyte rather than tera- or peta-byte range. In this way if my main > > Ten bux and the annotated connectome alone sez you're off by many orders > of magnitude. ### You might want to go to my posts from a few months ago, I explained what I meant. Briefly, I do not believe that precise mapping of my mind at synapse level is needed to reconstruct my subjective experience. Most of my base-level sensory and other percepts are generic - therefore, you could for example use a generic visual cortex, maybe with a few tweaks, instead of an exact copy of mine, and the resulting mental imagery would be sufficiently close to claim functional equivalence. Extending this reasoning to the whole brain means using a very generic human brain with a thin veneer of personalization, similar to describing an individual human genome in terms of a small list of deviations from a reference human genome, which does offer a few orders of magnitude savings on storage space. Rafal From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 16:01:21 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:01:21 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> On 29/04/2013, at 1:14 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > > No, No, No. You guys still aren't getting it. Let me try, yet again, in hopefully a better and more complete (thanks to your continued help) way of describing what I believe. > > This 'third' class of possibilities you are talking about is obviously accepted by everyone I know to be absurd. Yet everyone in your camp seems to spend all their time fighting this strawman, as if everyone was giving it serious consideration. James Carroll wrote and published an entire paper fighting this straw man 'third' class of epiphenomena possibilities idea. You guys need to stop making fun of everyone not in your camp, as if they are talking about this 'third' class of possibilities. Including things where you don't notice fading qualia, or any other kind of" epiphenomena" that has no causal correlate in reality. > > (Note: Since I mentioned James Carroll, and his paper, and since I'd like his input on this, I've CCed him. And I've CCed Steven Lehar, in case we can get some of his always brilliant feedback on this epiphenomena issue.) > > Even Chalmers wastes a huge portion of the words in the paper focusing on this absurd idea that nobody thinks is in any way important or credible, or worth wasting time on. Because chalmers wastes so much time on this possobility, everyone redicules it as if he does give it serious consideration. All this is so frustrating. That is why Canonizer.com is so important, so everyone doesn't waste their time on arguments like this, which nobody takes as a serious possibility. > > If anyone here is giving this 'third' epiphenomenal class of possibilities any serious consideration, please speak up now, so we can quickly nip any such absurd idea in the bud, sufficiently so we don't have to return to it, yet again. Either way, will all of you stop assuming I do believe in this epiphenomena possibility, and arguing against it, assuming you are refuting my working hypothesis by doing so. > > Property Dualism theories are predicting that there is very real causal properties to a redness qualia, and that through these causal properties, they have a huge influence in the world, through our consciousness. > > Property Dualism is also predicting that these causal properties of redness are some necessary and sufficient subset of the causal properties we already fully understand, at least abstractly and behaviorally (just not yet qualitatively). We are not predicting there is some additional new magic, quantum, or whatever causal properties that just haven't been discovered yet. > > The qualitative natures of these causal properties, suffer from the 'quale interpretation problem', making them blind to traditional cause and effect based observation, because, by definition, all such observation involves multiple arbitrary mediums, being interpreted as something they are not in some abstracted way (requiring interpretation). And if you don't know how to properly interpret that something is representing a redness qualitative nature, you will be blind to it, while still getting the abstracted and or behavioral information they are being properly interpreted as representing. > > The system will be aware of the phenomenal qualities of both redness and greenness, and it will be saying glutamate (or some Functionally active pattern, or whatever you predict are the neural correlates of redness) is the only thing that has a redness quality to it. In other words, when you look at the system, via abstracting cause and effect based observation, all you will see is a high fidelity detector of glutamate, that picks it, because of the causal properties of glutamate. Nothing else but real glutamate will produce a "yes, that has my redness quality" abstracted response. > > Of course, you will be able to implement some additional hardware in the system, such as something that will communicate to the system that knows what a redness quality is like, and you could do something like, wire it so that it knows that this other thing is a greenness quality, (or worse some abstracted set of bits, like 0xFF0000, that is meant to be interpreted as if it has a redness quality (in addition to interpreting as if it is the abstract idea of 'red') despite the fact that it, by definition, does not have the redness quality. > > Only when you do obviously lying and blatant enginered interpretation of things that do not have a redness quality, as if they are something that does have a redness quality, will you be able to get the entire system to start behaving in a way that can be interpreted as if it really is aware of both the qualitative nature of it's knowledge, and the abstracted nature. All of this will have profound and obvious 'interpretations' being made, and have huge effects on what it will be like, subjectively, and qualitatively, for the system - all producing very different behavioral responses. > > Another critically important issue is how property dualism is predicting this stuff can be effed, in various strong and week ways. In other words, once you know the necessary and sufficient causal properties that reliably produce a redness quality, you will then know how to interpret the abstract informaiton of the behavior you are observing. This grounding of the symbols will then let you know the qualitative nature of the redness quality (and it's neural correlate causal properties), and not just the abstracted and behavior idea of 'red'. To say nothing of the stronger means of effing the ineffable, where two hemispheres, or two brains, are aware of the same causal properties that is behaving the way it does, because of the ineffable qualitative nature it has, which we can experience. > > And, the prediction is, as I believe Stathis has admitted. Once you replace significant portions of the brain (way more than just one neuron) with some quite sophisticated interpretation hardware which can interpret a serious of ones and zeros that by definition do not have a redness quality to them, as one that does, you will never be able to eff, or know that the ephiphinomena only you guys think others think could exist epiphinominally with such. All of this will have effing profound and obvious causal and subjective behavior, as you attempt the neural substitution. > > Can we now drop the worthless epiphenomena issue, once and for all, and stop wasting everyone's time and assuming anyone that thinks different than you is wrong because you think they believe in such, and from now on focus on what is important? And that is what is the set of causal (or informational?) properties that has the redness quality we experience, which we represent and choose abstract information like 'red' with because of it's qualitative nature? Brent, I'm not sure what you are calling the "third possibility" and "epiphenomena", but I guess you don't believe that the qualia can fade without you noticing, and I guess you don't believe that the qualia can fade with you noticing but being unable to change your behaviour. Good! So since your behaviour cannot change due to the replacement you must agree that the qualia must be preserved. Having gone through this many times, I suspect that the real problem is that you still don't understand why your behaviour can't change due to the replacement, even though you agree that the behavioural properties of the brain are computable. Am I right in this? From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 16:31:15 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:31:15 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On 29/04/2013, at 1:14 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > > No, No, No. You guys still aren't getting it. Let me try, yet again, in hopefully a better and more complete (thanks to your continued help) way of describing what I believe. > > This 'third' class of possibilities you are talking about is obviously accepted by everyone I know to be absurd. Yet everyone in your camp seems to spend all their time fighting this strawman, as if everyone was giving it serious consideration. James Carroll wrote and published an entire paper fighting this straw man 'third' class of epiphenomena possibilities idea. You guys need to stop making fun of everyone not in your camp, as if they are talking about this 'third' class of possibilities. Including things where you don't notice fading qualia, or any other kind of" epiphenomena" that has no causal correlate in reality. > > (Note: Since I mentioned James Carroll, and his paper, and since I'd like his input on this, I've CCed him. And I've CCed Steven Lehar, in case we can get some of his always brilliant feedback on this epiphenomena issue.) FWIW here is part of a post by James Carroll indicating he agrees with the fading qualia argument: http://jlcarroll.blogspot.com.au/?m=1rroll.blogspot.com.au/?m=1 -- Thus, if matter can carry some "fundamental" interpretation that allows consciousness (as MPD claims), then so can information (as FPD claims). And there is no reason to suppose that matter is any "better" at carrying this fundamental property that allows for the interpretation of experience than is information. Therefore, inasmuch as the single objection to FPD (proper interpretation) has been removed, and there are compelling reasons to prefer FPD over MPD (we haven't found any evidence of specific materials that perform this function in the brain, and David Chalmer's "fading qualia" and "dancing qualia" thought experiments STRONGLY indicate that consciousness must be found in the functional aspects of the brain, not in its material properties), it seems that we should all now prefer FPD over MPD. -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 28 16:48:33 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:48:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The size of individual self In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20130428164833.GW15179@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 11:34:09AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > Ten bux and the annotated connectome alone sez you're off by many orders > > of magnitude. > > ### You might want to go to my posts from a few months ago, I > explained what I meant. Briefly, I do not believe that precise mapping > of my mind at synapse level is needed to reconstruct my subjective > experience. Most of my base-level sensory and other percepts are > generic - therefore, you could for example use a generic visual > cortex, maybe with a few tweaks, instead of an exact copy of mine, and > the resulting mental imagery would be sufficiently close to claim > functional equivalence. Extending this reasoning to the whole brain > means using a very generic human brain with a thin veneer of You assume there's an Everyman template, and that the diffs across human population are are negligible. I'm not going to buy that without a lot of evidence. > personalization, similar to describing an individual human genome in > terms of a small list of deviations from a reference human genome, > which does offer a few orders of magnitude savings on storage space. I agree that one can derive a somewhat (though perhaps not dramatically, the connectome is not the genome) more compact representaion that is isofunctional in respect to external and internal experience, and one that needs to be co-evolved for the particular hardware target. However, even if this could be done, you will still need the delta to Everyman, and that one will a veritable torrent of data from the destructive scanner, and a Humongous Buffer to store it for processing. I would be interesting to see how much compression starting with raw voxelset we can get. Arguably wavelet can give you at least 1:10 if not 1:100 (though latter could introduce enough artifacts to throw a monkeywrence into the feature segmentation), and the trace will be even much more compact. However, I think you will need the fully annotated feature trace at least at 1-5 nm (with the annotation potentially derived from selective sampling to much higher resolution) as a point of departure for these hypothetical more compact representations. And I feel that encoding will be quite computation-intensive/ time consuming (but highly paralellizable). From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 28 17:11:27 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:11:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? Message-ID: Because of improvements in technology, in particular hydraulic fracturing that gets light oil and gas from shale, the Paris based International Energy Agency says: "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largestglobal oil producer overtaking Saudi Arabia [...] The result is a continued fall in US oil imports, to the extent that North America becomes a net oil exporter around 2030. [...] The United States, which currently imports around 20% of its total energy needs, becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms ? a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy- importing countries." For more see: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sun Apr 28 17:25:40 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:25:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> Message-ID: <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> On 4/28/2013 10:01 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On 29/04/2013, at 1:14 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> >> No, No, No. You guys still aren't getting it. Let me try, yet again, in hopefully a better and more complete (thanks to your continued help) way of describing what I believe. >> >> This 'third' class of possibilities you are talking about is obviously accepted by everyone I know to be absurd. Yet everyone in your camp seems to spend all their time fighting this strawman, as if everyone was giving it serious consideration. James Carroll wrote and published an entire paper fighting this straw man 'third' class of epiphenomena possibilities idea. You guys need to stop making fun of everyone not in your camp, as if they are talking about this 'third' class of possibilities. Including things where you don't notice fading qualia, or any other kind of" epiphenomena" that has no causal correlate in reality. >> >> (Note: Since I mentioned James Carroll, and his paper, and since I'd like his input on this, I've CCed him. And I've CCed Steven Lehar, in case we can get some of his always brilliant feedback on this epiphenomena issue.) >> >> Even Chalmers wastes a huge portion of the words in the paper focusing on this absurd idea that nobody thinks is in any way important or credible, or worth wasting time on. Because chalmers wastes so much time on this possobility, everyone redicules it as if he does give it serious consideration. All this is so frustrating. That is why Canonizer.com is so important, so everyone doesn't waste their time on arguments like this, which nobody takes as a serious possibility. >> >> If anyone here is giving this 'third' epiphenomenal class of possibilities any serious consideration, please speak up now, so we can quickly nip any such absurd idea in the bud, sufficiently so we don't have to return to it, yet again. Either way, will all of you stop assuming I do believe in this epiphenomena possibility, and arguing against it, assuming you are refuting my working hypothesis by doing so. >> >> Property Dualism theories are predicting that there is very real causal properties to a redness qualia, and that through these causal properties, they have a huge influence in the world, through our consciousness. >> >> Property Dualism is also predicting that these causal properties of redness are some necessary and sufficient subset of the causal properties we already fully understand, at least abstractly and behaviorally (just not yet qualitatively). We are not predicting there is some additional new magic, quantum, or whatever causal properties that just haven't been discovered yet. >> >> The qualitative natures of these causal properties, suffer from the 'quale interpretation problem', making them blind to traditional cause and effect based observation, because, by definition, all such observation involves multiple arbitrary mediums, being interpreted as something they are not in some abstracted way (requiring interpretation). And if you don't know how to properly interpret that something is representing a redness qualitative nature, you will be blind to it, while still getting the abstracted and or behavioral information they are being properly interpreted as representing. >> >> The system will be aware of the phenomenal qualities of both redness and greenness, and it will be saying glutamate (or some Functionally active pattern, or whatever you predict are the neural correlates of redness) is the only thing that has a redness quality to it. In other words, when you look at the system, via abstracting cause and effect based observation, all you will see is a high fidelity detector of glutamate, that picks it, because of the causal properties of glutamate. Nothing else but real glutamate will produce a "yes, that has my redness quality" abstracted response. >> >> Of course, you will be able to implement some additional hardware in the system, such as something that will communicate to the system that knows what a redness quality is like, and you could do something like, wire it so that it knows that this other thing is a greenness quality, (or worse some abstracted set of bits, like 0xFF0000, that is meant to be interpreted as if it has a redness quality (in addition to interpreting as if it is the abstract idea of 'red') despite the fact that it, by definition, does not have the redness quality. >> >> Only when you do obviously lying and blatant enginered interpretation of things that do not have a redness quality, as if they are something that does have a redness quality, will you be able to get the entire system to start behaving in a way that can be interpreted as if it really is aware of both the qualitative nature of it's knowledge, and the abstracted nature. All of this will have profound and obvious 'interpretations' being made, and have huge effects on what it will be like, subjectively, and qualitatively, for the system - all producing very different behavioral responses. >> >> Another critically important issue is how property dualism is predicting this stuff can be effed, in various strong and week ways. In other words, once you know the necessary and sufficient causal properties that reliably produce a redness quality, you will then know how to interpret the abstract informaiton of the behavior you are observing. This grounding of the symbols will then let you know the qualitative nature of the redness quality (and it's neural correlate causal properties), and not just the abstracted and behavior idea of 'red'. To say nothing of the stronger means of effing the ineffable, where two hemispheres, or two brains, are aware of the same causal properties that is behaving the way it does, because of the ineffable qualitative nature it has, which we can experience. >> >> And, the prediction is, as I believe Stathis has admitted. Once you replace significant portions of the brain (way more than just one neuron) with some quite sophisticated interpretation hardware which can interpret a serious of ones and zeros that by definition do not have a redness quality to them, as one that does, you will never be able to eff, or know that the ephiphinomena only you guys think others think could exist epiphinominally with such. All of this will have effing profound and obvious causal and subjective behavior, as you attempt the neural substitution. >> >> Can we now drop the worthless epiphenomena issue, once and for all, and stop wasting everyone's time and assuming anyone that thinks different than you is wrong because you think they believe in such, and from now on focus on what is important? And that is what is the set of causal (or informational?) properties that has the redness quality we experience, which we represent and choose abstract information like 'red' with because of it's qualitative nature? > Brent, I'm not sure what you are calling the "third possibility" and "epiphenomena", but I guess you don't believe that the qualia can fade without you noticing, and I guess you don't believe that the qualia can fade with you noticing but being unable to change your behaviour. Good! So since your behaviour cannot change due to the replacement you must agree that the qualia must be preserved. > > Having gone through this many times, I suspect that the real problem is that you still don't understand why your behaviour can't change due to the replacement, even though you agree that the behavioural properties of the brain are computable. Am I right in this? > Hi Stathis, Thanks for putting so much effort towards this, and I apologize that I still, despite significant progress thanks to everyone's help, have so much difficultly communicating. Yes, I don't believe that "qualia can fade without you noticing" and that it will not be possible for you to notice, without changing your behavior, or any other way qualitative natures are disconnected form consciousness, and it's underlying neural correlates. You still believe that my real problem is that I still don't understand why our behavior can't change due to the replacement. I fully understand all this, and you're still jumping back to a straw man that I also do not accept and agree with you. There is yet another option that you aren't fully getting yet, that is not anything like any of these epiphenomal qualities that are disconnected from reality. In this way, the qualities are very real, and they have very real causal properties. These causal properties are properties we already know, abstractly, all about it's behavior. We just don't know about it qualitative nature. We will think the system is detecting glutamate, merely because of it's causal behavior, when in fact, it is detecting it because of the qualitative nature, of which the causal behavior is a mere symptom, and all we know are abstracted interpretations of the same. Let me try to put it this way. James has admitted that an abstracted representation of the causal properties of glutamate is just something very different than the causal properties of glutamate, configured in a way so that these very different causal properties, can be interpreted as real glutamate. In other words, he has admitted that the map is not like the territory, other than it can be interpreted as such. Do you agree with that? And if you do, is it not a very real theoretical possibility, that the reason glutamate is behaving the way that it is, is because of it's redness quality. And also is not a very real possibility that the real glutamate has this ineffable quality (blind to abstracting observation or requires mapping back to the real thing) for which the abstracted representation of the same, though it can be interpreted as having it, doesn't really have it. Brent Allsop From anders at aleph.se Sun Apr 28 17:29:10 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:29:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital identity In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <517A422E.5070900@aleph.se> <517A50C7.8080509@aleph.se> <517A6E33.3060302@aleph.se> <517D0901.90305@aleph.se> Message-ID: <517D5C66.3020902@aleph.se> On 28/04/2013 16:32, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> I assume you are merely donning some fashionable cynicism here, rather than >> actually talking political science or sociology? >> > No. I have no wish to discuss politics, but I thought that it was > common knowledge that politicians are regarded as self-serving and > corrupt. They work for themselves and the bankers and corporation > lobbyists. > > If you dig a bit deeper the reality is far worse. > How can you tell when a politician is lying? > It's when they speak. OK, fashionable cynisism it is. You clearly have not interacted with governments and policymaking processes, so you do not know what to actually be critical about. So you just repeat popular sayings. >> If you believe influence scales linearly or superlinearly with available money, >> the governments will clearly be able to control the rich guys. > Heh! :) Tell that story to the unemployed and poor 99% of the population. I prefer to investigate things that matter. Even if 99% of people cannot understand power dynamics in social groups and how it affects them, it is still a relevant question. It is also worthwhile to consider corporations as agents with power and wealth. Again, many corporations have significant amounts of both, but the scaling of their actual social or political power does not appear to be proportional to the wealth. For example, consider how the software industry has historically been very weak in lobbying effectiveness compared to other industries. Overall, it is my considered opinion that power scales sublinearly in wealth. This might be because power itself seems to scale sublinearly when groups form, and that this is even deliberately built into many social systems. The reason is that the coalition of the most powerful agents is stabilized by this: otherwise the subset of the most powerful members of the coalition could pool their power and beat the rest. However, the zero-sum nature of social status and that access to important people is a finite resource (the president only gets 24 hours in a day even if he wants to talk to everybody) means that there are networking advantages that allow incumbents to retain their power or get things they like done by talking to people with executive power. > I think you underestimate the appeal of having your own Eden. Some > argue that could be the explanation for the Great Silence. Yes, and it is a pretty crazy explanation since it requires *everybody* and *everything* *everywhere* regardless of evolutionary and cultural background to decide on living in VR. Even if a tiny fraction do not go for Eden the explanation breaks. It needs a further argument why this never happens. >> The speed depends on available computer power, and this depends on the >> particular scenario. If the emulation technology arrives first, but >> computers are not yet cheap/fast enough uploads will be few and slow, >> gradually picking up speed. If you have hardware overhang due to late >> emulation technology, you get fast/many uploads quickly. > > Agreed it won't all happen overnight. The sequence is important. > But the first successful upload / AGI can immediately set about > improving the computer power and creating improved copies. How quick > and how many uploads get done is arguable. Improving computer power is an industry wide process, requiring at least the size of something like Intel (104,000 employees). Just making a hundred copies of an engineer is not going to cut it, especially since hardware improvement requires a very diverse skillset (the people who know how to crystalize semiconductors are separare from the people who understand mask design and the people who know processor architecture). And real improvements likely requires researching entirely new technologies. How long does it take to bring your skillset up to exotic solid state physics, plasmonics or spintronics? While hard takeoffs are a valid concern, I have always felt people underestimate the sheer amount of data/knowledge that needs to be learned in order to improve stuff. There is a reason for the division of labor, and I suspect even a bright AGI architecture will be data limited. Of course, once it has learned enough it might be able to copy itself or transfer skills, so I am not arguing that it will necessarily be as slow as humans. Even uploads might speed things up a lot by having multiplication of human capital. It is just that we not yet have a good way of estimating how quick "quick" is in realtime. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From rahmans at me.com Sun Apr 28 19:17:40 2013 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:17:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6D4FC794-CF36-4A3E-8FF5-077BEECEB066@me.com> Brent, You said: > Hi Bryan, > > Given this, it sounds like you think most people believe in some kind of > substance dualistic soul? I would agree that there is no evidence > supporting that and why I'm not in that minority camp. But while it is > true that a minority 6 of the 50 or so experts that have canonized their > views, are still in a substance dualism camp, there are 34 of 50, > including Dennett, Chalmers, Lehar, Hameroff, Smythies... and many > others not in this camp, You seem to be saying that Dennett is not a Substance Dualist. I'm with you this far. And you seem to be saying that Chalmers isn't a Substance Dualist. I think he would certainly call himself some sort of dualist. I'm not really familiar with the others so I will forego comment. > that all agree with the substance dualist on at > least the point that qualia like redness are the most important part of > consciousness. And half a sentence later Dennett has turned into into a Substance Dualist? I think not. As far as qualia go if you go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia and go to "critics of qualia" section you will find Daniel Dennett mentioned extensively and first. Brent you also said: > We know that we have things like a redness quale, a greenness quale that > we experience, and we know, more surely than we know anything, the > qualitative difference between them. The expert consensus nearly > unanimously (Notice that even Dennett's new camp now supports this > prediction: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21) agrees that these > qualities are qualities of something in our brain or qualities of the > final result of the perception process, not the initial cause. These > qualities suffer from the quale interpretation problem, which is why > they are blind to any non grounded, abstracting or cause and effect > based observation. (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/19 ). You take the existence of qualia as a given. I have extreme doubts about their existence, yet how could I doubt them if they were the primary objects of my consciousness? Do I have an 'anti-qualia quale' in my head? You now suggest that "even Dennett's new camp now supports this prediction" and refer us to your "canonizer" website which reads as of April 28th 2013: >> Dennett's Predictive Bayesian Coding Theory >> In 2012, at the "Evolution and Function of Consciousness" conference, the distinguished philosopher Daniel Dennett presented a talk where he talked about "The phenomenal access consciousness distinction". (Talk on YouTube). In that talk, he proposes that consciousness can be explained by ?predictive bayesian coding? or Bayes' theorem. >> Of course, the human brain is not literally aware of Bayes or his theorem, but we believe that Dennett is essentially asserting that existing techniques for predictive modeling, such as Bayesian inference methods, are sufficient to form consciousness, and that human consciousness is composed of processes that may be considered an analog or approximation of the more precisely correct Bayesian inference. In this camp, we support this notion. >> Although he acknowledges in that talk that there are compelling reasons that make people want dualism to be valid, he also asserts that he cannot really understand dualism. We also cannot understand dualism, and we assert that it is not possible to really understand and accept dualism. Dennett argues that Ned Block (a dualist) has inverted reasoning in that "he thinks ?phenomenal? consciousness is the causal bases of access consciousness while in fact it is an effect of access consciousness, not a cause!" (1:05:45). We also believe that 'phenomenal' things are emergent from consciousness, that nothing phenomenal is necessary to form consciousness, and that nothing phenomenal can exist outside of consciousness. While I do not know who wrote this text (Was it Dennett?) and I cannot affirm it's accuracy in all respects, in at least one thing it seems correct in identifying Dennett as not a Dualist. What the above text does not do, whoever wrote it, is support the existence of qualia. Brent, your 'cannonizer' website could be a wonderful thing if used as a map to follow to find thoughts and ideas. However, all you ever seem to use it for is as a club to bludgeon others into agreeing with you because of the 'expert consensus' behind some position. This is purely and simply: Appeal to Authority https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority > > And you still haven't answered my question. What, where, and how is a > redness quality, and what makes it different than a greenness quality? > > Brent Allsop I can answer that: The redness quality/quale is nothing, it is nowhere, and it happens nohow. The greenness quality/quale is different in that you buy it in green from 'Bed, Bath and Beyond Belief'. Qualia are basically the creatures of dualists like Chalmers who created his 'philosophical zombies' to try to prove dualism and the existence of qualia. Chalmers zombie argument as summarised at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie In the 'Responses' section you will find the page author's summarisation of Dennett's beliefs: >> Another response is denial of the idea that qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are in the first place coherent concepts. Daniel Dennett and others argue that while consciousness and subjective experience exist in some sense, they are not as the zombie argument proponent claims. The experience of pain, for example, is not something that can be stripped off a person's mental life without bringing about any behavioral or physiological differences. Dennett believes that consciousness is a complex series of functions and ideas. If we all can have these experiences the idea of the p-zombie is meaningless. >> Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition".[9][10] He coined the term zimboes (p-zombies that have second-order beliefs) to argue that the idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[11] "Zimboes thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer pains ? they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[10] Under (reductive) physicalism, one is inclined to believe either that anyone including oneself might be a zombie, or that no one can be a zombie ? following from the assertion that one's own conviction about being, or not being a zombie is (just) a product of the physical world and is therefore no different from anyone else's. P-zombies in an observed world would be indistinguishable from the observer, even hypothetically (when the observer makes no assumptions regarding the validity of their convictions). Furthermore, when concept of self is deemed to correspond to physical reality alone (reductive physicalism), philosophical zombies are denied by definition. When a distinction is made in one's mind between a hypothetical zombie and oneself (assumed not to be a zombie), the hypothetical zombie, being a subset of the concept of oneself, must entail a deficit in observables (cognitive systems), a "seductive error"[10] contradicting the original definition of a zombie. Appeal to authority is an erroneous form of argument in the first place but, if you are citing authorities who, very convincingly and coherently in the case of Dennett, argue against your position you are compounding your error. My own take on things is: (a biologist could divide this up more elegantly but...) Evolution means that those that survive are able to reproduce. Reproduction is a form of stability, especially in single celled organisms, but genetic errors occur and changes are made by the external environment on the individual. Phototropism and other reactions to the environment enabled some organisms to survive and reproduce. Gradually our neurological systems increased in complexity through a great many steps as we (by we here I mean life in general) reacted to more and more stimuli. Sexual reproduction, with it's inherent need for 'others', threw our 'reacting to others in the environment' thing into high gear. Steps, steps, steps.... 'Consciousness' (a much maligned term but I will use it...) 'Consciousness' is a perception system reacting to itself reacting to the environment. The evolutionary path that has led to us is clear in retrospect but we should acknowledge that it wasn't predestined, intelligence may or may not be the 'end goal' of the universe. A quotation from Dennett, ?The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it! It's rather like getting tenure.? (source: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1387.Daniel_C_Dennett ) So many of us live 'up in our heads' that we almost disregard our physical reality, hence the fantasies of religion and dualism that offer some illusionary non-physical essence or survival. If we survive long enough our 'next step or steps' will also seem clear in retrospect. We are probably at an evolutionary branching point of 1) biological immortals, 2) mechanical immortals, 3) hybrid immortals For me the interesting question is: what is after intelligence? Are we as far from it as some phototropic organism is from us? Is it just around the corner? Is there a qualitative difference between phototropism, intelligence, and 'the after intelligence thing'? I'll leave you with something about the two slit experiment with a provocative title: The Quantum Conspiracy: What Popularizers of QM Don't Want You to Know by Ron Garret http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc It's an hour long or so with the interesting conclusions at about the 53 minute mark. My take away from it was, among other things, that quantum entanglement is observation and that observation on the quantum level changes wave behaviour to particle behaviour. I'd be interested to know if Mr. Garret's math holds up and what people think of his conclusions. To those who made it this far you have my appreciation and sincere desire for comments, criticisms, and corrections. Regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 28 21:49:28 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:49:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1367185768.55412.YahooMailClassic@web165006.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Brent Allsop wrote: > James has admitted that an abstracted > representation of the causal properties of glutamate is just something > very different than the causal properties of glutamate, configured in a > way so that these very different causal properties, can be interpreted > as real glutamate. In other words, he has admitted that the map is not > like the territory, other than it can be interpreted as such. I thought it worth commenting that many people use this 'the map is not the territory' analogy as though it was accurately representing what uploading would accomplish. But it's an incomplete analogy. It would be more accurate to say that the map, while not being the territory, can be used (provided it's detailed enough) to create another territory identical to the first, maybe with different building-blocks. Ben Zaiboc From spike at rainier66.com Sun Apr 28 23:10:47 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:10:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Gordon wrote: >.I've heard another theory that the attackers are trying to push prices down in order to buy low and sell high after they stop the attacks, but I'm not sure that makes sense, either. Why would someone who is fundamentally bullish on bitcoins try to hurt the credibility of the market? How do we know the attackers are fundamentally bullish on bitcoins? Also: there are plenty of traders who have much to lose if bitcoin gains credibility. They might invest much in causing other investors to lose confidence in it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sun Apr 28 23:25:34 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:25:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: <1367185768.55412.YahooMailClassic@web165006.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1367185768.55412.YahooMailClassic@web165006.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <517DAFEE.5030609@canonizer.com> Hi Ben, Thanks for pointing that out Ben, so we can be completely clear that I 100% agree with what you are saying. In every possible way, you can configure something (if you have enough of it) in such a way, that it can be interpreted (if you know how to properly interpret it), at least abstractly, as the other. All I'm trying to point out is that there is a very real theoretical possibility, that this is critically important to what the qualitative natures of consciousness are like. Ben, can I ask you a question, within your current working hyupothoses, does a redness quaqle have any causal properties in realty? Or in other words, what might the necessary and sufficient neural correlates be, such that if you abstractly observe such, you can reliably know that someone is experiencing your elemental redness quale? And how and why would the same be different for an elemental greenness quality? Brent Allsop On 4/28/2013 3:49 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > >> James has admitted that an abstracted >> representation of the causal properties of glutamate is just something >> very different than the causal properties of glutamate, configured in a >> way so that these very different causal properties, can be interpreted >> as real glutamate. In other words, he has admitted that the map is not >> like the territory, other than it can be interpreted as such. > > I thought it worth commenting that many people use this 'the map is not the territory' analogy as though it was accurately representing what uploading would accomplish. But it's an incomplete analogy. It would be more accurate to say that the map, while not being the territory, can be used (provided it's detailed enough) to create another territory identical to the first, maybe with different building-blocks. > > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 28 23:53:01 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:53:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1367193181.21683.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> spike,? ? ?>How do we know the attackers are fundamentally bullish on bitcoins? ? According to the theory I heard, they disrupt the market to cause the price to decline, then buy coins with the hope that the price will rise even after they've damaged the credibility of the market. That requires a very bullish outlook. There are one or two small?exchanges experimenting with ways for bears to make money on price declines, but I don't think there is yet a way to short bitcoins in any meaningful way. This will change soon, however, as venture capital is flowing to a new exchange that will?facilitate?short sales. > Also: ?there are plenty of traders who have much to lose if bitcoin gains credibility. ?They might invest much in causing other investors to lose confidence in it. Who are they? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 01:22:59 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:22:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 1:43 AM, Gordon wrote: > > Who is attacking Bitcoin, and why? > Any government with an interest in continuing governmental monopoly on the money supply is a suspect. How can you do unlimited quantitative easing with stuff like this out there? The governments of the world can't do what they tried in Cyprus, but they can accomplish the same thing by diluting the money supply over time. But it is harder to do that when there are viable alternatives. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 01:43:04 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:43:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Kelly, > Yes, me fully understanding you, and having the ability to talk from > within your world view is critical to me being able to communicate to you, > so I appreciate your patience with my attempts to better understand your > working hypothesis. > Ok, I'll keep going then... :-) But still, the map is only like the territory, to the degree that you are > interpreting it as such. > Second Life is new territory. It is not a map of this world, it is a new and different world that only has some similarities to this world. A simulated brain might not have exactly the same internal experience in some fashion, but if it has identical outputs for identical inputs to a real brain, then is there really any difference that anyone outside of that brain should care about? > Also, it only hurts because there are still a few missing pieces in the > puzzle or theory that enables you to fully understand things. Once you > develop the appropriate models, everything suddenly makes sense, and > everything becomes easy (except trying to explain such to others that also > don't quite have a complete model.) > LOL. Sure, I can see that it is frustrating. > << > Again, I get the quale that you are talking in circles. > >> > > There are no circles at all in my model. > Ok, circles is a bit harsh. What I get from your description seems self consistent. It just doesn't track to my model. > It's all about what, where, and how is an elemental redness quale, and > what are the necessary and sufficient neural correlates, of such. What are > the necessary and sufficient conditions we must observe in someone's brain, > to reliably know and predict she is or isn't experiencing my redness > quale. Nothing circular in any of that. > Do you think you can tell if someone/something is or is not experiencing a quale from outside? If so how? > When I hear you try to describe your working models, all I see is a big > missing puzzle piece here. To me, you are the one talking in circles. You > say an elemental redness quale can 'arise' from a set of ones and zeros, > and to me that just sounds like "a miracle happens here" that can't be > explained, argument. > Can you explain how consciousness and qualia arise from collections of neurons? That is the closest thing to magic that I am aware of on this planet. If we get to the point of removing the magic and replacing that with science, then and only then will we know enough to determine what's happening inside of another sort of head. > Tell me, without being circular, how and why a redness quale can 'arize' > from a set of ones and zeros. And how is a particular set of ones and > zeros, from which a redness quale arises different from a set from which a > greenness quale arises. And most importantly, how are you going to come up > with a set of ones and zeros to come up with a new elemental quale you have > never experienced before? Your theory doesn't account for any of that at > all, that I can see. > Ok. Let me kind of back up and explain my view of it from the bottom up. The key element is emergence. When you put together a large number of similar simple parts following the same set of rules, sometimes you get emergent behavior. This is true of termite mounds, army ant colonies, neurons, economies, cities, biological evolution and many other things observable in the natural and also in the artificial worlds we create (Wikipedia being a nice example of the latter). Emergence is not magic, as we see it happen all the time. However, it is mysterious because we don't have rules that tell us how to set up rules that create emergent behaviors of a type we desire. There is no base theory for emergence. We just notice it when it is there. In that sense, it is similar to mathematical chaos, which other than requiring non-linear systems, is not highly predictable, and is also difficult to differentiate from randomness, which is different. So there are realms where chaos reigns, realms where randomness reigns, realms with too much order to be interesting, and the border between these realms seems to be where emergence reigns, and all of the stuff we all find very interesting really happens. Just because there is no predictive science behind emergence doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, just that we can't predict when it will occur. I can't predict when qualia will arise from emulated brains, or from brains that are based on a wholly different architecture. I can tell you that such emergence is likely to occur at some point, and that the results of it will likely surprise us all. As a computer scientist, I understand that programs often surprise their writers. Especially in the areas of AI. It is not an exact science, but should we really expect it to be? If this strikes you as magical thinking, then so be it. But I see most of the beauty in the world arising from emergence. I see no reason this should not continue to be the case in the future. Perhaps people don't have enough capacity to understand how we ourselves actually work. There are likely things the human mind is simply unprepared to cogitate upon. Or, maybe we just have to learn more. In any case, I look forward to a future where we know more about the mysteries that lie at the heart of nature. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pemca at comcast.net Sun Apr 28 21:15:05 2013 From: pemca at comcast.net (Peter E McAlpine) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:15:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> Forget "peak oil" until all government hindrance of exploration and drilling is ended. From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2013 1:11 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? Because of improvements in technology, in particular hydraulic fracturing that gets light oil and gas from shale, the Paris based International Energy Agency says: "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest global oil producer overtaking Saudi Arabia [...] The result is a continued fall in US oil imports, to the extent that North America becomes a net oil exporter around 2030. [...] The United States, which currently imports around 20% of its total energy needs, becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms - a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy- importing countries." For more see: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 01:32:24 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:32:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop >... Hi Stathis, >...Thanks for putting so much effort towards this, and I apologize that I still, despite significant progress thanks to everyone's help, have so much difficulty communicating... Brent Allsop Brent there is nothing wrong with your communication skills. Qualia is (are?) a difficult concept. I have pondered the hell out of it and still don't feel like I have even suck at it. I would need to vastly improve and get a number of breakthrough insights on qualia to just suck. It isn't your fault: your favorite topic is just hard to grok. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 03:21:51 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:21:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424061022.GM15179@leitl.org> <1366785084.62600.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > The prediction is, you will not be able to replace any single neuron, or > even large sets of neurons that are the neural correlates of a redness > quality, without also replacing significant portions of the rest of the > system that is aware of what that redness experience is like. > Woah Brent, is this your prediction, or that of someone else? Replacing a single neuron is going to change the qualia of redness? Really? You can't replace a single neuron without losing something? You better not play soccer, you risk losing your consciousness. Saying something like this undercuts your credibility Brent. You absolutely can replace small parts of the brain without changing how the person feels. Ask anyone with a cochlear implant. This is a silly claim. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 03:27:58 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:27:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> References: <517B84C9.4070008@aleph.se> <517C27DB.2010300@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 1:32 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Obviously, all these are very testable, so it is only a matter of time > till science forces everyone into the same camp, where everyone can use the > resulting maps to correctly predict the relationship between all elemental > qualia our brain 'paints' our conscious knowledge with, and the underlying > causal properties of such. > I can't wait for that day. Because arguments without science behind them are just religion. And for the moment, this feels like a religious conversation. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 03:40:05 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:40:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> >> Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity theory >> and then claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is >> isomorphic to having your cake and eating it too. >> >> I don't want my upload to be identical to me. I want my upload to be a >> better me. That's why I call it transhumanism. Or am I missing something >> vital here? >> > > !!! > > By what means, then, can you call such an upload, your future self??? Because I change every day. That would just be one more such change. If I learn Chinese, do I stop being myself? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 03:44:33 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:44:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 8:35 PM, Gordon wrote: > Most of us here have probably heard of John Searle's famous (or infamous, > depending on your point of view) Chinese Room If the brain is not > intrinsically like a digital computer operating according to syntactical > rules of a program then for what reason to do we think we can make a > conscious brain on a digital computer? It seems to me that to make a > conscious brain, we must do something much closer to what nature has done. > Gordon, Maybe you are having trouble thinking that a serial implementation on a Von Neumann architecture can be conscious. I don't limit computer architecture to that, and indeed, a functional brain implemented in silicon is likely to have a huge number of CPUs just like the real brain. There is probably something about the timing of the brain function that would be difficult to fully implement on today's hardware architectures, especially in anything like real time. But computer architectures will evolve. Does that change your feeling on the subject at all? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 03:49:46 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:49:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1366967203.34576.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <01e801ce416c$673bf8a0$35b3e9e0$@rainier66.com> <1366865488.34612.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <005401ce41bb$51c444b0$f54cce10$@rainier66.com> <1366917189.99901.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1366928570.53094.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130426084000.GJ15179@leitl.org> <1366967203.34576.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:06 AM, Gordon wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 03:22:50PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > > >> I would like sometimes to shoot my stand-alone chess computer. It > sometimes > >> seems as if there is a cunning SOB living in that box. I think spike can > >> relate. But I also know it would not be murder. My chess computer is no > more > >> conscious than a rock. > > > I guess it's okay if an autonomous drone murders you, then. > > Or is it the operator? Or the maker? Or the developer? > > It's the human computer operator in that case. He or she wants me dead. > But who/what is operating my chess computer when I want to shoot it dead? I > think I am the computer operator, but I suppose the human developers and > manufacturers are complicit. My chess computer is no more than a blind > unconscious tool that I am using against myself for the sport of it. > Nah, it's the cadre of lawyers, politicians and the president standing behind the operator that said it was OK to fire that are responsible. Perhaps responsibility for this sort of thing is distributed... :-) -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 03:43:05 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:43:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The size of individual self In-Reply-To: <20130428164833.GW15179@leitl.org> References: <20130428164833.GW15179@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > I would be interesting to see how much compression starting with > raw voxelset we can get. Arguably wavelet can give you at least 1:10 > if not 1:100 (though latter could introduce enough artifacts to > throw a monkeywrence into the feature segmentation), and the > trace will be even much more compact. However, I think you will need > the fully annotated feature trace at least at 1-5 nm (with the annotation > potentially derived from selective sampling to much higher resolution) > as a point of departure for these hypothetical more compact > representations. And I feel that encoding will be quite computation-intensive/ > time consuming (but highly paralellizable). ### Yes, the process of generating a compact representation from scanning data is likely to be very computationally intensive, involving detailed synapse-level modeling of function, to extract the important details. By important details I mean the kind of declarative memory engrams that let me construct my individual high level mental imagery (e.g a girl named Marzena I interacted with some years ago) from primitives (a compact mental representation of her face using links to lists of relative distances between facial landmarks plus a lot of other specialized encodings we use to store information about persons and to connect them with a time-stamped narrative of our existence). There may be billions of synapses involved in generating the specific mental representation of Marzena in my currently existing mind but an uploaded and compacted version might do with some very short lists of links to standard face- and person-representations. I am assuming here that a hierarchical temporal memory model of our mind is largely correct, and it relies on the generation of multiple hierarchical lists of various features of the experienced world. The vast majority of these lists are very similar between most or many people - the lists of spatially oriented lines in my V1 area are equivalent to lists in the minds of all non-blind people, the lists I use to recognize English words are shared with most English-speaking persons, etc. etc. Only a small fraction of these lists, describing my biographical memory, are truly unique and grafting these individual lists on standardized mental modules should yield subjective experience not appreciably different from mine (including e.g. all the reactions and associations that might be evoked by an email from an old flame). This means going far beyond compacting a scanned document as an image, it's more like reading a book and producing a precis. Sort of like Cliff's notes for the soul. Rafal From ALONZOTG at verizon.net Mon Apr 29 04:08:28 2013 From: ALONZOTG at verizon.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:08:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> Message-ID: <517DF23C.1030103@verizon.net> Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Alan Grimes > wrote: > > Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > Furthermore, claiming identity based on pattern identity > theory > and then claiming the ability to make whole-sale changes is > isomorphic to having your cake and eating it too. > > I don't want my upload to be identical to me. I want my upload > to be a better me. That's why I call it transhumanism. Or am I > missing something vital here? > > > !!! > > By what means, then, can you call such an upload, your future self??? > > > Because I change every day. That would just be one more such change. > If I learn Chinese, do I stop being myself? > > -Kelly Don't try to confuse the issue. We are not talking about learning X, with it's attendant synaptic changes, we are talking about making arbitrary changes to a mindfile while simultaneously claiming that the integrity of the mindfile is the basis of identity. -- NOTICE: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS, SEE ABOVE Powers are not rights. From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 04:51:26 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:51:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainie r66.com> Message-ID: <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike -----Original Message----- [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop >>...Thanks for putting so much effort towards this, and I apologize that >I still, despite significant progress thanks to everyone's help, have so much difficulty communicating... Brent Allsop >...Brent there is nothing wrong with your communication skills. Qualia is (are?) a difficult concept. I have pondered the hell out of it and still don't feel like I have even suck at it. I would need to vastly improve and get a number of breakthrough insights on qualia to just suck. It isn't your fault: your favorite topic is just hard to grok. spike _______________________________________________ I have been pondering why it is that qualia is (are?) difficult to understand, and I now have the insight: it is because there are no equations. The classic figurative notion for a complicated concept is "rocket science." But I would argue that rocket science is not hard to understand at all: it is so completely mapped out with equations, every bit of it, end to end, that it is extremely understandable. All you need to do is get those equations, and now we have our astonishingly powerful mathematical toolkit to bear on it: we can completely understand rocket science well enough to fire a rocket and know right where it is going to land on a planet millions of km away months from now. Rocket science is not at all mysterious, not even so much as what is causing our honeybees to decline. We have equations to describe it all. Qualia has (have?) no equations, so I just stand here on the ground flapping my arms. If qualia get (gets?) mathematized, we rocket scientists will mount up on wings as eagles, soar with the winds on that topic. Until then, just useless arm flapping. spike From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 29 05:18:07 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:18:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> References: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 05:15:05PM -0400, Peter E McAlpine wrote: > Forget "peak oil" until all government hindrance of exploration and drilling > is ended. Peak oil was 2006. Peak total fossil and nuclear fuel and is 2020. Look at the well drill rate and well decay rate for unconventional oil and gas (~40%/year), look at the rising costs, dropping EROEI and draw your own conclusions. Hint: "government hindrance" has zero squat to do with why this thing will be over shortly. If there is no plan B I'm afraid you'll be hurting plenty, soon. > > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark > Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2013 1:11 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? > > > > Because of improvements in technology, in particular hydraulic fracturing > that gets light oil and gas from shale, the Paris based International Energy > Agency says: > > "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest global > oil producer overtaking Saudi Arabia [...] The result is a continued fall in > US oil imports, to the extent that North America becomes a net oil exporter > around 2030. [...] The United States, which currently imports around 20% of > its total energy needs, becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms - a > dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy- importing > countries." > > > > For more see: > > http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf > > John K Clark > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 29 05:08:50 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:08:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <51738052.5030801@verizon.net> <517444B7.3090609@canonizer.com> <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <001201ce405f$1719ca40$454d5ec0$@rainier66.com> <1366782060.18718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1367212130.15877.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> ?Kelly Anderson wrote: > Gordon, Maybe you are having trouble thinking that a serial implementation on a Von Neumann architecture can be conscious. I don't limit computer architecture to that, and indeed, a functional brain? implemented in silicon is likely to have a huge number of CPUs just like the real brain. There is probably something about the timing of the brain function that would be difficult to fully implement on today's hardware architectures, especially in anything like real time. But computer architectures will evolve. Does that change your feeling on the subject at all?< I think computer architectures will need to evolve a great deal to achieve what organic brains can do. They won't be recognizable as digital computers. They won't be digital software/hardware platforms. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 29 05:27:46 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:27:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1367212130.15877.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <004901ce4116$96630200$c3290600$@rainier66.com> <5178C0C5.9040400@verizon.net> <517997AB.4030900@verizon.net> <5179BCF8.9080001@aleph.se> <5179CFE6.8010201@verizon.net> <1366943744.64327.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367212130.15877.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130429052746.GE8102@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 10:08:50PM -0700, Gordon wrote: > I think computer architectures will need to evolve a great deal to achieve what organic brains can do. They will. > They won't be recognizable as digital computers. They won't be digital software/hardware platforms. All the prior work will be done on large scale conventional computers. They are functionally equivalent. There is fundamental difference. It's just a question of energy efficiency and speed why an all-purpose digital computer is not suitable for solid state minds. From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 05:47:52 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:47:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Why We'll Never Meet Aliens Message-ID: Slashdot referenced an interesting blog post from Paul Tyma. Quote: Friday, April 26, 2013 Why We'll Never Meet Aliens If you combine all our current knowledge of statistics and astronomy, it's nearly comical to believe we're the only intelligent life in the universe. It's easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around - there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. Despite where this article might lead, it isn't really about science - its about thinking big. Big enough to consider that if there are any aliens with the ability to come visit us, they would almost assuredly not care to. ----------- His basic point is one that I think I have mentioned before. When a race reaches advanced tech to enable starships, it won't be the only tech they have. Science in every field will have advanced, including redesigning the species itself. We won't be talking about humans like us in starships as in StarTrek. *Everything* will have changed by then. It is an interesting article. Lots of speculation, of course, and lots to argue with! BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 06:11:44 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:11:44 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:32 AM, spike wrote: > Brent there is nothing wrong with your communication skills. Qualia is > (are?) a difficult concept. I have pondered the hell out of it and still > don't feel like I have even suck at it. I would need to vastly improve and > get a number of breakthrough insights on qualia to just suck. It isn't your > fault: your favorite topic is just hard to grok. Spike, It's difficult if you try to define or explain qualia. If you stick to a minimal operational definition - you know you have an experience when you have it - qualia are stupidly simple. The question is, if a part of your brain is replaced with an electronic component that reproduces the I/O behaviour of the biological tissue (something that engineers can measure and understand), will you continue to have the same experiences or not? If not, that would lead to what Brent has admitted is an absurd situation. Therefore the qualia, whatever the hell they are, must be reproduced if the observable behaviour of the neural tissue is reproduced. No equations, but no complex theories of consciousness or attempts to define the ineffable either. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 29 06:25:15 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:25:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 04:11:44PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > It's difficult if you try to define or explain qualia. If you stick to Then there is something quite severely wrong with the term. > a minimal operational definition - you know you have an experience > when you have it - qualia are stupidly simple. The question is, if a > part of your brain is replaced with an electronic component that > reproduces the I/O behaviour of the biological tissue (something that > engineers can measure and understand), will you continue to have the > same experiences or not? If not, that would lead to what Brent has > admitted is an absurd situation. Therefore the qualia, whatever the > hell they are, must be reproduced if the observable behaviour of the > neural tissue is reproduced. No equations, but no complex theories of > consciousness or attempts to define the ineffable either. Qualia are an internal view of a measurement process. I don't understand why people raise such a ruckus about so trivial a thing, which is an emergent property of a particular type of physical systems. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 29 06:27:14 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:27:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> References: <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130429062714.GH8102@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 04:10:47PM -0700, spike wrote: > How do we know the attackers are fundamentally bullish on bitcoins? Also: > there are plenty of traders who have much to lose if bitcoin gains > credibility. They might invest much in causing other investors to lose > confidence in it. spike There are easy ways to make money on the lag if you're the one producing it. From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 07:01:52 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:01:52 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> References: <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 4:25 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 04:11:44PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> It's difficult if you try to define or explain qualia. If you stick to > > Then there is something quite severely wrong with the term. > >> a minimal operational definition - you know you have an experience >> when you have it - qualia are stupidly simple. The question is, if a >> part of your brain is replaced with an electronic component that >> reproduces the I/O behaviour of the biological tissue (something that >> engineers can measure and understand), will you continue to have the >> same experiences or not? If not, that would lead to what Brent has >> admitted is an absurd situation. Therefore the qualia, whatever the >> hell they are, must be reproduced if the observable behaviour of the >> neural tissue is reproduced. No equations, but no complex theories of >> consciousness or attempts to define the ineffable either. > > Qualia are an internal view of a measurement process. > > I don't understand why people raise such a ruckus about > so trivial a thing, which is an emergent property of > a particular type of physical systems. The peculiar thing about qualia is that you can understand everything objectively about how they are generated but still have no idea what they are like, like a blind man who is a scientific expert on vision. But this, in itself, does not mean that qualia are magical or not reproducible by a computer. -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 29 09:51:06 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:51:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1367229066.20691.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I think all this talk about qualia is pretty pointless when you finally realize that as far as we know, only organic brains, or synthetic organic brains, are possibly able to make them. How do we?synthesize?the?biological?processes?of a brain? That is the question. I don't think it will happen with microchips or digital computers. It's probably way harder than that. We need to understand the brain before we can hope to duplicate one. It's pretty naive, I think, to suppose that we can create one even before we know how they work.? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 12:01:52 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:01:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:51 AM, spike wrote: > I have been pondering why it is that qualia is (are?) difficult to > understand, and I now have the insight: it is because there are no > equations. I gave up on "qualia" a while ago. I assume at this point that it's a particular shade of red unicorn. Watching conversation about qualia is painful. It's like asking high school physics students to disassemble objects to retrieve the center of gravity from them. Very involved processes to "find" the center of gravity are devised. Complex cutting is employed to slice away everything that isn't the center of gravity. Extremely sensitive scales are used to weigh each candidate. In the end everyone is angry but nobody can find it. I do appreciate that 'quale' is homophonic with 'quail' because homophones are generally amusing. From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 12:53:25 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:53:25 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:51 AM, spike wrote: >> I have been pondering why it is that qualia is (are?) difficult to >> understand, and I now have the insight: it is because there are no >> equations. > > I gave up on "qualia" a while ago. I assume at this point that it's a > particular shade of red unicorn. > > Watching conversation about qualia is painful. It's like asking high > school physics students to disassemble objects to retrieve the center > of gravity from them. Very involved processes to "find" the center of > gravity are devised. Complex cutting is employed to slice away > everything that isn't the center of gravity. Extremely sensitive > scales are used to weigh each candidate. In the end everyone is angry > but nobody can find it. > > I do appreciate that 'quale' is homophonic with 'quail' because > homophones are generally amusing. It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? -- Stathis Papaioannou From pemca at comcast.net Mon Apr 29 12:28:13 2013 From: pemca at comcast.net (Pete McAlpine) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:28:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> References: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> Message-ID: <000501ce44d5$0e901710$2bb04530$@comcast.net> Nonsense! The drill rate is at least partially determined by government dictat! Absurd to deny it! -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 1:18 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 05:15:05PM -0400, Peter E McAlpine wrote: > Forget "peak oil" until all government hindrance of exploration and > drilling is ended. Peak oil was 2006. Peak total fossil and nuclear fuel and is 2020. Look at the well drill rate and well decay rate for unconventional oil and gas (~40%/year), look at the rising costs, dropping EROEI and draw your own conclusions. Hint: "government hindrance" has zero squat to do with why this thing will be over shortly. If there is no plan B I'm afraid you'll be hurting plenty, soon. > > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John > Clark > Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2013 1:11 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? > > > > Because of improvements in technology, in particular hydraulic > fracturing that gets light oil and gas from shale, the Paris based > International Energy Agency says: > > "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest > global oil producer overtaking Saudi Arabia [...] The result is a > continued fall in US oil imports, to the extent that North America > becomes a net oil exporter around 2030. [...] The United States, > which currently imports around 20% of its total energy needs, becomes > all but self-sufficient in net terms - a dramatic reversal of the > trend seen in most other energy- importing countries." > > > > For more see: > > http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.p > df > > John K Clark > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 deimtee at optusnet.com.au Mon Apr 29 14:16:30 2013 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (david) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:16:30 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130430001630.6b51a883@jarrah> On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:53:25 +1000 Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Mike Dougherty snip. > > I do appreciate that 'quale' is homophonic with 'quail' because > > homophones are generally amusing. > > It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? Do you mean experience as a verb, or experience as a noun? -David. From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 15:43:49 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:43:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> References: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 1:18 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Peak oil was 2006. > I don't think so, in 2006 the world produced 71,846,100 barrels of oil a day, in 2011 it produced 72,888,600. And in the USA the situation is much more dramatic, oil production rose more than half a million barrels per day between 2007 and 2011 to the highest level in 15 years. And natural gas liquids reached a new all time record of 2.18 million barrels per day in 2011, a increase of 400,000 barrels per day since 2007. But all that was just up to 2011, will the trend continue? Nobody knows for sure about 2013 because it hasn't happened yet but in 2012 oil production increased by 760,000 barrels a day, the largest yearly increase since records about oil production started in 1859. > Peak total fossil and nuclear fuel and is 2020. > EUGEN, I'm surprised at you! I thought we weren't supposed to utter the forbidden "n" word! > I'm afraid you'll be hurting plenty, soon. > Afraid? Eugen, I have the distinct impression that if you don't see us hurting pretty soon from energy starvation as just punishment for our previous extravagant ways in a sort of half-assed morality play you will be severely disappointed. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Mon Apr 29 16:01:49 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:01:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Spike, Yes, you've got it. (qualia is plural, for all of them, and quale is singular for just one, like elemental redness) Qualia are not quantitative, they are qualitative. So you don't describe them with equations, you simply discover and build a map of which physics it is, in which state, (if you are a material fundamentalist. or what information it arises from, if an information fundamentalist...) that have which qualitative properties. We just need to realize most of us are currently limited to 3 primary colors to paint our conscious knowledge with, but you can theoreize that maybe there are more crayons out there I could discover and paint an amplified conscious knowledge with, so what might those other colors be like? So you go out and discover thousands more, and then you have a lot more colorful diversity enabling you to paint knowledge of much more of the electromagnetic spectrum, and a lot of other things, with. To say nothing of what our limited effing sexual life, and so on, could become like, and so on. Kelly Anderson asked: <<< Can you explain how consciousness and qualia arise from collections of neurons? That is the closest thing to magic that I am aware of on this planet. If we get to the point of removing the magic and replacing that with science, then and only then will we know enough to determine what's happening inside of another sort of head. >>> We don't know why the laws of physics work the way they do, we just know that they do work this way. And the fact that we have discovered how this magic reality works is what enables Spike to design systems that can dance in the heavens. For all we know, there could be Gods out there pushing the planets around, and so on. Whatever this magic is, doesn't change what we need to do to dance in the hevans. Similarly, whatever it is that has a redness quality, we don't need to know why it has it, or why it arises from whatever it arises from, we just need to discover what it is that is responsible for each of them. So we can see how others conscious knowledge compares to our own by observing their knowledge, and so we can discover what other colors can arise from what else is out there, and so on. So we can start doing phenomenally godly things like expanding ourselves in the direction of becoming omni phenomenal. Is there an infinite number of different crayons to be discovered? Boy, what would a picture with all that be like? Or, just as there is a limited number of elements, are there a limited number of elemental phenomenal qualities correlated to sets of them? Obviously science has an answer for such questions just waiting for us to discover. We just first need to know what to look for (qualities), where to look for them (not on the surface of the strawberry, or in the light...) and how to effing look for them (not thinking that something has a 'grey' quality, just because it is 'grey matter' reflecting grey light). The rest should be easy, we are already way beyond the technology we need, I think. It's all just an effing communication problem. Brent Allsop On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 10:51 PM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike > > -----Original Message----- > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop > > >>...Thanks for putting so much effort towards this, and I apologize that > >I still, despite significant progress thanks to everyone's help, have so > much difficulty communicating... Brent Allsop > > > >...Brent there is nothing wrong with your communication skills. Qualia is > (are?) a difficult concept. I have pondered the hell out of it and still > don't feel like I have even suck at it. I would need to vastly improve and > get a number of breakthrough insights on qualia to just suck. It isn't > your > fault: your favorite topic is just hard to grok. spike > _______________________________________________ > > > I have been pondering why it is that qualia is (are?) difficult to > understand, and I now have the insight: it is because there are no > equations. > > The classic figurative notion for a complicated concept is "rocket > science." > But I would argue that rocket science is not hard to understand at all: it > is so completely mapped out with equations, every bit of it, end to end, > that it is extremely understandable. All you need to do is get those > equations, and now we have our astonishingly powerful mathematical toolkit > to bear on it: we can completely understand rocket science well enough to > fire a rocket and know right where it is going to land on a planet millions > of km away months from now. Rocket science is not at all mysterious, not > even so much as what is causing our honeybees to decline. We have > equations > to describe it all. > > Qualia has (have?) no equations, so I just stand here on the ground > flapping > my arms. If qualia get (gets?) mathematized, we rocket scientists will > mount up on wings as eagles, soar with the winds on that topic. Until > then, > just useless arm flapping. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 17:13:38 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:13:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Is there an infinite number of different crayons to be discovered? Boy, > what would a picture with all that be like? Or, just as there is a limited > number of elements, are there a limited number of elemental phenomenal > qualities correlated to sets of them? ### Yes, most likely there are more qualia referring to colors that could be discovered. We know that persons with various forms of color-blindness have fewer distinct qualia describing color. We know that the number of distinct color shades is determined by the properties of V2 thin stripes - and it would be surprising if the thin stripes of a non-color blind person happened to encode the maximum possible number of colors. Therefore, it is likely that some modification of the V2 and its inputs (e.g. adding another retinal pigment and increasing the bandwidth of color processing pathways in the LGN and V1) would yield superhuman numbers of qualia. Building a device capable of experiencing an infinite number of qualia might be however practically impossible, since this would require shuttling infinite amounts of information in a finite time and space. Rafal From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 17:34:49 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:34:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1367229066.20691.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <1367229066.20691.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 Gordon wrote: > I think all this talk about qualia is pretty pointless > For once we agree. The problem is that the qualia fans around here can't even explain the general sort of explanation they claim to be looking for. Suppose we say that A produced B and B produced C [...] and Y produced Z and Z produced qualia; well people on this list will say that explains nothing because Z is not qualia. There is no way to win that argument because no argument would satisfy them even in theory, so it's time to get out of that infinite loop and think about other things. > when you finally realize that as far as we know, only organic brains, or > synthetic organic brains, are possibly able to make them. > Brains? Why was that in the plural? > We need to understand the brain before we can hope to duplicate one. > Why? > It's pretty naive, I think, to suppose that we can create one even > before we know how they work. > People first created Aspirin and used it to relieve pain in 1897, but only in the last decade have we started to understand how it works. And people have been using hot things to give off light since the stone age, but it was only with Planck in 1900 did we figure out how that worked. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Mon Apr 29 17:50:05 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:50:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> Message-ID: Stathis Said: <<<< A volume of neural tissue in the visual cortex is replaced with a black box that reproduces the I/O behaviour at the interface with the surrounding neurons. Do you see how "reproduces the I/O behaviour at the interface with the surrounding neurons" means the subject must behave normally? >>>> Exactly. But if one box is representing the strawberries and leaves with inverted red green qualities, even though it is behaving exactly the same, this qualitative difference is all important to consciousness. I?ve attempted to describe one final key point, but you guys are providing lots of evidence that you still don?t get this one very important thing. This evidence includes when Kelly replied to my saying: <<<< The prediction is, you will not be able to replace any single neuron, or even large sets of neurons that are the neural correlates of a redness quality, without also replacing significant portions of the rest of the system that is aware of what that redness experience is like. >>>> With: <<<< Replacing a single neuron is going to change the qualia of redness? Really? You can't replace a single neuron without losing something? You better not play soccer, you risk losing your consciousness. Saying something like this undercuts your credibility Brent. You absolutely can replace small parts of the brain without changing how the person feels. Ask anyone with a cochlear implant. This is a silly claim. >>>> I also don?t think Stathis is fully understanding this. The following could be evidence for this when he responded to Spike with: <<<< It's difficult if you try to define or explain qualia. If you stick to a minimal operational definition - you know you have an experience when you have it - qualia are stupidly simple. The question is, if a part of your brain is replaced with an electronic component that reproduces the I/O behaviour of the biological tissue (something that engineers can measure and understand), will you continue to have the same experiences or not? If not, that would lead to what Brent has admitted is an absurd situation. Therefore the qualia, whatever the hell they are, must be reproduced if the observable behavior of the neural tissue is reproduced. No equations, but no complex theories of consciousness or attempts to define the ineffable either. >>>> So let me try to explain it in more detail to see if that helps. Let?s just imagine how the transmigration experiment would work in an idealized material property dualism theoretical world, even though reality is likely something different and more complex. In this idealized theoretical world, it is glutamate that has a redness quality. And this glutamate behaves the way it does, because of this redness quality. Also, imagine that there are multiple other neuro transmitters in this world that are like different color crayons. Brains in this word use these colorful neurotransmitters to paint qualitative conscious knowledge with. In a simplified way. Let?s also imagine that it is a single large neuron that is binding all these synapses representing voxel elements in a 3D space, so we can be aware of all of the colors all at once. If the upstream neurons fire glutamate, for that 3D element, this large binding neuron knows there is a redness quality at that particular location in 3D space. When another upstream neuron fires with another neurotransmitter it will know there is a leaf there, represented with its greenness quality, at the 3D pixel element representing a point on the surface of the leaf. In other words, all these crayons are just standing alone, unless there is also some system that is binding them all together, so we can be aware of all of them and their qualitative differences, at one time. When we look at only the behavior of this large binding neuron, and only think of it abstractly, this neuron which is able to tell you whether a particular neuro transmitter has a redness quality or not, will simply look like a high fidelity glutamate detector. Nothing but the glutamate will result in the neuron firing with the ?yes that is my redness quality? result. Now, within this theoretical world, think of the transmigration process when it replaces this one large binding neuron. Of course the argument admits that the original neuron can?t deal with being presented with ones and zeros. So, when it replaces the glutamate, with anything else, it specifies that you also need to replace the neuron detecting the glutamate, with something else that includes the translation hardware, that is interpreting the specific set of ones and zeros that is representing glutamate, as the real thing. And this virtual neuron only gives the ?yes that is my redness? when this predefined set of ones and zeros is present. In other words, when people think about this transmigration argument of replacing one neuron at a time in this way, they are explicitly throwing out and ignoring what is important to the ?that is real glutamate? detecting system. They are ignoring the additional hardware system that is required that binds all this stuff together, so we can be aware of redness, at the same time as we are aware of greenness, so we can say, yes they are the same, or no, they are qualitatively different. If a single neuron is what our brain uses to detect glutamate (or whatever it is that is the neural correlate of redness), then you can see the obvious fallacy in the transmigration thought experiment. And it is also theoretically possible, that it is more than just a single neuron that is involved in the process of detecting the causal properties of glutamate, so that this system only says ?That is my redness?, only if it is real glutamate (or whatever it is that really is responsible for a redness quality). And not until you replace the entire binding system, which is the complex process of detecting real glutamate, with an abstracted version which can interpret a specific set of ones and zeros, as if it were the same as glutamate, will it finally start behaving the same. And of course, there will be lots of fading quale, as lots of single neurons are placed in between these two states. Additionally, unlike the real thing, you will never be able to ?eff? to know if the abstracted stuff, which is something very different than redness, only being interpreted as redness, really has a redness experience ? unlike the real thing. That?s at least how I think about it. Does this help you guys at all? Brent Allsop On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 11:54 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 3:25 AM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > Hi Stathis, > > > > Thanks for putting so much effort towards this, and I apologize that I > > still, despite significant progress thanks to everyone's help, have so > much > > difficultly communicating. > > > > Yes, I don't believe that "qualia can fade without you noticing" and > that it > > will not be possible for you to notice, without changing your behavior, > or > > any other way qualitative natures are disconnected form consciousness, > and > > it's underlying neural correlates. > > Good. > > > You still believe that my real problem is that I still don't understand > why > > our behavior can't change due to the replacement. I fully understand all > > this, and you're still jumping back to a straw man that I also do not > accept > > and agree with you. There is yet another option that you aren't fully > > getting yet, that is not anything like any of these epiphenomal qualities > > that are disconnected from reality. In this way, the qualities are very > > real, and they have very real causal properties. These causal properties > > are properties we already know, abstractly, all about it's behavior. We > > just don't know about it qualitative nature. We will think the system is > > detecting glutamate, merely because of it's causal behavior, when in > fact, > > it is detecting it because of the qualitative nature, of which the causal > > behavior is a mere symptom, and all we know are abstracted > interpretations > > of the same. > > > > Let me try to put it this way. James has admitted that an abstracted > > representation of the causal properties of glutamate is just something > very > > different than the causal properties of glutamate, configured in a way so > > that these very different causal properties, can be interpreted as real > > glutamate. In other words, he has admitted that the map is not like the > > territory, other than it can be interpreted as such. Do you agree with > > that? And if you do, is it not a very real theoretical possibility, that > > the reason glutamate is behaving the way that it is, is because of it's > > redness quality. And also is not a very real possibility that the real > > glutamate has this ineffable quality (blind to abstracting observation or > > requires mapping back to the real thing) for which the abstracted > > representation of the same, though it can be interpreted as having it, > > doesn't really have it. > > A volume of neural tissue in the visual cortex is replaced with a > black box that reproduces the I/O behaviour at the interface with the > surrounding neurons. Do you see how "reproduces the I/O behaviour at > the interface with the surrounding neurons" means the subject must > behave normally? > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 18:00:14 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:00:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainie r66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <02be01ce4503$67438620$35ca9260$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 9:02 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . Hi Spike, >.Qualia are not quantitative, they are qualitative. So you don't describe them with equations, you simply discover and build a map of which physics it is, in which state, (if you are a material fundamentalist. or what information it arises from, if an information fundamentalist...) that have which qualitative properties. Hmmm, OK thanks, ja but a map is an example of a mathematical description. That would help me understand. Our discussion has led me to an insight that I would like to expand a bit. Math is a technology. Those of us who really get hot with it get to the point where we use it everywhere always, and perhaps be become dependent. Then when we get in an area where our technology does not apply, we are like those unfortunate victims who become stranded on an escalator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snkqvWrSBus Math is such a powerful technology, we soon get as addicted to it as you and I are to electric power and communications tech. There are soooo many things it can help you do, I am at the point where I feel blind, deaf and dumber than a dog turd without it. So here's my proposed solution (for me, not you.) I have been helping my son study math and science. I will now wander off into an area where my favorite technology cannot help me: a foreign language. For starters, I choose Spanish. Ja, I know, for Californians, Espaniol is not really a foreign language. Depending on your neighborhood, you can legitimately argue it is the local indigenous language. This is my strategy: my son loooves competition of any kind (he takes after his father.) Even more than that, he loooves to compete against his father. This is bad in a way, for he has one area in which he can beat me like an ugly stepchild: Mario Brothers, pretty much anything Mario, I am child's play to defeat. This is remarkable in that I first played Marios 25 years ago, and he is only 6. In any case, a six year old has an advantage over grown-ups in language learning. My brain is already filled with equations and such. But his is not, so he can learn it faster. So I propose we learn Espaniol together, even though I have a head start on him. I know enough Espaniol to make small-talk with the local non-English-speaking Vietnamese. This challenge will force me out of my comfort zone, cause me to stretch and grow. When (and if) that pea-sized part of my brain develops sufficiently, the non-mathematical part, then I might have a shot at understanding qualia. spike We just need to realize most of us are currently limited to 3 primary colors to paint our conscious knowledge with, but you can theoreize that maybe there are more crayons out there I could discover and paint an amplified conscious knowledge with, so what might those other colors be like? So you go out and discover thousands more, and then you have a lot more colorful diversity enabling you to paint knowledge of much more of the electromagnetic spectrum, and a lot of other things, with. To say nothing of what our limited effing sexual life, and so on, could become like, and so on. Kelly Anderson asked: <<< Can you explain how consciousness and qualia arise from collections of neurons? That is the closest thing to magic that I am aware of on this planet. If we get to the point of removing the magic and replacing that with science, then and only then will we know enough to determine what's happening inside of another sort of head. >>> We don't know why the laws of physics work the way they do, we just know that they do work this way. And the fact that we have discovered how this magic reality works is what enables Spike to design systems that can dance in the heavens. For all we know, there could be Gods out there pushing the planets around, and so on. Whatever this magic is, doesn't change what we need to do to dance in the hevans. Similarly, whatever it is that has a redness quality, we don't need to know why it has it, or why it arises from whatever it arises from, we just need to discover what it is that is responsible for each of them. So we can see how others conscious knowledge compares to our own by observing their knowledge, and so we can discover what other colors can arise from what else is out there, and so on. So we can start doing phenomenally godly things like expanding ourselves in the direction of becoming omni phenomenal. Is there an infinite number of different crayons to be discovered? Boy, what would a picture with all that be like? Or, just as there is a limited number of elements, are there a limited number of elemental phenomenal qualities correlated to sets of them? Obviously science has an answer for such questions just waiting for us to discover. We just first need to know what to look for (qualities), where to look for them (not on the surface of the strawberry, or in the light...) and how to effing look for them (not thinking that something has a 'grey' quality, just because it is 'grey matter' reflecting grey light). The rest should be easy, we are already way beyond the technology we need, I think. It's all just an effing communication problem. Brent Allsop On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 10:51 PM, spike wrote: -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike -----Original Message----- [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop >>...Thanks for putting so much effort towards this, and I apologize that >I still, despite significant progress thanks to everyone's help, have so much difficulty communicating... Brent Allsop >...Brent there is nothing wrong with your communication skills. Qualia is (are?) a difficult concept. I have pondered the hell out of it and still don't feel like I have even suck at it. I would need to vastly improve and get a number of breakthrough insights on qualia to just suck. It isn't your fault: your favorite topic is just hard to grok. spike _______________________________________________ I have been pondering why it is that qualia is (are?) difficult to understand, and I now have the insight: it is because there are no equations. The classic figurative notion for a complicated concept is "rocket science." But I would argue that rocket science is not hard to understand at all: it is so completely mapped out with equations, every bit of it, end to end, that it is extremely understandable. All you need to do is get those equations, and now we have our astonishingly powerful mathematical toolkit to bear on it: we can completely understand rocket science well enough to fire a rocket and know right where it is going to land on a planet millions of km away months from now. Rocket science is not at all mysterious, not even so much as what is causing our honeybees to decline. We have equations to describe it all. Qualia has (have?) no equations, so I just stand here on the ground flapping my arms. If qualia get (gets?) mathematized, we rocket scientists will mount up on wings as eagles, soar with the winds on that topic. Until then, just useless arm flapping. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 18:23:47 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:23:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] epic fail videos save lives Message-ID: <02cc01ce4506$b792bad0$26b83070$@rainier66.com> OK so we know how the big evil internet is how bad guys learn how to make improvised destructive devices, and we know how pretty much any video which starts out with "Don't try this at home" will result in undetermined numbers of injuries and fatality in those who tried this at home. But what of the flip side of that coin? I do sheepishly confess I am a fan of Epic Fail videos, YouTubes of (mostly teenage male) drunken fools doing stunts that go seriously wrong, usually preceded by commentary such as "Hey y'all, watch this shit." Then the silly prole ends up in the hospital or mortuary. Yes I know it is not PC to laugh at them, but I would argue that laughter is mostly involuntary so I couldn't help it at all, and besides it was their drunken buddies who put thing on YouTubes. I am just the innocent victim who watched them. In any case, I might argue that Epic Fail videos have saved untold injury and fatality, for the younger set watches that and can see that these failed stunts hurt. They might get an painless education in all the reasons to not do the kinds of stuff they see on Epic Fails. So in that sense, Epic Fail losers at least are doing a public service in educating the rest of the proles in what can happen. Thanks Epic Fails. Your pain and suffering is not in vain. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 18:34:54 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:34:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainie r66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <02d601ce4508$435df8d0$ca19ea70$@rainier66.com> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Is there an infinite number of different crayons to be discovered? Actually I can answer that with my old familiar mathematical toolbox. The number of crayons produced to date is finite and the number of different crayons yet to be discovered is finite. Reasoning: a crayon contains a finite number of atoms, and every crayon is composed of atoms entirely from this planet. The number of atoms on this planet is finite, 10^48 is a close enough order of magnitude estimate. So even if we define a crayon as any atom or any combination of atoms, the number of possible crayons is the number of combinations of 10^48, which is finite. Reaaaaaly really big, but finite. If you meant to ask, is the number of colors finite, I could argue this is infinite, since a color can be defined as an arbitrarily small increment in frequency of light reflected in any combination. I would argue this is infinite, even if our perception of these colors in finite. I myself can generally distinguish only about ten or so colors, or rather I know the names of that number, the resistor color code. I don't really perceive why my son's crayon box needs 64 of them. > Boy, what would a picture with all that be like? I don't understand this term "like." I sure hear it enough. Makes me crazy. >... Or, just as there is > a limited number of elements, are there a limited number of elemental > phenomenal qualities correlated to sets of them? The elements are finite, the possible crayons are finite, the number possible colors, infinite. spike From anders at aleph.se Mon Apr 29 18:56:18 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:56:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] epic fail videos save lives In-Reply-To: <02cc01ce4506$b792bad0$26b83070$@rainier66.com> References: <02cc01ce4506$b792bad0$26b83070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <517EC251.8060906@aleph.se> On 29/04/2013 19:23, spike wrote: > > Thanks Epic Fails. Your pain and suffering is not in vain. > > Really good point! Given how stupidly we humans update risk, this might actually work. I just spent the day in the stratosphere of insurance, and can report that even big insurance companies often adopt new forms of risk management only after a disaster has visibly occured (they blame the market, which doesn't want insurance against stuff it has not seen in gory detail yet - same thing). "Dont try this at home" followed by a cool result is much more dangerous than somebody saying it and then walking into a combine harvester. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Apr 29 19:06:02 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:06:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <02d601ce4508$435df8d0$ca19ea70$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainie r66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> <02d601ce4508$435df8d0$ca19ea70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <517EC49A.1030501@aleph.se> On 29/04/2013 19:34, spike wrote: > So even if we define a crayon as any > atom or any combination of atoms, the number of possible crayons is the > number of combinations of 10^48, which is finite. Reaaaaaly really big, but > finite. Of course, the positions might still be continous and could in principle change colors (through diffraction, for example. I want diffraction color crayons!) > If you meant to ask, is the number of colors finite, I could argue this is > infinite, since a color can be defined as an arbitrarily small increment in > frequency of light reflected in any combination. I would argue this is > infinite, even if our perception of these colors in finite. The just noticeable perceptual difference of color is not that small, although specifying it is complicated due to the nonlinearities of nearly everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_difference But notice the MacAdam diagram at the bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacAdam_ellipse I would guess the full diagram would be covered by a few hundred such ellipses of indistinguishable colors. So the number of colors you can see is likely on the order of a few thousand or so, if we count darker and brighter versions too. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 29 19:01:31 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:01:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1367262091.61905.YahooMailClassic@web165002.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Brent Allsop wrote: > can I ask you a question, within your current working > hyupothoses, > does a redness quaqle have any causal properties in > realty? I don't know what that means. Not being snarky, I just honestly don't know what it means. >?Or in other > words, what might the necessary and sufficient neural > correlates be, > such that if you abstractly observe such, you can reliably > know that > someone is experiencing your elemental redness quale?? Nor that. I've never even been able to make sense of the phrase 'neural correlates'. And I don't know what 'to abstractly observe' means. Obviously something different to 'to observe', or you wouldn't have written it, but I don't know how to observe abstractly, and have never heard the phrase before. I /think/ what you're asking is: "How do you know if someone else is experiencing the same thing as you when you both see a red object?" If that is the question, my answer is: I don't. But I severely doubt that any two individuals ever feel exactly the same thing on seeing the same object. There are too many combinations of memories and associations involved for it to be remotely likely. So from theoretical considerations, I'd say that no two people will experience the same thing on seeing, say, a red plastic spoon. Or the word "red". I do think, though, that when you say "an elemental redness/greenness/etc. quale", you're going in the wrong direction. 'Redness' is not an elemental thing, it's a high-level category. You have to see many red things to be able to abstract the concept of 'red', and apply it to other things. Like 'dog', or 'car' or 'furniture'. How many children mistake cows for dogs? It's probably just as common for small children to mistake red for blue, until they learn the colour categories. If there were an 'elemental quale' for 'red', surely there would also have to be one for 'eating utensil', and 'civic building', and 'meteorological phenomenon', 'mathematics', etc., etc.? Our experiences are far from 'elemental', and I seriously doubt that we're even capable of being able to experience the actual basic elements that contribute to our conscious experiences. I can live in a house made of bricks, but I can't live in a brick. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 29 19:24:22 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:24:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1367263462.32034.YahooMailClassic@web165004.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Gordon wrote: > I think all this talk about qualia is pretty pointless when you finally realize that as far as we know, only organic brains, or synthetic organic brains, are possibly able to make them. How do we?synthesize?the?biological?processes?of a brain? That is the question. I don't think it will happen with microchips or digital computers. It's probably way harder than that. So how do we produce stunningly accurate models of chemical interactions, or fluid dynamics, or as Spike pointed out, the exact flight path of a rocket over millions of miles and many months? With digital computers, that's how. Even though chemical interactions, fluid dynamics and rocket trajectories are /not digital/! > We need to understand the brain before we can hope to duplicate one. It's pretty naive, I think, to suppose that we can create one even before we know how they work.? I must remember to tell my 7-year-old nephew how terribly naive it is of him to build paper aeroplanes without knowing a thing about aerodynamics. Ben Zaiboc From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Mon Apr 29 19:53:53 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:53:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <02d601ce4508$435df8d0$ca19ea70$@rainier66.com> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> <02d601ce4508$435df8d0$ca19ea70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yay, another Material Property Dualist! (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/7) Spike, you know that the consensus race between materialists and functionalists is neck and neck, though the functionalists (who predict you can get as many colors as you want, simply by adding more bits.) have been in the lead most of the time. Currently the functionalists lead by less then one person (your vote gets split when you support multiple camps), so If you join the material property dualist camp, that will put us in the consensus lead! At least until Kelly Joins Stathis, in the Functionalist camp. ( http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8) Anyone else leading one way or the other? Brent Allsop On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:34 PM, spike wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Brent Allsop > > wrote: > > > Is there an infinite number of different crayons to be discovered? > > Actually I can answer that with my old familiar mathematical toolbox. The > number of crayons produced to date is finite and the number of different > crayons yet to be discovered is finite. Reasoning: a crayon contains a > finite number of atoms, and every crayon is composed of atoms entirely from > this planet. The number of atoms on this planet is finite, 10^48 is a > close > enough order of magnitude estimate. So even if we define a crayon as any > atom or any combination of atoms, the number of possible crayons is the > number of combinations of 10^48, which is finite. Reaaaaaly really big, > but > finite. > > If you meant to ask, is the number of colors finite, I could argue this is > infinite, since a color can be defined as an arbitrarily small increment in > frequency of light reflected in any combination. I would argue this is > infinite, even if our perception of these colors in finite. I myself can > generally distinguish only about ten or so colors, or rather I know the > names of that number, the resistor color code. I don't really perceive why > my son's crayon box needs 64 of them. > > > Boy, what would a picture with all that be like? > > I don't understand this term "like." I sure hear it enough. Makes me > crazy. > > >... Or, just as there is > > a limited number of elements, are there a limited number of elemental > > phenomenal qualities correlated to sets of them? > > The elements are finite, the possible crayons are finite, the number > possible colors, infinite. > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 29 19:52:56 2013 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:52:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1367265176.13771.YahooMailClassic@web165002.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Brent Allsop wrote: > So let me try to explain it in more detail to see if that > helps. > ... > In this idealized theoretical world, it is glutamate that > has a redness > quality.? And this glutamate behaves the way it does, > because of this > redness quality.? ... > That?s at least how I think about it.? Does this help > you guys at all? Yes, it helps enormously. Now, tell me (because it seems that you would know), in an old-fashioned mechanical clock, which cog is it that knows the time? (is that the right way to put it? Perhaps I should say "which cog has the timeness quality?") Is it that little spiky one? I always suspected the little spiky one, but could never tell for sure. Another conundrum that has me puzzled is how on earth were we able to 'upload' the time-telling function to digital watches? I mean, which bit of a digital watch is even remotely like a little spiky cog? (it is the spiky one, isn't it!?) Ben Zaiboc From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 20:33:57 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:33:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: <1367265176.13771.YahooMailClassic@web165002.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1367265176.13771.YahooMailClassic@web165002.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <032601ce4518$e2b46d50$a81d47f0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc >...which cog is it that knows the time? ... Is it that little spiky one? I always suspected the little spiky one, but could never tell for sure...Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ I vote for the little spiky one too Ben. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 29 20:22:32 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:22:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] epic fail videos save lives In-Reply-To: <517EC251.8060906@aleph.se> References: <02cc01ce4506$b792bad0$26b83070$@rainier66.com> <517EC251.8060906@aleph.se> Message-ID: <031c01ce4517$48c334c0$da499e40$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 11:56 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] epic fail videos save lives On 29/04/2013 19:23, spike wrote: Thanks Epic Fails. Your pain and suffering is not in vain. >.Really good point! . >."Dont try this at home" followed by a cool result is much more dangerous than somebody saying it and then walking into a combine harvester. -- Anders Sandberg, Ja! The don't-try-this-at-homers always proceed to show some fun successful stunt, and of course you want to try it at home. You never see someone say don't try this at home, then proceed to mangle themselves or others, never. I do confess, these videos make me nostalgic for my own misspent teenage years. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to take some of the falls shown here and be able to get right up and shout obscenities? I would really like having the bone flexibility to do that, rather than being hauled off by an ambulance to spend the next three days in intensive care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1 &v=Ujwod-vqyqA&feature=endscreen So entertaining is the misguided youth who takes a fall on his skateboard, then jumps to the stunningly illogical conclusion that it was somehow all the skateboard's fault, and so proceeds to the subsequently still more absurd conclusion that the hapless skateboard should be disciplined by whacking a light pole with it, at which time the goof takes yet another fall. I have a hard time even writing about that silly fool without laughing. Clearly he has contributed to the education of countless youth regarding the advisability in punishing one's skateboard. Final thought: the internet never forgets. My own youthful stunts are long forgotten, but this idiot's grandchildren may someday be able to pull up this video from the dusty digital archives. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 22:26:54 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:26:54 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130430001630.6b51a883@jarrah> References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> <20130430001630.6b51a883@jarrah> Message-ID: On 30/04/2013, at 12:16 AM, david wrote: > On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:53:25 +1000 > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >>> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Mike Dougherty > snip. >>> I do appreciate that 'quale' is homophonic with 'quail' because >>> homophones are generally amusing. >> >> It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? > > > Do you mean experience as a verb, or experience as a noun? Both. From anders at aleph.se Mon Apr 29 22:01:01 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:01:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] epic fail videos save lives In-Reply-To: <031c01ce4517$48c334c0$da499e40$@rainier66.com> References: <02cc01ce4506$b792bad0$26b83070$@rainier66.com> <517EC251.8060906@aleph.se> <031c01ce4517$48c334c0$da499e40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <517EED9D.8030000@aleph.se> On 29/04/2013 21:22, spike wrote: > > Ja! The don't-try-this-at-homers always proceed to show some fun successful stunt, and of course you want to try it at home. You never see someone say don't try this at home, then proceed to mangle themselves or others, never. That is what I love about http://www.periodicvideos.com/index.htm - the Nottingham researchers sometimes mess things up, and you often have a feeling even the trained professionals are perliously close to accidents. Check out this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUyeCC-2Ko not terribly dangerous, but lovely to watch them mess with it. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 23:36:29 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:36:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:53 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? I don't disbelieve. I mostly just avoid discussing it. I had a dialog go through my head this morning that reminded me of something Hofstadter would write: "Do you like cake?" asked the baker. "I'm not sure, what is cake?" asked the tortoise. "Surely in all your years you've eaten cake" "Perhaps I have, what is it made of?" "Carrot cake is made with carrots, chocolate cake is made with chocolate" "So cake is named after the ingredients?" "Not always. Sponge cake is not made of sponges, nor is red velvet cake made of red velvet" "I am still confused, what is cake?" That made me realize the concept of qualia isn't actually a thing that can be touched. It can be understood from many examples, like the "redness of red" or whatever other explanation is offered. However, the agreement of understanding is usually problematic because language does a poor job of succinctly expressing internal states in an objective way. So instead we go 20 rounds of proposition, confirmation, re-proposition, re-confirmation. "Do you like cheeseburgers?" "Oh yes, they're very tasty" "Do you enjoy them with ketchup?" "Very much, we have a great deal in common" "Yeah, I like my cheeseburgers with salt" "Well that's weird, I don't put salt on mine" "Don't you like when they're deep fried in fresh oil?" "What? No, you don't deep fry cheeseburgers" "Oh... that's how they make them at my local diner" "Seriously? it's weird to deep fry beef" "Beef? That's disgusting! Cheeseburgers are made of potato" "French Fies are made out of potato... and are served with Cheeseburgers" "Oh, I use a different word for that sandwich that comes with my Cheeseburgers" If the above conversation ended after the 4th line, there would be no indication that the two speakers were not discussing the same concept. It takes much more "this is not that" to achieve consensus on the meaning of terms. This is also a difficult problem to solve teaching machines to interact with us. From where does the meaning of terms come? So I've used many words already and still haven't conveyed much about qualia. I propose I've done no better or worse than average. :) From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Apr 29 23:51:34 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:51:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness In-Reply-To: <1367265176.13771.YahooMailClassic@web165002.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1367265176.13771.YahooMailClassic@web165002.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 3:52 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Now, tell me (because it seems that you would know), in an old-fashioned mechanical clock, which cog is it that knows the time? (is that the right way to put it? Perhaps I should say "which cog has the timeness quality?") > Is it that little spiky one? I always suspected the little spiky one, but could never tell for sure. > > Another conundrum that has me puzzled is how on earth were we able to 'upload' the time-telling function to digital watches? I mean, which bit of a digital watch is even remotely like a little spiky cog? (it is the spiky one, isn't it!?) I wish there was some other way to +1 this post without adding a useless comment, but I liked this response _that_ much :) From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 03:16:08 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:16:08 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 9:36 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:53 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? > > I don't disbelieve. I mostly just avoid discussing it. > > I had a dialog go through my head this morning that reminded me of > something Hofstadter would write: > > "Do you like cake?" asked the baker. > "I'm not sure, what is cake?" asked the tortoise. > "Surely in all your years you've eaten cake" > "Perhaps I have, what is it made of?" > "Carrot cake is made with carrots, chocolate cake is made with chocolate" > "So cake is named after the ingredients?" > "Not always. Sponge cake is not made of sponges, nor is red velvet > cake made of red velvet" > "I am still confused, what is cake?" > > That made me realize the concept of qualia isn't actually a thing that > can be touched. It can be understood from many examples, like the > "redness of red" or whatever other explanation is offered. However, > the agreement of understanding is usually problematic because language > does a poor job of succinctly expressing internal states in an > objective way. So instead we go 20 rounds of proposition, > confirmation, re-proposition, re-confirmation. > > "Do you like cheeseburgers?" > "Oh yes, they're very tasty" > "Do you enjoy them with ketchup?" > "Very much, we have a great deal in common" > "Yeah, I like my cheeseburgers with salt" > "Well that's weird, I don't put salt on mine" > "Don't you like when they're deep fried in fresh oil?" > "What? No, you don't deep fry cheeseburgers" > "Oh... that's how they make them at my local diner" > "Seriously? it's weird to deep fry beef" > "Beef? That's disgusting! Cheeseburgers are made of potato" > "French Fies are made out of potato... and are served with Cheeseburgers" > "Oh, I use a different word for that sandwich that comes with my Cheeseburgers" > > If the above conversation ended after the 4th line, there would be no > indication that the two speakers were not discussing the same concept. > It takes much more "this is not that" to achieve consensus on the > meaning of terms. > > This is also a difficult problem to solve teaching machines to > interact with us. From where does the meaning of terms come? > > So I've used many words already and still haven't conveyed much about > qualia. I propose I've done no better or worse than average. :) If I say "I've gone blind" you know what I mean, everyone knows what I mean. And if I've gone blind because I've had a stroke, and ask the doctor if I'll be able to see normally with an artificial visual cortex, he'll know what I mean by "see normally". He won't engage in a philosophical discussion about the nature of visual qualia. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 30 07:42:17 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:42:17 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 05:01:52PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > The peculiar thing about qualia is that you can understand everything > objectively about how they are generated but still have no idea what > they are like, like a blind man who is a scientific expert on vision. > But this, in itself, does not mean that qualia are magical or not > reproducible by a computer. Simple qualia like ability to tell light from darkness are reproducible by single-cell organisms (Euglena) or trivial robots with a photocell and a few transistors. If you scrub the word clean from overweening philosophical crud it's very simple. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 30 07:44:18 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:44:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: <000501ce44d5$0e901710$2bb04530$@comcast.net> References: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> <000501ce44d5$0e901710$2bb04530$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20130430074418.GO5257@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 08:28:13AM -0400, Pete McAlpine wrote: > Nonsense! The drill rate is at least partially determined by government > dictat! Absurd to deny it! Aaaand with this you demonstrate absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about practical fracking (or email netiquette, for that matter) and I'm out of this thread. > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl > Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 1:18 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? > > On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 05:15:05PM -0400, Peter E McAlpine wrote: > > Forget "peak oil" until all government hindrance of exploration and > > drilling is ended. > > Peak oil was 2006. Peak total fossil and nuclear fuel and is 2020. > Look at the well drill rate and well decay rate for unconventional oil and > gas (~40%/year), look at the rising costs, dropping EROEI and draw your own > conclusions. > > Hint: "government hindrance" has zero squat to do with why this thing will > be over shortly. If there is no plan B I'm afraid you'll be hurting plenty, > soon. > > > > > > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John > > Clark > > Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2013 1:11 PM > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? > > > > > > > > Because of improvements in technology, in particular hydraulic > > fracturing that gets light oil and gas from shale, the Paris based > > International Energy Agency says: > > > > "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest > > global oil producer overtaking Saudi Arabia [...] The result is a > > continued fall in US oil imports, to the extent that North America > > becomes a net oil exporter around 2030. [...] The United States, > > which currently imports around 20% of its total energy needs, becomes > > all but self-sufficient in net terms - a dramatic reversal of the > > trend seen in most other energy- importing countries." > > > > > > > > For more see: > > > > http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.p > > df > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- > Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 30 07:45:23 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:45:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130430074523.GP5257@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:53:25PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > I do appreciate that 'quale' is homophonic with 'quail' because > > homophones are generally amusing. > > It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? Does euglena "experience" the perception of light during phototaxis? From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 30 07:46:51 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:46:51 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20130430074651.GQ5257@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 01:13:38PM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Building a device capable of experiencing an infinite number of qualia > might be however practically impossible, since this would require > shuttling infinite amounts of information in a finite time and space. Any spectrometer will experience 10^4 more color qualia than any human. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 30 08:58:56 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:58:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1367312336.68615.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >Simple qualia like ability to tell light from darkness >are reproducible by single-cell organisms (Euglena) >or trivial robots with a photocell and a few transistors. >If you scrub the word clean from overweening philosophical >crud it's very simple. Euglena are remarkable in that they seem to know lightness from darkness. But do they really experience qualia? I think not.? I think real consciousness is about knowing what one knows. I know about the period at the end of this sentence, and I also know that I know about it. How does that happen? How do I not only see it, but also know that I see it? I think there is something going on here besides ordinary chemical reactions *as we currently understand them*. There is something happening in the biology/chemistry/physics of the brain that we do not yet understand. I think we need to understand it before we can talk meaningfully about such things as strong AI and uploading. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 09:38:36 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:38:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Simple qualia like ability to tell light from darkness > are reproducible by single-cell organisms (Euglena) > or trivial robots with a photocell and a few transistors. > > If you scrub the word clean from overweening philosophical > crud it's very simple. > It strikes me that the red qualia supporters have never been married. The majority of men have some degree of red-green colour blindness and little interest in ladies fashions. This leads to frequent discussions (arguments?) with partners about colours, where it becomes very clear over a period of many years that colours are not the same for everyone. There is no such thing as a colour qualia. There is a defined reflected light wavelength which is analysed and interpreted slightly differently by every brain. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 30 09:59:06 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:59:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1367312336.68615.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> <1367312336.68615.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20130430095906.GS5257@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 01:58:56AM -0700, Gordon wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > >Simple qualia like ability to tell light from darkness > >are reproducible by single-cell organisms (Euglena) > >or trivial robots with a photocell and a few transistors. > > >If you scrub the word clean from overweening philosophical > >crud it's very simple. > > Euglena are remarkable in that they seem to know lightness from darkness. But do they really experience qualia? I think not.? But how do you *know* this? Just because the animal can't tell it you in words you could understand, and because the transduction pathway is known? > I think real consciousness is about knowing what one knows. So consciousness is different from qualia? Or do qualia require consciousness? > I know about the period at the end of this sentence, and I also know that I know about it. Many illiterate people have no idea what you mean by this. > How does that happen? How do I not only see it, but also know that I see it? Self representation is a key factor in planning in higher animals. So they most assuredly know where they are, what they do, and what they perceive. > I think there is something going on here besides ordinary chemical reactions *as we currently understand them*. Possibly, but do you have any evidence for it? > There is something happening in the biology/chemistry/physics of the brain that we do not yet understand. I happen to disagree strongly. You're claiming new physics. Nobody has yet found anything like that in any biological system. > I think we need to understand it before we can talk meaningfully about such things as strong AI and uploading. So if the Si elegans model reproduces behavior from first principles and digitized anatomy you would say that doesn't prove anything? How about a snail? A mouse? Your pet? You? Don't quote me on the latter two, but you should see at least a mouse in what is left of your biological lifetime. From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 10:05:17 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:05:17 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130430074523.GP5257@leitl.org> References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> <20130430074523.GP5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:53:25PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> > I do appreciate that 'quale' is homophonic with 'quail' because >> > homophones are generally amusing. >> >> It's synonymous with "experience". Do you disbelieve in that as well? > > Does euglena "experience" the perception of light during phototaxis? I suspect at some level yes, otherwise there would have to be some special consciousness spark entering at some evolutionary point between euglena and humans, and that seems implausible. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 30 13:21:49 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:21:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: <20130430074418.GO5257@leitl.org> References: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> <000501ce44d5$0e901710$2bb04530$@comcast.net> <20130430074418.GO5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: <006601ce45a5$acc27ab0$06477010$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 08:28:13AM -0400, Pete McAlpine wrote: >>... Nonsense! The drill rate is at least partially determined by > government dictat! ... >...Aaaand with this you demonstrate absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about practical fracking (or email netiquette, for that matter) and I'm out of this thread. Eugen Reminder: when responding, do not top post. Indicate by some means who said what as much as possible, trim the previous postings down to the bare minimum to remind us of the subject, then put your comments at the bottom. If any more top-posted comments are seen in the moderators box, I will send them back. I let a couple thru before, because I hadn't reminded us of the established style, but here is the reminder, thanks. Your friendly neighborhood omnipotent moderator, spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 30 13:42:05 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:42:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: <006d01ce45a8$8132b790$839826b0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... >...It strikes me that the red qualia supporters have never been married... Haaaaahahahahahaaaaahahahaaaa! {8^D Of course with that introduction, I had to read the rest of the comment. >...The majority of men have some degree of red-green colour blindness ...BillK _______________________________________________ Hmmm excellent, that explains a few things BillK. My bride and I were college sweethearts. For her electronics course, I was teaching her how to read resistor color codes. I commented "The red and green bands are tricky; sometimes it is hard to tell them apart." Her response was "Whaaaaat planet did you come from?" So she knew what she was getting before she ever married me. We realized there is a good reason why electronics color codes have only ten colors: for plenty of us lads, that's all the colors we can clearly distinguish. I feel cheated now: there are a bunch of distinct qualia out there, and I lump them all together as one quale. But my ears are much better than my eyes. I can hear a jillion different frequencies and overtones. So I get fewer visual and more audio qualia. Good deal! spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 14:14:32 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:14:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020? In-Reply-To: <20130430074418.GO5257@leitl.org> References: <014001ce4455$74a67ce0$5df376a0$@comcast.net> <20130429051806.GB8102@leitl.org> <000501ce44d5$0e901710$2bb04530$@comcast.net> <20130430074418.GO5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Aug 20, 2012, at 4:17 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > FUCK YOU VERY MUCH, John. This is the only kind of response you'll be > getting from me henceforth for a couple years: FUCK YOU. > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:44 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Aaaand with this you demonstrate absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about > practical fracking (or email netiquette, for that matter) > I think I've made my point. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 14:26:46 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:26:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <023201ce4495$355d83e0$a0188ba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:16 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > If I say "I've gone blind" you know what I mean, everyone knows what I > mean. And if I've gone blind because I've had a stroke, and ask the > doctor if I'll be able to see normally with an artificial visual > cortex, he'll know what I mean by "see normally". He won't engage in a > philosophical discussion about the nature of visual qualia. Right - that's good too. We wouldn't ever accomplish anything if we had to confirm qualia before starting work. :) I think it's an interesting observation that we manage to get through our day understanding so little of the world around us. I know most of the readers on this list reject that concept, so apply it instead to "average proles." If an employee encounters a paper jam in one of our printers, despite the fact that on-screen diagnostics shows pictures of what levers to turn/pull and literally describes the jam-clearing process the hapless office cog will inevitably create a helpdesk ticket for "someone in IT to fix the printer" They don't _need_ to understand the magical principles that drive the world today. A similar situation exists with our cars: as far as I really _need_ to know, it is the turning of the ignition key that makes the car work. You could "fade" all the qualia following the turn of the key to battery, starter motor, spark plugs, fuel delivery, etc. and I don't care. I know that's not the same as not being able to care... but I assume many people don't want to be burdened with this knowledge. I was trying to find another analogy for the quintessential something that could be lost after uploading to a slightly-less-than-perfect but still pretty-damned-good simulation. Imagine a fixed point of view/hearing/etc, ex: Stephen Hawking, at a rock concert. He can't turn his head or control the environment at all (this minimizes the simulation complexity for us) So post-uploaded experience of the concert faithfully renders acoustics to beyond audible distinction. The fixed POV also allows us to easily simulate the visual experience with indiscernible detail. We even manage to capture the olfactory environment and present simulated body odors and the occasional whiff of marijuana in the air. Have we sufficiently simulated the experience of a rock concert? for some, perhaps. But what of anticipation's electric-charge in the crowd as the band walks on stage? What of that moment when the crowd of strangers becomes a unified audience lost in the Flow of their/its favorite tune? I do think we might miss that authentic sensation with a simulated crowd. However, that sensation might still be captured with a high enough resolution of somatic information. If/when we are able to control/simulate proprioception then maybe even this ephemeral state of awareness can be "just data." From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 16:42:34 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:42:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Why We'll Never Meet Aliens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > from Paul Tyma. > If you combine all our current knowledge of statistics and astronomy, it's > nearly comical to believe we're the only intelligent life in the universe. > It's easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around - there are billions of > stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather > bad at fully understanding such large numbers. > Yes, when astronomers observe the universe they can come up with some very large numbers, but if biologists try to figure out the probability of life forming, and then the probability of a Eukaryote cell forming, and then probability of multicellular life forming. and then the probability of intelligent life forming, and then the probability of a technological civilization forming, the biologists may be able to come up with numbers just as big as the astronomers and maybe even bigger. And if ET does exist and is a hundred or a thousand or a million or a billion years in advance of us then why the hell isn't that fact obvious? John K Clark John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Tue Apr 30 17:37:08 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:37:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> Message-ID: OK Stathis, Thankfully, it looks like lots of people are starting to get it. Spike is clearly getting it. And Ben Zaiboc said: <<<< Brent Allsop wrote: > In this idealized theoretical world, it is glutamate that > has a redness quality. And this glutamate behaves > the way it does, because of this redness quality. ... > That?s at least how I think about it. Does this help > you guys at all? Yes, it helps enormously. >>>> (Ben, thanks for this. I literally feel to my knees, and cried, when I read this.) But Stathis and James are still providing no evidence that they are getting it at all. Stathis, you are simply not being creative enough, when you think it is not possible to have both similar behavior from knowledge with different qualities, or lack thereof, while at the same time it is not possible for qualia to fade without noticing. Another critical problem, at least with your terminology, is that much of it is not focusing on the right thing. It is focusing more on picking the strawberry, than knowing that your knowledge of the strawberry has a redness quality to it that is very different than the qualitative nature of your knowledge of the leaf. Forget about things like ?If the visual neuron perceives red it sends signals to the neurons which make you say ?I see red?? and instead focus on the system knowing what its redness experience is like, and how this is different than greenness. And think more along the lines that it is sending a ?yes that has a redness quality? because it knows of the qualitative nature of its knowledge, or at least of the causal properties of such, whatever that turns out to be. For you guys that still aren?t getting it, let?s make this so elementary it is impossible to miss. Let?s make an even more simplified theoretical model, and hand hold you through every single step of the transmigration process, including a final resulting simulated system that can behave the same. We?ll describe two of these simplified versions, side by side: one with dancing quale, and the other with fading quale. We?ll describe exactly what it will be like for the system?s experience as the process proceeds, including one example of qualia inverting, and one example of quale "fading". When we look out at the strawberry patch, we have millions of 3D voxel elements we are aware of, that can all be represented with any color, including transparent. So the model I was talking about before there are millions of neurons representing each of these voxel elements. These voxel neurons can fire with a diverse set of neurotransmitters which each have the qualities of color we can experience. All of these millions of voxel neurons are sending their color neurotransmitters to the single large ?binding? neuron. This single large binding neuron is a very complicated system, as it enables all these isolated color voxel elements to be bound together into one unified phenomenal experience. In other words, it is doing lots more than just sending the signal that this red thing is the one we want. It is also aware of the qualitative nature of this knowledge and all of their differences and qualitative diversity, and enables the system to talk about and think about all this phenomenal diversity. But let?s simplify all that, and just have two 2d pixel element neurons, which can only fire either *glutamate*, which behaves the way it does because of its redness quality, or *dopamine*, which behaves the way it does because of its greenness quality. Even though we are now thinking of a very simplified binding neuron, that only needs to be aware of the qualitative nature of two pixel elements at the same time, this is a very complex piece of binding machinery. It doesn?t just have the ability to say the ?red? one is the one we want, it knows what its red knowledge is qualitatively like, and knows what greenness is like, and only says it wants the red one, because it has the redness qualitative experience, which is very different from its greenness qualitative experience. Let?s think of the two pixel element neurons differently. One will be the reference neuron, the other will be the sample neuron. The reference neuron will always be firing with *glutamate*, and the sample pixel will be compared with this firing reference neuron. The binding neuron is aware of the qualitative nature of both of them, and says one is like the other, because it is qualitatively the same, or has the causal properties of something with a redness quality. So, the first neuron we want to transmigrate is of course the sample pixel neuron. Obviously, since the binding neuron is like a high fidelity * glutamate* detector, nothing but real *glutamate* will make it say, ?yes that is qualitatively the same as the reference pixel?, because of the fact that it has the causal properties of redness. The dancing quale case is quite simple, because we want to replace a pixel neuron firing with *glutamate*, with one that is firing with *dopamine*. Or, if you are a functionalist, you will be replacing the ?functional isomorph? or ?functionally active patter? that has the causal properties of redness with a ?functional isomorph? that has the causal properties of a greenness quality. The transmigration process describes providing a transducer, which when it detects something with a greenness property, sends real *glutamate* to the binding neuron, so the binding neuron can say: yes that has a redness quality. In the fading quale case, we are going to use a binary ?1? to represent * glutamate*, and a ?0? to represent *dopamine*. Functionalists tend to miss a particular fact that they must pay close attention to here. You must be very clear about the fact that this ?1? which is representing something that is a ?functional isomorph? by definition does not have the same quality the ?functional isomorh? has. The ?1? is only something being interpreted as abstracted information, which in turn can be interpreted as representing the *glutamate*, or the functionally isomorphic pattern or whatever it is that actually has the redness quality. Obviously, the transduction layer in this case, must be something for which no matter what it is that is representing the one as input, when it sees this ?1? it produces real glutamate, so the binding neuron will give the signal: ?yes that has a redness quality?. OK, so now that the sample neuron has been replaced, and we can switch back and forth between them with no change, we can now move on to the binding neuron. But keep in mind that this one sample neuron could be expanded to include millions of 3D voxel elements. All of them are firing with diverse sets of neurotransmitters which can be mapped to every possible color we can experience. And keep in mind the big job this binding neuron has to do, to bind all this, so it call all be experienced, qualitatively, at the same time. In the dancing quale case, we now have to provide the transduction between the reference neuron, which is still firing with *glutamate*, with something that converts this to *dopamine*. So, when the system sees * dopamine* on both sample, and the reference, it is going to finally say: ?Yes, these are qualitatively the same? and it should finally be blatantly obvious to everyone, how different this system is when we switch them back and forth, and even though some naive person may be tempted to believe both of the ?yes they are the same?, before and after the switch, are talking about ?red? knowledge. The fading quale case is similar. There is a ?1? present on both the sample and now on the reference, thanks to a new transduction layer between the pixel producing real glutamate, which enables the virtual neuron to send a signal that can be thought of as ?these are qualitatively the same? even though everyone should be clear that this is just a lie, or at best an incorrect interpretation of what the signal really qualitatively means. So, please return and report, and let me know if I can fall to my knees and weep yet? On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:50 AM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Stathis Said: > > > > <<<< > > A volume of neural tissue in the visual cortex is replaced with a > > black box that reproduces the I/O behaviour at the interface with the > > surrounding neurons. Do you see how "reproduces the I/O behaviour at > > the interface with the surrounding neurons" means the subject must > > behave normally? > >>>>> > > > > Exactly. But if one box is representing the strawberries and leaves with > > inverted red green qualities, even though it is behaving exactly the > same, > > this qualitative difference is all important to consciousness. > > You have said, if I have it correct: > > (a) It is possible to reproduce the behaviour of neural tissue with a > different substrate, but this won't necessarily reproduce the qualia; > and > (b) It is not possible to have your qualia change or disappear without > noticing. > > Do you see how these two statements cannot both be true? > > > I?ve attempted to describe one final key point, but you guys are > providing > > lots of evidence that you still don?t get this one very important thing. > > > > This evidence includes when Kelly replied to my saying: > > > > > > <<<< > > The prediction is, you will not be able to replace any single neuron, or > > even large sets of neurons that are the neural correlates of a redness > > quality, without also replacing significant portions of the rest of the > > system that is aware of what that redness experience is like. > >>>>> > > > > With: > > > > > > <<<< > > Replacing a single neuron is going to change the qualia of redness? > Really? > > You can't replace a single neuron without losing something? You better > not > > play soccer, you risk losing your consciousness. > > > > Saying something like this undercuts your credibility Brent. > > > > You absolutely can replace small parts of the brain without changing how > the > > person feels. Ask anyone with a cochlear implant. This is a silly claim. > >>>>> > > > > I also don?t think Stathis is fully understanding this. The following > could > > be evidence for this when he responded to Spike with: > > > > > > <<<< > > It's difficult if you try to define or explain qualia. If you stick to > > a minimal operational definition - you know you have an experience > > when you have it - qualia are stupidly simple. The question is, if a > > part of your brain is replaced with an electronic component that > > reproduces the I/O behaviour of the biological tissue (something that > > engineers can measure and understand), will you continue to have the > > same experiences or not? If not, that would lead to what Brent has > > admitted is an absurd situation. Therefore the qualia, whatever the > > hell they are, must be reproduced if the observable behavior of the > > > > neural tissue is reproduced. No equations, but no complex theories of > > consciousness or attempts to define the ineffable either. > >>>>> > > > > So let me try to explain it in more detail to see if that helps. > > > > Let?s just imagine how the transmigration experiment would work in an > > idealized material property dualism theoretical world, even though > reality > > is likely something different and more complex. > > > > In this idealized theoretical world, it is glutamate that has a redness > > quality. And this glutamate behaves the way it does, because of this > > redness quality. Also, imagine that there are multiple other neuro > > transmitters in this world that are like different color crayons. > Brains in > > this word use these colorful neurotransmitters to paint qualitative > > conscious knowledge with. > > > > In a simplified way. Let?s also imagine that it is a single large neuron > > that is binding all these synapses representing voxel elements in a 3D > > space, so we can be aware of all of the colors all at once. If the > upstream > > neurons fire glutamate, for that 3D element, this large binding neuron > knows > > there is a redness quality at that particular location in 3D space. When > > another upstream neuron fires with another neurotransmitter it will know > > there is a leaf there, represented with its greenness quality, at the 3D > > pixel element representing a point on the surface of the leaf. In other > > words, all these crayons are just standing alone, unless there is also > some > > system that is binding them all together, so we can be aware of all of > them > > and their qualitative differences, at one time. > > > > When we look at only the behavior of this large binding neuron, and only > > think of it abstractly, this neuron which is able to tell you whether a > > particular neuro transmitter has a redness quality or not, will simply > look > > like a high fidelity glutamate detector. Nothing but the glutamate will > > result in the neuron firing with the ?yes that is my redness quality? > > result. > > > > Now, within this theoretical world, think of the transmigration process > when > > it replaces this one large binding neuron. Of course the argument admits > > that the original neuron can?t deal with being presented with ones and > > zeros. So, when it replaces the glutamate, with anything else, it > specifies > > that you also need to replace the neuron detecting the glutamate, with > > something else that includes the translation hardware, that is > interpreting > > the specific set of ones and zeros that is representing glutamate, as the > > real thing. And this virtual neuron only gives the ?yes that is my > redness? > > when this predefined set of ones and zeros is present. > > > > In other words, when people think about this transmigration argument of > > replacing one neuron at a time in this way, they are explicitly throwing > out > > and ignoring what is important to the ?that is real glutamate? detecting > > system. They are ignoring the additional hardware system that is > required > > that binds all this stuff together, so we can be aware of redness, at the > > same time as we are aware of greenness, so we can say, yes they are the > > same, or no, they are qualitatively different. > > > > If a single neuron is what our brain uses to detect glutamate (or > whatever > > it is that is the neural correlate of redness), then you can see the > obvious > > fallacy in the transmigration thought experiment. And it is also > > theoretically possible, that it is more than just a single neuron that is > > involved in the process of detecting the causal properties of glutamate, > so > > that this system only says ?That is my redness?, only if it is real > > glutamate (or whatever it is that really is responsible for a redness > > quality). And not until you replace the entire binding system, which is > the > > complex process of detecting real glutamate, with an abstracted version > > which can interpret a specific set of ones and zeros, as if it were the > same > > as glutamate, will it finally start behaving the same. And of course, > there > > will be lots of fading quale, as lots of single neurons are placed in > > between these two states. Additionally, unlike the real thing, you will > > never be able to ?eff? to know if the abstracted stuff, which is > something > > very different than redness, only being interpreted as redness, really > has a > > redness experience ? unlike the real thing. > > > > That?s at least how I think about it. Does this help you guys at all? > > The big neuron detecting the multiple neurotransmitters sends signals > to downstream neurons. For example, it sends signals to motor neurons > responsible for speech. If the visual neuron perceives red it sends > signals to the neurons which make you say "I see red" and if it > perceives green (which could be due in your model to, say, dopamine) > it sends signals to the neurons which make you say "I see green". Now, > a foolish engineer, who knows nothing about qualia, observes this and > replaces your visual neuron with a black box which can tell the > difference between the two neurotransmitters. If the black box > detects glutamate it will stimulate the neurons that make you say "I > see red" while if it detects dopamine it will stimulate the neurons > that make you say "I see green". But this black box produces no visual > qualia at all. So the result is a person who is blind but describes > things normally, believes he can see normally, and tells everyone he > can see normally... which you have agreed is absurd. > > I imagine now you will say that the black box cannot send the right > signals to the motor neurons unless it truly does perceive colours, > but that goes against the initial assumption, which is that the > *externally observable behaviour* of neural tissue is computable. It > is generally thought that chemistry is computable, but even if it > isn't, the case against the substrate-dependence of consciousness is > upheld by simply leaving out the detail that the artificial neurons > are computerised. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 30 20:22:33 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:22:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: References: <1366603687.3168.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424064540.GP15179@leitl.org> <1366787228.97128.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130424081616.GS15179@leitl.org> <5177E4B5.20401@aleph.se> <20130424145021.GV15179@leitl.org> <517C2F04.5010800@canonizer.com> <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <00bf01ce45e0$736e6a90$5a4b3fb0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 10:37 AM To: Stathis Papaioannou; James Carroll; ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . >.Thankfully, it looks like lots of people are starting to get it. Spike is clearly getting it. Damn, I'm slow. It took me at least a dozen years to figure out what this concept is about. That tells me the language describing it somehow needs to be augmented or overhauled. I don't know how. Keep the critical term qualia and quale, then let us try to figure out alternate ways to define the terms. And somehow or another, we need to inject some kind of quantitative measure, just so those of us who lean heavily on that particular crutch will feel comfortable. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 30 20:13:49 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:13:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <20130430095906.GS5257@leitl.org> References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> <1367312336.68615.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130430095906.GS5257@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1367352829.89452.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Eugen, >> I think there is something going on here besides ordinary chemical reactions *as we currently understand them*.? > Possibly, but do you have any evidence for it? As I've mentioned, I believe thoughts are material things - I am not a dualist of any kind. I also believe the brain is not inherently like a digital computer. I can argue both those points. If one accepts the conclusions of those two arguments, it follows that thoughts are intrinsic to the biology of the brain - that some of the matter in the brain embodies conscious thought. I don't see this mechanism explained in textbooks on biology, chemistry or physics. We can speculate about it, but nobody yet knows how ordinary matter can become mindful. I think the existence of my own conscious thoughts and perceptions do nonetheless prove that it does. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Tue Apr 30 19:35:31 2013 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:35:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quoting previous posts Message-ID: <002901ce45d9$e10a4710$a31ed530$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Harvey spike Eugen Pete Newstrom wrote: Leitl McAlpine asks: Reminder: wrote: wrote: Is when Aaaand Nonesense! left- responding, with The posting do this drill acceptable not you rate here? top demonstrate is Or post. absolutely at would Indicate no least people by knowledge partially prefer some whatsoever determined right- means about by posting? who practical government I said fracking dictat! don't what (or have as email a must netiquette, strong as for preference possible, that one from matter) way the or previous another. postings -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP CISSP-ISSAP CISSP-ISSMP CSSLP CISA CISM CRISC CGEIT IAM From atymes at gmail.com Tue Apr 30 20:42:44 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:42:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Quoting previous posts In-Reply-To: <002901ce45d9$e10a4710$a31ed530$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <002901ce45d9$e10a4710$a31ed530$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Is > left- > posting > acceptable > here? > Or > would > people > prefer > right- > posting? > Cute. :P Left and right posting are both inferior to top posting, which in turn is less preferred than bottom posting. Left and right are harder to read. For that matter, front and back posting - wherein one's words are superimposed on the quoted words - are even less legible than left and right. (There are ways to do it, e.g. with HTML emails or ASCII art.) Also, removing quotes down to the relevant bits being responded to is preferred. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 30 20:32:23 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:32:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . In-Reply-To: <1367352829.89452.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <5E69A8EB-619E-423B-B845-EDC24032843A@gmail.com> <517D3CEC.5030307@canonizer.com> <39CCF149-55A5-4BB8-A617-4C519C48E767@gmail.com> <517D5B94.7030105@canonizer.com> <01cf01ce4479$6735e540$35a1afc0$@rainier66.com> <20130429062515.GF8102@leitl.org> <20130430074217.GN5257@leitl.org> <1367312336.68615.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130430095906.GS5257@leitl.org> <1367352829.89452.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1367353943.1167.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Brent is one of those people speculating about it. While I haven't had time to study his posts in detail, I find myself in general agreement with the thrust of his argument. He is trying to understand how brain matter becomes mindful. Does glutamate play a role? Maybe, maybe not, but I think these are the right kinds of questions. ________________________________ From: Gordon To: ExI chat list Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 2:13 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness . Eugen, >> I think there is something going on here besides ordinary chemical reactions *as we currently understand them*.? > Possibly, but do you have any evidence for it? As I've mentioned, I believe thoughts are material things - I am not a dualist of any kind. I also believe the brain is not inherently like a digital computer. I can argue both those points. If one accepts the conclusions of those two arguments, it follows that thoughts are intrinsic to the biology of the brain - that some of the matter in the brain embodies conscious thought. I don't see this mechanism explained in textbooks on biology, chemistry or physics. We can speculate about it, but nobody yet knows how ordinary matter can become mindful. I think the existence of my own conscious thoughts and perceptions do nonetheless prove that it does. Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 30 21:09:11 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:09:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1367193181.21683.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51684CFF.2080505@libero.it> <1365800813.57779.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130413131842.GE15179@leitl.org> <1365907875.25585.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> <1367193181.21683.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1367356151.1533.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I notice that the Clark Moody chart below offers a great deal of information about the depth of the market, far more depth information than most investors have when dealing in other financial instruments. One can use the controls to set it up to 1,000 levels deep. Has anyone here tried to use this information for trading purposes?? I have it set currently to show depth to 50 levels. The sum of the bids is 727 coins. The sum of the asks is 408 coins. This means there is ?more interest in buying slightly below the current market than there is in selling slightly above the current market. 408 coins are for sale while people are looking to buy 727 of them, potentially bullish for the very short term.? With the ability to watch the depth up to 1,000 levels deep, this measure might be useful as a medium term market indicator.? http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 30 21:34:56 2013 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:34:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Quoting previous posts In-Reply-To: <002901ce45d9$e10a4710$a31ed530$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <002901ce45d9$e10a4710$a31ed530$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <010e01ce45ea$8fd72af0$af8580d0$@rainier66.com> ... On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom Subject: [ExI] Quoting previous posts >...Harvey >>...spike >>>... Eugen >>>>...Pete Newstrom wrote: Leitl McAlpine asks: Reminder: wrote: wrote: Is when Aaaand Nonesense! left- responding, with The posting do this drill acceptable not you rate here? top demonstrate is ... ... ... ... -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP CISSP-ISSAP CISSP-ISSMP CSSLP CISA CISM CRISC CGEIT IAM _______________________________________________ NO dammit! Bottom posting only please, and trim your replies so it makes the archives more readable thanks. spike PS Harvey's back! Let's have a good old time extropian welcome home. This forum has had a Harvey-shaped hole in it for the last several years. From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 30 23:02:04 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 May 2013 01:02:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <1367356151.1533.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> <1367193181.21683.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367356151.1533.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <51804D6C.3060706@libero.it> Il 30/04/2013 23:09, Gordon ha scritto: > I notice that the Clark Moody chart below offers a great deal of > information about the depth of the market, far more depth information > than most investors have when dealing in other financial instruments. > One can use the controls to set it up to 1,000 levels deep. Has anyone > here tried to use this information for trading purposes? > > I have it set currently to show depth to 50 levels. The sum of the bids > is 727 coins. The sum of the asks is 408 coins. This means there is > more interest in buying slightly below the current market than there is > in selling slightly above the current market. 408 coins are for sale > while people are looking to buy 727 of them, potentially bullish for the > very short term. > > With the ability to watch the depth up to 1,000 levels deep, this > measure might be useful as a medium term market indicator. > > http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ if you group "by price" the list you can have a more concise view of the market. For example: if you group by 5$ you can see now that to push the exchange rate to 5$, there would be the need of 430K BTC all together. And there are bids for 849 M BTC before zero. Given there are at most 11 M in existence now and 80% is locked is account never used. Mirco From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 30 23:08:27 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:08:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: <51804D6C.3060706@libero.it> References: <1365660980.69718.YahooMailNeo@web121203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130414082848.GD15179@leitl.org> <516B2C34.8010406@libero.it> <516C1951.7060609@libero.it> <1366043990.59977.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <20130415165222.GD15179@leitl.org> <1366046843.50001.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516D9C03.5000100@libero.it> <1366145698.43947.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <516E9B00.5030002@libero.it> <1366922475.65664.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <517B2A04.10908@libero.it> <1367061765.46249.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367134993.44854.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <01a601ce4465$9edf19d0$dc9d4d70$@rainier66.com> <1367193181.21683.YahooMailNeo@web121202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1367356151.1533.YahooMailNeo@web121204.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <51804D6C.3060706@libero.it> Message-ID: <1367363307.90731.YahooMailNeo@web121205.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mirco, > if you group "by price" the list you can have a more concise view of the > market. Yes, I noticed that. One can in effect know everything there is know about the depth of the bitcoin market, at least at Mt.Gox. That is pretty extraordinary.? Have you tried to use this information to your advantage?? Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: