From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Jan  1 05:10:56 2015
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 22:10:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] xmas lyrics
In-Reply-To: <CAN3PQpF=HNf-t56bS_02=dcYSigGcxgWjY2+qWbV6XwDFWehFQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00ac01d02086$20519b70$60f4d250$@att.net>
 <CAN3PQpF=HNf-t56bS_02=dcYSigGcxgWjY2+qWbV6XwDFWehFQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy0MwehyFjxxw11HBmyBsRdqoNnuu5zUCQ4dXtjms9FsFQ@mail.gmail.com>

"Mind rape?"  Lol.....

John



On Thursday, December 25, 2014, ilsa <ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com> wrote:

> Happy Group Holiday Season, The Abraham children and other communities.
> Sun RA: This is the Music Sound Of the Momentum:
>
> Sun Ra Christmas Day 1976 WXPN-FM
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT3ZYVb0wFY>
>
> I love listening to all the threads through this past year and looking
> forward to the year ahead.  Pure Fun and Sincerity with Respect and
> Gratitude, Smile, ilsa
>
> Ilsa Bartlett
> Institute for Rewiring the System
> http://ilsabartlett.wordpress.com
> http://www.google.com/profiles/ilsa.bartlett
> www.hotlux.com/angel <http://www.hotlux.com/angel.htm>
>
> "Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to
> every other person."
> -John Coltrane
>
> On Thu, Dec 25, 2014 at 1:02 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','spike66 at att.net');>> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Those of us in the English-speaking world (and probably everywhere
>> outside the Middle East) are mind-raped this time of year by constant
>> bombardment with Christmas music.  It is hard to escape.  You know the
>> words; you can?t help knowing them, you can?t forget them even if you try.
>> Every year I overthink the whole thing, hearing stuff in those lyrics.  My
>> son took after me.  When he was four and his two cousins were five and
>> seven, they were convinced one of the Christmas songs had a part about a
>> zombie eating people?s faces.  In the middle of a quiet family discussion
>> the three of them suddenly shrieked in terror and fled from the room.  We
>> learned the bothersome part was that bit about Jack Frost nipping at your
>> nose.  The three California kids knew nothing of Jack Frost, but didn?t
>> want anyone nipping at noses.
>>
>>
>>
>> Others that I recall: that little drummer boy playing while ??the ox and
>> lamb kept time??  The questions that come to mind is what exactly were the
>> beasts doing to ?keep time??  And whatever it was (swaying to the beat?)
>> that in itself would be so freaky as to have me fleeing in terror.
>>
>>
>>
>> Today I noticed yet another one in a song about a snowman who came to
>> life, played with the local kids and then went off downtown.  Things were
>> apparently going well enough until he encountered a cop, and only paused a
>> moment when he heard him holler stop.  Well OK then, but that is an
>> absurdity in itself, for cops don?t holler stop.  Rather they holler FREEZE
>> motherfucker!  Assume the position, before I blow your ass off!
>>
>>
>>
>> I will grant the absurdity of ordering a snowman to freeze, or referring
>> to anatomical features which are almost surely absent.
>>
>>
>>
>> It seems every winter solstice season I stumble upon yet another logical
>> flaw in those lyrics I am forced to know.  Perhaps after today I will be
>> spared for another year.
>>
>>
>>
>> spike
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org');>
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jan  1 23:16:10 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 15:16:10 -0800
Subject: [ExI] romanesco broccoli
Message-ID: <00e801d02618$ee791e50$cb6b5af0$@att.net>

 

Have you lads ever heard of a Romanesco broccoli?

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=type+of+cauliflower+grows+in+a+spiral&espv=2
&biw=1291&bih=778&tbm=isch&imgil=QEY8L27pVihFqM%253A%253BRhhLajraVSBjiM%253B
http%25253A%25252F%25252Fen.wikipedia.org%25252Fwiki%25252FRomanesco_broccol
i&source=iu&pf=m&fir=QEY8L27pVihFqM%253A%252CRhhLajraVSBjiM%252C_&usg=__CGsY
Wh3l6pwdVnAQihg6sKH8Jt4%3D&ved=0CCcQyjc&ei=q9SlVMzDB8K6ogSo_YDYBg#facrc=_&im
gdii=_&imgrc=QEY8L27pVihFqM%253A%3BRhhLajraVSBjiM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fuploa
d.wikimedia.org%252Fwikipedia%252Fcommons%252F4%252F4f%252FFractal_Broccoli.
jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fen.wikipedia.org%252Fwiki%252FRomanesco_broccoli%3B
1024%3B768

 

I saw one in the grocery store today and bought it bigtime because it is so
Fibonacci-ey.  I am almost reluctant to devour it because it is such a
beauty.

 

spike

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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jan  3 14:20:24 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2015 15:20:24 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Annual projects
Message-ID: <2951689730-22925@secure.ericade.net>


A new year had begun. I long ago resolved to never make new years resolutions, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about what I want to do with the coming year.?


In my case the main point is to leverage some of my ongoing projects to get some long-term professional rewards. There will be some transhumanist side-effects, of course.?


But why not set up an explicit transhuman project too? In my case I think I will use quantified self methods to optimize my health so that by the end of the year I am habitually exercising or at least have an usefully rich dataset to explore. Not too radical by today's standards.?


Or do you have some suggestions for a research project I ought to do this year? Here is your chance to up my ambition level.?


What are your annual projects going to be?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From giulio at gmail.com  Sun Jan  4 18:02:34 2015
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 19:02:34 +0100
Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?An_Irreverent_Singularity_Funcyclopedia=2C_by_Mon?=
	=?utf-8?b?ZG8gMjAwMOKAmXMgUi5VLiBTaXJpdXM=?=
Message-ID: <CAKTCJydHMAecDYunP3hPaOr3A+Txq-NcfSP2_zJ1a7qWY0wq1A@mail.gmail.com>

My review of R.U. Sirius' new hook, highly recommended.

An Irreverent Singularity Funcyclopedia, by Mondo 2000?s R.U. Sirius
https://hacked.com/irreverent-singularity-funcyclopedia-mondo-2000s-r-u-sirius/



From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jan  5 10:50:27 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 10:50:27 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Extropy list back up now?
Message-ID: <CAL_armgsqrr8B_esGUCGMKXuEqND9evZucB2EYjYUW_F8=PRmg@mail.gmail.com>

Extropy.org and the list appear to be back online now after their New
Year celebrations hangover.

But gmail hasn't forwarded the missing posts yet.

BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jan  7 19:08:48 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 19:08:48 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Extropy list back up now?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgsqrr8B_esGUCGMKXuEqND9evZucB2EYjYUW_F8=PRmg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgsqrr8B_esGUCGMKXuEqND9evZucB2EYjYUW_F8=PRmg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiPG9FtT281DM1FUwdCRtpmD3V9cZdrBG-XVNv7F_m0Fw@mail.gmail.com>

Testing, testing...... ?????

On 5 January 2015 at 10:50, BillK wrote:
> Extropy.org and the list appear to be back online now after their New
> Year celebrations hangover.
>
> But gmail hasn't forwarded the missing posts yet.
>
> BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jan  7 20:41:28 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 20:41:28 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Possible microorganism fossil found on MARS?
Message-ID: <CAL_armh6b7ewcGgBZ9LHk1A7hoW=Su-o-mdBTDv-X04_w18efg@mail.gmail.com>

The Register has a report on an article in Astrobiology Magazine.
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/07/curiosity_fossils_mars/>

Quote:
Fossil found on MARS: Curiosity nuke-tank stumbles on microbe clues
'Worm' trails in lake bed remarkably similar to Earth rock
7 Jan 2015

The pictures were shot at the Gillespie Lake outcrop in Yellowknife
Bay, which used to be a huge lake back when Mars had surface water. Dr
Nora Noffke, who has spent 20 years studying fossils of early
microbes, said formations on the Martian rocks looked very similar to
those found on Earth - formations created by microorganisms.

As life evolved on Earth, layers of organic matter spread out wherever
moisture could be found, leaving behind microbial-induced patterns in
rocks. She acknowledges it's possible that the structures on Mars
could have formed through natural erosion.

"But if the Martian structures aren't of biological origin," Noffke
says, "then the similarities in morphology, but also in distribution
patterns with regards to [microbially induced sedimentary structures]
on Earth would be an extraordinary coincidence."
---------------

BillK


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan  8 19:47:49 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 14:47:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Test, do not read
Message-ID: <CAJPayv09tiH7QmNbbHPdhDBdMEYh6Wy1TaVer1gtjppv+ka5Gg@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, I said do not read!

  John K Clark
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Jan  9 17:16:01 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 09:16:01 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Pop-up vs 3d printing
Message-ID: <E01F5864-BB6F-4433-AD84-FA40CCD9CB59@gmail.com>

http://www.kurzweilai.net/pop-up-fabrication-technique-trumps-3d-printing

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 13:03:39 2015
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:03:39 -0200
Subject: [ExI] RES:  More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRvjeDRFCYhMvMhC1CfRcOoogxQuQR83LTGZhrJ+8=C=Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armgZ=b4Q4we+yBDMAqYWBC-UPLVh=mHL-rzdrVzS0MC=xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQtFR+c8iaKUaz2K0jgYvX=UQyY_S2zUdFgBgwmFGBEww@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjG0jQbK6o0i-wGCpDKRkN0NnGNQJqjznR9=EcV1qu+ug@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRvjeDRFCYhMvMhC1CfRcOoogxQuQR83LTGZhrJ+8=C=Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <016601d02e68$30e6c150$92b443f0$@gmail.com>

Only if they were close enough for their broadcasts to reach us, AFAIK. I don't think we would be able to detect a current human level civilization on the other side of the galaxy or even much closer than that.


<Adrian Tymes>
That is what the data suggests so far.  Granted, it's impossible to completely prove a negative such as this, but if we were going to be able to detect someone using our current methods, odds are we would have done so by now.
 </Adrian Tymes>




From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 13:11:19 2015
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:11:19 -0200
Subject: [ExI] RES:  More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>

<bilk>
> We don't see mega structures like Dyson spheres. In fact everything we see
appears
> to be natural and unaltered.
</bilk>

But bear in mind that we are seeing the past when we look far away. We're
talking about very fast things (post-sings) and that 10K light year far
region of space that we're seeing might be completely different a thousand
years after.
 



From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 13:21:21 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 13:21:21 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
Message-ID: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>

Looks like Exi has been restarted. A good kick usually works!  :)

BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 13:50:55 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 13:50:55 +0000
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 12 January 2015 at 13:11, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote:
> <bilk>
>> We don't see mega structures like Dyson spheres. In fact everything we see
>> appears to be natural and unaltered.
> </bilk>
>
> But bear in mind that we are seeing the past when we look far away. We're
> talking about very fast things (post-sings) and that 10K light year far
> region of space that we're seeing might be completely different a thousand
> years after.
>

True. But 1000 years is a blink of an eye in the age of the universe
and much of the universe is billions of years older than us. If
post-sing civs built on a large scale we should see their efforts
somewhere among the older star systems.

I think it more likely that post-sing civs go tiny and speed up their
internal processing, thus freezing the outside universe from their
perspective. Speeding up your thinking changes everything.

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 12 14:42:51 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 06:42:51 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>

Welcome back.  I missed you guys.

spike

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of BillK
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 5:21 AM
To: Extropy Chat
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!

Looks like Exi has been restarted. A good kick usually works!  :)

BillK
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 15:19:32 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:19:32 +0100
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>

> I think it more likely that post-sing civs go tiny and speed up their
internal processing, thus freezing the outside universe from their
perspective. Speeding up your thinking changes everything.

I hear this argument a lot, but I don't think it's a valid one.

Yes, you shrink after the big S, but still you have to have some (all)
control over the neighbourhood. At the least, you are not going to permit
any kind of evolution nearby, which may kill you, eventually.

And which will probably be smarter and will NOT ignore everything around.

Second, you'll not permit the  surrounding free enthalpy to be wasted
naturally. In vain.

You have no choice, but to expand and colonize inward AND outward.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:50 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12 January 2015 at 13:11, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote:
> > <bilk>
> >> We don't see mega structures like Dyson spheres. In fact everything we
> see
> >> appears to be natural and unaltered.
> > </bilk>
> >
> > But bear in mind that we are seeing the past when we look far away. We're
> > talking about very fast things (post-sings) and that 10K light year far
> > region of space that we're seeing might be completely different a
> thousand
> > years after.
> >
>
> True. But 1000 years is a blink of an eye in the age of the universe
> and much of the universe is billions of years older than us. If
> post-sing civs built on a large scale we should see their efforts
> somewhere among the older star systems.
>
> I think it more likely that post-sing civs go tiny and speed up their
> internal processing, thus freezing the outside universe from their
> perspective. Speeding up your thinking changes everything.
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 20:22:45 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 20:22:45 +0000
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 12 January 2015 at 15:19, Tomaz Kristan wrote:
> I hear this argument a lot, but I don't think it's a valid one.
>
> Yes, you shrink after the big S, but still you have to have some (all)
> control over the neighbourhood. At the least, you are not going to permit
> any kind of evolution nearby, which may kill you, eventually.
> And which will probably be smarter and will NOT ignore everything around.
>
> Second, you'll not permit the  surrounding free enthalpy to be wasted
> naturally. In vain.
> You have no choice, but to expand and colonize inward AND outward.
>

Well, let's look at the options.....

It depends on how much of a speedup is possible. And the speedup will
be progressive, so the maximum will probably be reached quite quickly.
They won't ignore the outside world, but if you are thinking thousands
of times faster you don't need to check very often. And automated
systems could handle that.

Another factor is that for these high-speed AIs, manipulating the
physical universe would be thousands of times slower than manipulating
virtual reality. The physical universe has frozen for these entities -
it's boring.

They will need some energy conversion to survive. But what type of
energy and how much depends on what they develop with their high speed
R&D. If they drift through the depths of space they would be
undetectable. They only need energy for their processing and virtual
reality.

And what are they doing with all this AI processing? Other dimensions?
Tiny black holes? Who knows what might be possible? And what keeps
them going when they have so much knowledge and unlimited lifespan?

Maybe they flash into super-intelligence, investigate everything, then
expire from lack of purpose, all in a few years of real time. That
might explain the untouched universe that we see.

BillK


From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Mon Jan 12 21:42:33 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:42:33 +0100
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFR58YLXwbC6SxG0a2j5sus_iUa8TcvHdCw9HnfBAv6BhQ@mail.gmail.com>

They NEED all the mass/energy, information even, from around them. For the
future use,

They need our atoms. All our atoms.

There is nothing like "Prime Directive" in the real world.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 9:22 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12 January 2015 at 15:19, Tomaz Kristan wrote:
> > I hear this argument a lot, but I don't think it's a valid one.
> >
> > Yes, you shrink after the big S, but still you have to have some (all)
> > control over the neighbourhood. At the least, you are not going to permit
> > any kind of evolution nearby, which may kill you, eventually.
> > And which will probably be smarter and will NOT ignore everything around.
> >
> > Second, you'll not permit the  surrounding free enthalpy to be wasted
> > naturally. In vain.
> > You have no choice, but to expand and colonize inward AND outward.
> >
>
> Well, let's look at the options.....
>
> It depends on how much of a speedup is possible. And the speedup will
> be progressive, so the maximum will probably be reached quite quickly.
> They won't ignore the outside world, but if you are thinking thousands
> of times faster you don't need to check very often. And automated
> systems could handle that.
>
> Another factor is that for these high-speed AIs, manipulating the
> physical universe would be thousands of times slower than manipulating
> virtual reality. The physical universe has frozen for these entities -
> it's boring.
>
> They will need some energy conversion to survive. But what type of
> energy and how much depends on what they develop with their high speed
> R&D. If they drift through the depths of space they would be
> undetectable. They only need energy for their processing and virtual
> reality.
>
> And what are they doing with all this AI processing? Other dimensions?
> Tiny black holes? Who knows what might be possible? And what keeps
> them going when they have so much knowledge and unlimited lifespan?
>
> Maybe they flash into super-intelligence, investigate everything, then
> expire from lack of purpose, all in a few years of real time. That
> might explain the untouched universe that we see.
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jan 12 22:02:35 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:02:35 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3760947388-22271@secure.ericade.net>


spike?<spike66 at att.net>?, 12/1/2015 3:59 PM:
Welcome back. ?I missed you guys.


Me too!






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




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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jan 12 22:05:51 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:05:51 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
Message-ID: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>


Some of what I did during the holidays:?http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter
http://futureoflife.org/static/data/documents/research_priorities.pdf


Getting AI to be safe and "fit for purpose" (whether driving or being a companion species) is slowly becoming mainstream. This list can in true hipster fashion claim to have debated it long before it became cool.?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 12 22:41:28 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 14:41:28 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI

 

>?Some of what I did during the holidays: http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter

http://futureoflife.org/static/data/documents/research_priorities.pdf

 

>?Getting AI to be safe and "fit for purpose" (whether driving or being a companion species) is slowly becoming mainstream. This list can in true hipster fashion claim to have debated it long before it became cool. ..Anders Sandberg

 

 

Wait, what?  It?s cool now?  It seems every time I try to discuss AI with normal people I am met with either vague or overt negativity and even hostility toward the whole notion.  The one exception is self-driving cars: everyone wants that, nearly everyone.  The professional drivers don?t, but the rest of us do.

 

spike

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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Tue Jan 13 04:46:00 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:46:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>

It needed a good kick in the "@".

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
> Behalf Of spike
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 9:43 AM
> To: 'ExI chat list'
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
> 
> Welcome back.  I missed you guys.
> 
> spike
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
> Behalf Of BillK
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 5:21 AM
> To: Extropy Chat
> Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
> 
> Looks like Exi has been restarted. A good kick usually works!  :)
> 
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 13 05:34:29 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:34:29 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <02dd01d02ef2$9ad7c660$d0875320$@att.net>



>...It needed a good kick in the "@".   Harvey Newstrom   




Harvey Newstrom!  How the heck are ye, me lad?

I was hoping you would comment about the Norks hacking Sony, then some news
agencies suggesting it wasn't the Norks, or if so, they had help from
inside.  

Considering your professional standing, if you choose to not reply online,
we get it.

spike





From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 06:50:45 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:50:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
 <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhUugNTS3T4fOQ=UE=Q3uAaiF3j=M6xphPUmCFrbvkpYg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 5:41 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
> Wait, what?  It?s cool now?  It seems every time I try to discuss AI with
> normal people I am met with either vague or overt negativity and even
> hostility toward the whole notion.  The one exception is self-driving cars:
> everyone wants that, nearly everyone.  The professional drivers don?t, but
> the rest of us do.
>

### I have been reading Nick's book in the past few days, now that it is
much cheaper on Kindle, and it does at times seem like a synopsis of the
discussions we had here in the nineties. Even the protein engineering
pathway to AI doom that I first wrote about here in a discussion with Eli
is mentioned. Nick also writes about the domesticated and meek AI (which I
called "athymhormic" in discussions with Eli on SL4) as the potentially
easiest to envision FAI. Altogether a nice read, nothing really new for us
old weirdos, but may be slightly disconcerting for normal people like Mr
Musk who tweeted he was worried about out future after reading it.

I was worried when my transhumanism folder on gmail was staying empty, now
I feel better :)

Rafal

BTW, I bought the Kindle Voyage as a Xmas gift for myself, it's really
nice, even better than the old Paperwhite. Great for reading in
restaurants, which I do daily.
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 06:59:58 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:59:58 -0500
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 3:22 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Maybe they flash into super-intelligence, investigate everything, then
> expire from lack of purpose, all in a few years of real time. That
> might explain the untouched universe that we see.


### Every single one of them? Untold trillions of superminds, over billions
of years, always and inevitably getting bored? Not even one of them
deciding to send out even a single self-replicating probe designed to
self-replicate for ever, just for the heck of it?

Nah, the only explanation I have is that we may have a chance of becoming
the Old Ones, the beings that would be remembered as the first colonizers
of the cosmic endowment for the next 10 trillion years or so. Assuming not
everybody gets bored.

Rafal
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From giulio at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 07:04:38 2015
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 08:04:38 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJyeDgwD3uH=2GnsMEJxofWPijQfeRGPFd-dO0=RDW+YizQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi there! Long time no see online!
You mean it needed a good kick in the @@ I guess ;-)

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 5:46 AM, Harvey Newstrom
<mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> It needed a good kick in the "@".
>
> --
> Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
>> Behalf Of spike
>> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 9:43 AM
>> To: 'ExI chat list'
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
>>
>> Welcome back.  I missed you guys.
>>
>> spike
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
>> Behalf Of BillK
>> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 5:21 AM
>> To: Extropy Chat
>> Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
>>
>> Looks like Exi has been restarted. A good kick usually works!  :)
>>
>> BillK
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 09:39:13 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 09:39:13 +0000
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>

On 13 January 2015 at 06:59, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### Every single one of them? Untold trillions of superminds, over billions
> of years, always and inevitably getting bored? Not even one of them deciding
> to send out even a single self-replicating probe designed to self-replicate
> for ever, just for the heck of it?
>
>

That is pretty unbelievable for us humans who rely on continual
stimulation to keep going. Every day something new will turn up. The
continual staring at iPhones is an excellent example.

But think about the effects of speeding up your brain processing by
possibly thousands of times.
You are trapped in an unchanging physical world. If you decide to send
out a probe, then first it takes the equivalent of thousands of years
(brain time) to build it and then you have to watch it while it takes
thousands of years (brain time) to move about a yard.

High speed AIs must rely on virtual reality for change and
stimulation. In effect, they leave the physical world and exist in a
world that moves at the same speed as their AI processing.


BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jan 13 10:31:18 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:31:18 +0100
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3805271428-8954@secure.ericade.net>


BillK?<pharos at gmail.com>?, 13/1/2015 10:42 AM:On 13 January 2015 at 06:59, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:?
> ### Every single one of them? Untold trillions of superminds, over billions?
> of years, always and inevitably getting bored? Not even one of them deciding?
> to send out even a single self-replicating probe designed to self-replicate?
> for ever, just for the heck of it??

That is pretty unbelievable for us humans who rely on continual?
stimulation to keep going. ...
But think about the effects of speeding up your brain processing by?
possibly thousands of times.?
You are trapped in an unchanging physical world.




First, our mental architecture is very much based on our particular kind of world - we need stimuli to keep going simply because they are always there except in sensory deprivation tanks (a rather rare environment). Other minds may not have that requirement, and we can envision ways of redesigning our own minds.


Second, an unchanging world can be indefinitely interesting - ask any mathematician.?


Third, the real world of a being is not just the physical world but the cultural world created by the being and its cultural peers (whether other people or subsystems). Most people today care way more about the entirely open-ended worlds of celebrities, fiction and social interaction than the physical world. There is more competition and salient stimuli from other people than the outside world. A superintelligent civilization will likely ramp this up orders of magnitude: just try to imagine the competition/art/soap opera plots of superminds. Since much effort will go into not being bored, we should expect them to be *very* good.?


Fourth, this is not an argument that supercivilizations will close in on themselves, since there can be at least some interest in the outside world, and diverse starting points and internal structure do produce exploration even if the bulk prefers virtual.?


It seems that any attempt to explain Fermi using cultural convergence needs an *extremely* strong argument able to handle exceedingly diverse minds and individuals. It is not enough that it sounds believable, it needs to work even against AGIs given pathological motivations by their creators (or chance). That is a tall order.?

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



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From giulio at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 11:58:38 2015
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:58:38 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>

I see that many good friends and respected researchers signed the open
letter. I didn?t sign it (yet), because I think that important
progress in AI, including the development of smarter-than-human AI and
superintelligence, can only emerge from free, spontaneous and
unconstrained research. I don?t disagree with the open letter or the
research priorities document, but setting common priorities is not the
aspect of AI research that I find more interesting at this moment - I
prefer to let a thousand flowers bloom.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> Some of what I did during the holidays:
> http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter
> http://futureoflife.org/static/data/documents/research_priorities.pdf
>
> Getting AI to be safe and "fit for purpose" (whether driving or being a
> companion species) is slowly becoming mainstream. This list can in true
> hipster fashion claim to have debated it long before it became cool.
>
>
>
> 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 anders at aleph.se  Tue Jan 13 12:01:56 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:01:56 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>


spike <spike66 at att.net> , 12/1/2015 11:57 PM:



?
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg



>?Getting AI to be safe and "fit for purpose" (whether driving or being a companion species) is slowly becoming mainstream. This list can in true hipster fashion claim to have debated it long before it became cool.?..Anders Sandberg
?
Wait, what?? It?s cool now?? It seems every time I try to discuss AI with normal people I am met with either vague or overt negativity and even hostility toward the whole notion.? The one exception is self-driving cars: everyone wants that, nearly everyone.? The professional drivers don?t, but the rest of us do.


Oh, I meant "mainstream" among the people who actually do stuff. Most normals just respond to the world, but they do not seek to change it much except locally around themselves. I think the key distinction is between the people who think there are some kind of rules of how things work, and those who think the rules can be updated. The update might just be adding a new gizmo, or wholesale singularity/revolution.?

(The letter is an example of people in the AI field trying to change the rules by shifting where the field is going.)


One of the key things with AI is that it is just AI when it is not working well. Then it becomes automation. So most people have reason to distrust AI, but they trust Google, Siri, big logistics systems, airline bookings, and Segways - if they even think about them. To most, they are just props in a predefined world. To us, they are stepping stones to an ever stranger world.?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jan 13 12:17:29 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:17:29 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3811406479-11160@secure.ericade.net>


Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> , 13/1/2015 1:02 PM:
I see that many good friends and respected researchers signed the open
letter. I didn?t sign it (yet), because I think that important
progress in AI, including the development of smarter-than-human AI and
superintelligence, can only emerge from free, spontaneous and
unconstrained research. I don?t disagree with the open letter or the
research priorities document, but setting common priorities is not the
aspect of AI research that I find more interesting at this moment - I
prefer to let a thousand flowers bloom.



In most domains, the importance of stuff has a power-law tail: the most important thing is often several times more important than the second most important thing, and so on. In some domains most value of the entire field is even located in the biggest item. So prioritizing is itself quite important: if your list is off, you might miss a lot of the value of the field by pursuing the less valuable targets.?


Many domains empirically do seem to have very haphazard priorities. In such cases free exploration is good, because there is at least some chance somebody works on the important thing. The alternative, everybody following one random priority list, tends to lead to worse effects. But if you could improve the priority-setting, the value of the list goes *way* up! If the priority list actually is somewhat correlated with value, then random search is a bad idea. We may still want it to counter model error/uncertainty in the priority list (it might still be wrong about something really important).


The FLI idea is not so much as establishing a one true list of What Must Be Done In AI, but try to reorder the priorities of people in the field based on some actual thinking about first-, second-, and higher order issues. The fact that safety for a long time has not even been regarded as a research priority at all should tell us something about how bad the priorities used to be.?

(There are some theorems about the value of metacognition that suggests that we should rationally spend effort up to about half of the difference in value between the top and second best alternative; for most fields this is *a lot* more than is currently done. A few strategy meetings and reports here and there, some semi-philosophical papers by some emeritus, a discussion among funding bodies - that is the typical approach. But if those theorems apply, we ought to spend *billions* on setting research priorities better.)


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 13:14:22 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:14:22 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <3811406479-11160@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <3811406479-11160@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhnVs8T6Uy1T-2+yDrRz4A3TEGP-rO2ASM3UcA6y_q06Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 13 January 2015 at 12:17, Anders Sandberg wrote:
<snip>
> The FLI idea is not so much as establishing a one true list of What Must Be
> Done In AI, but try to reorder the priorities of people in the field based
> on some actual thinking about first-, second-, and higher order issues. The
> fact that safety for a long time has not even been regarded as a research
> priority at all should tell us something about how bad the priorities used
> to be.
>
>

The main problem with AI to date is that nobody really knows what the
breakthrough path will be.
Incremental improvements on existing automation is what is happening.

The internet grew like Topsy, with little thought given to security.
And we got a mixture of good and bad. A lot of wild developments,
Facebook, Twitter, the cloud, discussion groups, Google, Amazon, etc.
And a lot of hackers, criminality, identity theft, etc. Now that
regulation is appearing, with governments deciding they have to do
'something', the web is becoming a tool of government for control and
spying, and a tool of corporations to sell stuff and manipulate
people.

Regulation of AI development is likely to go the same way in our
present society. Once AI appears there will be government and
corporate AIs that far surpass private 'assistants' that people can
get.

'Letting a thousand flowers bloom' gives a chance that governments and
corporates will not overwhelm individuals. But, of course, then there
is the risk that AIs may be used by criminals and terrorists. Or that
a rogue AI may run wild and cause much damage. (We already have stock
market flash crashes when algos run wild).

Looks like a messy future!

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 13 14:38:20 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 06:38:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <010801d02f3e$944ee2a0$bceca7e0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials

On 13 January 2015 at 06:59, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>> ###...Not even one 
> of them deciding to send out even a single self-replicating probe 
> designed to self-replicate for ever, just for the heck of it?
>
>


>...But think about the effects of speeding up your brain processing by
possibly thousands of times.
You are trapped in an unchanging physical world. If you decide to send out a
probe, then first it takes the equivalent of thousands of years (brain time)
to build it and then you have to watch it while it takes thousands of years
(brain time) to move about a yard. BillK

_______________________________________________

It's already happened, BillK.  We already have, by current technologically
plausible means, a way to create a large number of independently orbiting
reflectors, which would collectively reflect sufficient sunlight to move our
entire star, along with all its planets.  The number you called out,
multiple brain lifetimes to move a yard, is on the right order, but
acceleration is the key, not the distance moved.  So we could move the
entire solar system the distance to the currently nearest star, 4 plus
lightyears, in about 20 million years.  Because of the brain processing
speed-up, we don't even take such proposals seriously.  

spike



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 15:12:38 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:12:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
Message-ID: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>

One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================
One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
================

Happy New Year all.

I predict that a paper reporting positive psi results will NOT appear in
Nature or Science in the next year. This may seem an outrageous
prediction, after all psi is hardly a rare phenomena, millions of
people with no training have managed to observe it, or claim they have.
And I am sure the good people at Nature and Science would want to
say something about this very important and obvious part of our natural
world if they could, but I predict they will be unable to find anything
interesting to say about it.

You might think my prediction is crazy, like saying a waitress with an
eight's grade education in Duluth Minnesota can regularly observe the
Higgs boson with no difficulty but the highly trained Physicists at CERN
in Switzerland cannot. Nevertheless I am confident my prediction is true
because my ghostly spirit guide Mohammad Duntoldme spoke to me
about it in a dream.

PS: I am also confident I can make this very same prediction one year from
today.

    John K Clark
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 15:21:30 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:21:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <010801d02f3e$944ee2a0$bceca7e0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
 <010801d02f3e$944ee2a0$bceca7e0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhZUW9jtYZ-viABXFShB=XcQWzbqSpaSvokGcp1_VDj-w@mail.gmail.com>

> >... On Behalf Of BillK
>
> You are trapped in an unchanging physical world. If you decide to send out
> a
> probe, then first it takes the equivalent of thousands of years (brain
> time)
> to build it and then you have to watch it while it takes thousands of years
> (brain time) to move about a yard. BillK


### We already have the solution to this problem, widely used by militaries
around the world - FaF, fire and forget.

And remember, it takes only one, one single lonely self-replicating
interstellar probe to remake the universe.

Rafal
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From avant at sollegro.com  Tue Jan 13 06:22:38 2015
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:22:38 -0800
Subject: [ExI] ExI list sending mail again!
Message-ID: <ktkw1vq0lb3a23oa65gi7j0w.1421125314369@email.android.com>


Great to hear from you all again. The way you guys were discussing advanced aliens and the great silence just before the list went dead made me wonder if the cosmic filter got you. ;-)


Stuart LaForge

Sent from my Virgin Mobile phone.



From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 16:30:54 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:30:54 +0100
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhZUW9jtYZ-viABXFShB=XcQWzbqSpaSvokGcp1_VDj-w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
 <010801d02f3e$944ee2a0$bceca7e0$@att.net>
 <CAAc1gFhZUW9jtYZ-viABXFShB=XcQWzbqSpaSvokGcp1_VDj-w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFRn0ogJpUHjg2CP9+sVWx_SiXCC5k-eQRTZ=i+KUZYg8A@mail.gmail.com>

Being the first, or at least being among the first few is the only logical
solution to the Fermi's paradox.

The great filter necessary for this, is the small probability for the first
cell or something equally non spectacular.

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote an essay called We?ll Never Conquer Space.

The great visionary could be wrong. We might do it, after all.



On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:21 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>> >... On Behalf Of BillK
>>
>> You are trapped in an unchanging physical world. If you decide to send
>> out a
>> probe, then first it takes the equivalent of thousands of years (brain
>> time)
>> to build it and then you have to watch it while it takes thousands of
>> years
>> (brain time) to move about a yard. BillK
>
>
> ### We already have the solution to this problem, widely used by
> militaries around the world - FaF, fire and forget.
>
> And remember, it takes only one, one single lonely self-replicating
> interstellar probe to remake the universe.
>
> Rafal
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 16:42:22 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:42:22 -0600
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>

I love lists.  Now I am thinking of a list that would include all the
phenomena and beings that humans have said exist for which there have never
been any confirmed evidence at all.  If it exists I think that maybe my
printer would run out of ink, much less paper, before printing such a list.

Unnatural explanations outnumber natural ones by many orders of magnitude.
And we claim to be the thinking species?  The rational one?

Jimmy Carter (according to my dentist this morning) caused the high gas
prices of the 70s.  Accordingly, Obama must be responsible for the lowered
prices.  QED.

bill w

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 9:12 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
>
> Happy New Year all.
>
> I predict that a paper reporting positive psi results will NOT appear in
> Nature or Science in the next year. This may seem an outrageous
> prediction, after all psi is hardly a rare phenomena, millions of
> people with no training have managed to observe it, or claim they have.
> And I am sure the good people at Nature and Science would want to
> say something about this very important and obvious part of our natural
> world if they could, but I predict they will be unable to find anything
> interesting to say about it.
>
> You might think my prediction is crazy, like saying a waitress with an
> eight's grade education in Duluth Minnesota can regularly observe the
> Higgs boson with no difficulty but the highly trained Physicists at CERN
> in Switzerland cannot. Nevertheless I am confident my prediction is true
> because my ghostly spirit guide Mohammad Duntoldme spoke to me
> about it in a dream.
>
> PS: I am also confident I can make this very same prediction one year from
> today.
>
>     John K Clark
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 13 17:03:08 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 09:03:08 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01ab01d02f52$cf179f80$6d46de80$@att.net>

>>... Getting AI to be safe and "fit for purpose" (whether driving or being 
> a companion species) is slowly becoming mainstream. This list can in 
> true hipster fashion claim to have debated it long before it became cool...  Anders

>... On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco
Subject: Re: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI

>...I see that many good friends and respected researchers signed the open letter...

http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter


Whether or not it is a legitimate means of determining the propriety of signing a petition, most of us here will likely confess we are influenced by the presence or absence of other signers.  I took the list of over 1300 signers and listed them two ways, alphabetical by last name and alphabetical by first name, listed below.  This one was a slam dunk: Anders wrote it.  I already know that fine lad thinks carefully and ethically and doesn't do the wrong thing.

I had Excel format these lists, so if you have a name which is in a non-standard format and it gets out of order, I apologize and of course it's all Bill Gates' fault.  Here are those who have signed it.  I am not listed but I will sign this.


A, Regan
Abdulla, Keith
Abel, David
?berg, Henrik
Abuishmais, Ibrahim
Agrawal, Ajay
Aguera, Blaise Aguera
Aguirre, Anthony
Ahmad, Faiz
Ahrens, Matthew P
?hstr?m, Olov
Aitken, Christopher E.
Ajadi, Lawrence
Akarsh, Shagun
Akhiat, Malika
Akwei-Sekyere, Samuel
Alatalo, Kari
Albert, Pierre
Alencar, Jonathan
Alexandre, Laurent
Ali, Muhsin
Allan, Stewart
Allred, Ryan
Alouini, Yassine
Alteio, Lisa
Altenburg, Michael
Ames, Oliver
Anders, Geoff
Anderson, Gabriel
Anderson, Bryan
Andersson, Lukas
Andersson, Vlad
Andregg, Michael
Andrei, Medrea
Andresen, Michelle
Andresen, Torgeir
Andriesse, Niels
Andryushchenko, Konstantin
Ansarin, Mohammad
Anton, Stelios
Arango, Manuel V?lez
Arden, David
Arenas, Jack
Arevalo, Christian Ramirez
Arevalo, Daniel
Ariss, Todd
Armstrong, Stuart
Armstrong, Derek
Arnaud, Mayrargue
Arutyunyants, Alex
Arya, Agyey
Ashburn, Trent
Ashok, Anubhav
Ashok, Bhav
Assaliyski, Marin
Assi, Nader
Atashian, Peter
Athuraliya, CD
Atkinson, Peter W
Atkinson, Paul
Azraai, Ariff
B., Carlos R.
Babatunde, Mark
Babcock, James
Babu, Theodore
Baburov, Lyubomir
Bach, Joscha
Back, Trevor
Badenhorst, Jacques
Baer, Jon
Baijens, Jos
Baker, JP
Balakrishnan, Bharat
Baniardalan, Abdulah
Barberio, Raffaele
Barker, Edward
Barrat, James
Barreto, Tim
Barrett, Mark
Barrios, Juan Manuel
Barros, Pedro
Barry, John
Barsoum, Emad
Bass, Peter L.
Basticz, Nandor
Batovski, Dobri Atanassov
Beck, Nick
Beeg, Thomas
Beer, Dawid de
Bejarano, Marc
Belkasmi, Omar
Bell, Gregory
Bell, Evan J.
Belzman, Josh
Bembibre, Jos?
Benedetti, Adolfo
Beninson, Jonathan
Benitez, Ezra
Benjamin.Amazu, Ike
Benoit, Toussaint
Bensinger, Rob
Bensmann, Jan Philipp
Benson-Tilsen, Tsvi
Bergen, Wim van
Berggren, Jacob
Bergheim, ?ystein
Bergwall, David
Berntsen, Nikolaj
Berthet, Florent
Betancourt, Frank
Bey, Gloria El
Bhambry, Mohak
Bhat, Suresh
Bhattacharya, Anirban
Bhowmik, David
Bigge, Dr Bill
Bigham, Daniel
Binks, Peter
Birkett, Simon
Blagoeva, Elena
Blankenship, Marcus
Bocken, Paul
Bodas-Sagi, Diego
Boden, Margaret
Boetes, Caspar
Bohmer, Mats ten
Bolling, Liam
Bonn, Maurice
Booch, Grady
Bormintsev, Alexandr
Borrel, Vincent
B?rresen, Morten
Bortel, Jan
Bostrom, Nick
Botha, Jan
B?ttger, Daniel
Bouchard, Jonathan
Boutkhourst, Hassan
Bowen, Jerome
Bowerman, Jim
Boyd, Stowe
Boyles, Anthony A.
Brack, Ryan
Bragais, Luiz
Brandner, Philip
Brasseur, Jean
Brehin, Julien
Brena, Ramon F.
Brennan, Geoffrey
Brietbart, Peter
Briquet, Gabriel
Broekema, Aart-George
Brooks, Gavin
Brown, Jesse
Brown, Derek
Brown, Kevin
Brown, Connor
Brown, Logan
Brown, J
Brown, Daniel
Brown, Brandon
Brundage, Miles
Brykov, Gary
Brynjolfsson, Erik
Bugert, Brian
Bui, Tuan
Buijs, Maarten
Bunker, Richard
Burgess, Cameron
Busbice, Timothy
Busov, Vladislav
Butterfield, Tony
Buxton, Josh
Buza, Mihaela
Bystrov, Alex
Cabaleiro, Rub?n E.
Caffarerl, Jesse
Caires, Milena
Calo, Ryan
Campbell, Adam
Campbell, Roderick
Campos, Michael
Canelhas, Daniel Ricao
Capezzani, Dante
Caplan, Josh
Carbonneau, Theresa
Carheil, Erwann de
Carlander, Ola
Carney, Riley
Caron, Sherri
Carter, Jim
Cartwright, Malu G
Casaubon, Joaquin
Casey, John
Castilla-Rubio, Juan Carlos
Catarino, Gon?alo
Catt, Ashley
Cauchi, Reuben
Cepeda, Jesus
Ceulaer, Bart De
Chandaria, Shamil
Chapman, Edward
Chassoul, Jean
Cheikh, Diop
Chen, David
Chen, Julien
Chen, Joyce
Cheney, Brian
Cherrier, Rapha?l
Childers, Devin R.
Chilukamarri, Prasanna
Ching, Yonghan
Chiochia, Vincenzo
Chita-Tegmark, Meia
Choi, Charina
Chong, Vei
Choquel, Louis
Chrisley, Ron
Christiano, Paul
Ciccarelli, Bryan
Cieslak, David
Claessens, Kim
Clark, Douglas
Clark, Sean
Clarke, Dermott
Clarke, Jamie
Clemens, Martin J.
Clover, Joey
Cochrane, Michael
Colarich, Francisco
Coleman, Dave
Collins, Zachary
Collins, Edward
Comess, Max D.
Connor, John O'
Connor, John
Conolly, Fergus
Conway, Michael
Conway, Declan
Conybeare, Sebastian
Cools, Has
Cooman, Gert de
Coons, Jason
Cooper, Steve
Cornouaille, Renan de
Costanzo, Cory
Courtemanche, Edward
Cragin, Harold
Crandall, Andrew
Cranston, Gregory
Creach, Collin
Creed, P?id?
Creutzburg, Edwin
Crossan, Steve
Crosscombe, Michael
Culver, Tim
D., Dennis Anthony
da, Luiz Bezerra
Dadang, Wayan
Dagadi, Shivraj
Dahlin, Herluf
Dalen, Joost van
Daly, Tim
Daly, Megan
Dalzell, Matt
Dam, Sebastiaan van
Daoutis, Marios
Dar, Zavain
Das, Sanjoy
Dash, Rajesh
Davey, Mark
Davis, Ernest
Davis, Hale H.
Davison, Andrew
de, Juan Delard
de, Perico el
de, Enrico X.
de Jager, Bouke
DeArmond, Don DeArmond
Debernardini, Matthias
Debic, Boris
Dechery, Christian
Deichert, Helmut
Delaney, Craig
Delanghe, Philippe
DeLashmutt, Leslie F.
Delic, Marko
Delic, Kemal
Dembicki, Dennis
Demers, Nicole
den, Carlos van
der, Tommy van
der, Martin van
der, Niels van
Derose, Jeffrey
Desjardin, Arnaud
Dewey, Daniel
Dhamani, Asad
Dhiman, Nitin
Diamond, Gabriel
Dietterich, Tom
Dijk, Frans van
Dingle, Matthew
Dinse, Robin
Dipierro, Dan
Dlabka, Jakub
Do, Doanh
Doering-Powell, Mark
Donaj, Natalija
Donnelly, Ruairi
Dordunoo, Marcel
Dorrius, Adrian
Dourvetakis, Konstantinos
Doyle, Ciaran
Driscoll, Brian
Drummond, Yasmeen
Dunteman, Ian
Duvenaud, David
Dwyer, Ted
Dwyer, Curran
Dyer, Chris
Eagan, TR
Edan, Clendon
Eden, Amnon H
Eden, William
Ehlen, Patrick
Ehlers, Dominic
Eiben, Gusz
Eichinger, Frederic
Ekstrom, Hakan
Elder, Matt
Elliot, Michael
Elliott, Tom
Ellison, Scott
Ellmann, Ben
Elshof, Ivo
Ende, Dennis van
Enzinger, Daniel Bela
Erb, Sven
Eriksson, Axel
Erins, Peteris
Erkailo, Tinsae
Eth, Daniel
Etter, Kaspar
Etzioni, Oren
Evans, Owain
Eweg, F.M.
Fabiano, Joao
Fabrice, Petit
Fagan, Matt
Fallenstein, Benja
Feist, Wolfgang
Felcan, David
Fenlon, Sean P.
Fenton, Jacob
Fernandes, Dillon
Fernandez, Sydney
Ferraz, Marta
Fester, Michael
Fikri, Muhammad Izzul
Filip, Ioan
Firth, Arthur
Fischer, Jan
Fitzgerald, Vance
Fiume, Shannon
Flidr, Ales
Flier, Adriaan CJ
Foord, James
Forbes, Dillon
Ford, Larry D.
Foreman, Alton
Forsyth, Cory
Foster, Dennis
France, Alex
Frank, Douglas
Fraser, Stephen
Freeman, Alan M.
Frisch, Richard
Frissen, Valerie
Fuentes, Miguel Angel
Fuglaas, Geir
Furey, Allister
Gael, Jurgen Van
Gaeta, John C.
Galambos, Charles
Gal?n Olmedo, Juan Luis
Galiniak, Dale
Gallardo, Rodolfo
Galtung, Fredrik
Gandhi, Zaf
Garc?a, Daniel Castro
Gardiner, Peter
Gardner, Peter A.
Garfield, Michael
Garnier-Landurie, Cedric
Garr, Michael
Garrabrant, Scott
Garrett, Gabriel
Garvey, Hayden
Gelissen, Richard
Gentry, John
George, Dileep
George, Sando
George, Chaniotakis M.
Georgiev, Georgi
Gerber, Alexander Luke
Germann, Jan
Gerritsen, Jelmar
Geskey, Matthew
Gibson, Rod
Gibson, Lee
Gibson, Joseph
Giesecke, Raphael
Gilliam, Emil
Giola, Jacopo
Gobbo, Federico
Godts, Brecht
Goertzel, Ben
Goheen, Amanda
Goldberg, Craig
Golding, Tim
Goldschmidt, Evan
Goldschmidt, Remy
Gomez, Bryan
Gomez, Roberto
Gooen, Ozzie
Gopalakrishnan, Navneeth
Goswami, Rahul
Govern, Paul Mc
Grace, Katja
Graham, James William
Graham, Greg
Graham, Alf
Grant, Michael L.
Gray, MJ
Grazioplene, Kevin
Greaves, Malcolm
Green, Michael
Greene, Joshua
Greene, Michael
Greenway, Nic
Greissing, Matthew
Grendel, Alexander
Grewe, Dominik
Greyson-Gaito, Christopher
Groenbroek, Herman
Groenewegen, Paul
Grov?, Wouter
Gruninger, Martin Lequeux
Gschladt, Peter Stephan
Guimar?es, Feliciano
Gulati, Vishal
G?lmez, Hakan
Gunderson, Gary
Guo, Qi
Gupta, Kalyan Moy
Gurney, Kevin
Guzman, Alejandro Caballero
Haan, Nicholas
Habib, Faris
Habib, Aynul
Habryka, Oliver
Hache, Marc
Hafiz, Muhammad
H?ggstr?m, Olle
Hamer, Winfried
Hamm, Steve
Hammersley, John
Hamner, Ben
Hampton, Adriel
Handa, Ankur
Hansen, Lucas
Hanson, Liz
Hanson, Robert
Haraszti, Attila
Harms, Jeff
Harris, Sam
Harris, Steven
Harrison, Neil
Hartog, A den
Harvilicz, David
Hassabis, Demis
Hatzopoulos, George
Havens, John C.
Hawking, Stephen
Hay, Nick
Hazenberg, Wimer
Heath, Simon
Hede, Shatesh
Hedlund, Magnus
Heerikhuize, Jerry van
H?igeartaigh, Se?n ?
Heikkinen, Kieren
Heldal, Jan
Hemken, Heinz
Henderson, Corey
Hengst, Bartho
Hennebergger, Daniel
Hering, John
Hermsmeier, Jonas
Herreshoff, Marcello
Herring, James
Herrington, Jack
Hertling, William
Hertzell, Justin
Herzig, Dieter
Hess, Dennys
Heyert, Mark
Heyes, Peter
Hibbard, Bill
Hicks, Jesse
Hileman, Rhodes
Hilkens, Sander
Hillebrand, Erwin
Hilton, Samuel
Hindi, Rand
Hinton, Geoffrey
Hirsch, Nicholas
Hirschhorn, Jason
Hitchcock, Irene Elisabeth
Hjert?n, Per
Hoai, Tran Van
Hoekstra, Hidde
Holden, Harry
Hollenbach, Andrew
Holt, Adam
Holt-Andersen, Britt
Holyer, Andy
Hoo, Kwee Swan
Hoogerwoord, Erwin
Hopkins, Terry
Horbal, Mark
Horrell, Jasper
Horvitz, Eric
Hoss, Kami
Hossain, Mamur
Hu, Diana
Hudson, Shane
Hudson, Clive
Hughes, Simon
Huguet, Pierre
Huismann, Kevin
Hull, Richard
Hunt, Jack
Husick, Lawrence
Hussain, Minarul
Hussain-Khan, Hamid
Hutchinson, Kevin
Hyder, Ibrahim
Iblisdir, Sofyan
Ignatov, Yury
Ilyushin, Evgenii
Inderlee, Troy D.
Ingham, Lucy
Innocent, Charles
Islam, Md
Ismail, Omar
Jack, Niall
Jacobstein, Neil
J?derlund, Gunnar
Jago, Robbert Sint
James, Daniel
Jan, Bert
Jannette, Christopher
Janson, Patrick
Jaric, Peter
J?rvet, Teet
Jarvis, Jason
Javaid, Faizi
Jeffrey, Peter N.
Jelavic, Roko
Jenkel, Colin
Jenkins, Alexander
Jeppson, John
Jezierski, Eduardo
Jimenez, Ray
Jing, Tony
Johnson, Pete
Johnson, Robert
Johnson, Mark
Johnson, Bradley
Johnson, Edward
Johnson, Bryan
Johnson, Emmanuel
Johnston, David J.
Jones, Steve
Jones, Griffith W.
Jones, Jonathan
Jongerling, Tha?s
Jonsson, Henrik
Josey, Victor
Jouanno, Mathieu
Junker, Ulrich
K, Dileep Kumar
Kabai, Imre
Kachergis, George
Kaelbling, Leslie Pack
Kaiser, Christian
Kakkar, Arush
Kalmukov, Yordan
Kalogeropoulos, Alex
Kaminskiy, Dmitry
Kamm, Jochen
Kang, Chin Ching
Kargas, Catherine
Karlsen, Karl Vidar
Karran, Dr Alexander
Kasela, Indrek
Kautz, Henry
Keaveny, Michael
Keene, Jamie
Kelbell, Scott
Keller, Perry
Kellner, Joseph
Kember, Martin
Kemendo, Andrew
Kemner, Arno
Kenkeremath, Sean
Kentrop, Michael
Kesin, Max
Kestenholz, Daniel
Khalifa, Amine Ben
Kiernan, Michael
Kieser, Greg
Kikland, Rafielle
Kinder, Adam
Kindt, Frank
Kirk, Nicholas H.
Klooster, Kris van
Knudsen, Christian Ohlendorff
Koci, Kristian
Koehler, Ben
Koene, Randal A.
Kohen, Dr Yishav
Kohorn, Dan Von
Kok, David
Kolasi?ski, Kamil
Kollmorgen, Sepp
Kolodzik, Matthew
Koltko-Rivera, Mark
Komkov, John
Kom?r, Wojciech
Kondratiev, Alexey
Kong, Nicholas
Koning, Niels de
Kooijmans, David
Koot, Daan
Korin, Yair
Korjus, Kristjan
Korotaev, Kirill
Koster, Ilse
Kotil, Adem
Krabbe, Jens
Krakovna, Viktoriya
Kramar, Janos
Kriegman, Isaac
Kr?ger, Ole
Krol, Rudy
Kronovet, Daniel
Kruse, Jason
Kucker, Alan
Kuhlmann, Michael
Kuijs, Simon
Kumar, Amit
Kumar, Varun
Kumar, Bipin
Kuncewicz, Robert
Kuosmanen, Pauli
Kuzmin, Dmitry
Kuzniewski, Christian
Laasik, Marek
Lac, Sander
Lacko, Brady
Lacle, Alhric
Lahore, Thomas
Lakkala, Olavi
Lal, Bhavya
Lamb, Richard
Lambert, Logan
Lamoso, Rafael S?nchez
Lamptey, Yestin
Landin, Emmanuel
Landry, Alexandre
Lane, Justin
Larsson, Ludvig
Laucirica, Lan
Lauraeus, Theresa
Laverty, Conall
LaVictoire, Patrick
Law, Ian
Law, Timothy
Lawler, Nicolas
Lawrence, Kevin
Lazzaro, John
Lechner, Denise
Leckie, Iain
LeCun, Yann
Ledesma, Jordhy
Lee, Joshua
Leech, Cormac
Lefevre, Jonathan
Legassick, Sean
Legg, Shane
Lejeune, Damien
Lemercier, Joanie
Leoni, Daniele
Levine, Brandon
Levisohn, Aaron
Lewan, Mats
Lewis, Colin
Leyton-Brown, Kevin
Li, Crystal
Liang, Percy
Ligameri, Mark
Litoiu, Alexandru
Liu, Zenghui
Liu, Corrina
Llisterri, Jose
Locher, Tamas
Lockyer, Daniel
Loffreto, Devon
Loftin, Pierce
Lohr, Rolf
Longmuir, Alan
Lorber, Sean
Loussert, Jacques
Lowe, Frederick
Lu, Jin
Luciw, Matthew
Luketina, Jelena
Lundborg, Alexander
Luraschi, Javier
Lussier, Kyle
Maas, Tijs
Maccallum, Robert
Machado, Alejandro
Machin, Charles
Macias, Said J.
MacKenzie-Morris, Alan
MacKinnon, Peter
Mackworth, Alan
Madhavacheril, Mathew
Maguire, Sandy
Mah, Layla
Maheshwari, Eashan
Makarevich, Anatoly
Makkinje, Jasper
Makuch, Ma?gorzata
Mallah, Richard
Maloney, Patrick
Manam, Kiran
Ma?as, Alfonso G?mez-Jordana
Mandalia, Priyank
Manderson, Tom
Mangione, Micah
Mani, Pankaj
Manktelow, James
Manson, Larry J.
Manyika, James
Marcato, Davide
Marchiori, Elena
Marconi, A.
Marczy, Jonas
Marianne, Thierry
Marinangeli, Claudio
Marinos, Alexandros
Marius-Adrian, Nicoar?
Markens, Mark
Markovics, Philipp
Maroni, Sean Newman
Marrero, Thomas
Marshall, Peter
Martell, Eric
Martens, Laurens
Martin, Andrew
Martin, Neil
Martin, Jose Maria
Martin, Susan Holden
Martin, Charles
Martin, Cyrill
Martinez, Diego
Martinez, Matthew
Martinho, Carlota
Marusic, Goran
Marzocchi, Alessandro
Mascotti, Franco
Masson, Siddhant
Mathews, LeAnthony
Matlock, Hugh
Matsuura, S?rgio
Mattson, Lemmy
Matzner, Eric
Mawson, Jeremy
May, Sean S
Mazon, Noah
McAdams, Darryl
McAndrew, Mark
McAuliffe, Matthew
McCabe, Paul
McClelland, Jim
McDermott, James
McElroy, Kathryn
McKay, Henry
McKernon, Andrew
McManus, James
McNair, Gavin
MD, Jon Gehrke
Medi?a, Matias
Megling, Rita
Mehta, Aaron
Meinsma, Jacques
Mejia, Sergio Mej?a
Melchior, Andrew
Melen, Mark D.
Melli, Gabor
M?ndez, Mat?as
Mennen, Alex
Mertens, Paul
Mertz, Jean
Messing, J?rgen
Metovic, Sadjit
Metzler, Richard
Meyers, Henry
Meystre, Stephane
Michael, Dr. M.G.
Mierden, Daniel van
Miguel, Antonio
Miguel, Emilia San
Mikhailov, Sergey
Mikkonen, Juho
Milenkovi?, Vladimir
Mileti?, Nino
Millar, James
Miller, James
Miller, Steven
Miller, Daniel
Miller, Melissa
Mills, William A.
Milou, Anthony
Mincin, Jesse
Mishko, David
Missaoui, Oualid
Mitchell, Tom
Mitchell, Clark
Moe, Katy
Molnes, Jarl S.
Moneypenny, Naomi
Monien, Peter
Moor, James
Moore, Roger K.
Moore, Andrew
Moores, Chase
Morales, Rebeca Alejandra
Morali, Stephane
Moreno, Harry
Morgan, Peter T.
Moser, Mark
Most, John
Mota, Alberto
Moussa, Samir
Mudgett, Mike
Muehlhauser, Luke
Mueller, Thomas
Mueller-Pettenpohl, Tell
Muhammad, Amjad
M?ller, Vincent C.
M?ller, Peter
M?ller, Thomsd
Mu?oz, Rafael
Murray, Duncan
Murray, Neil
Murray, Shaun
Musk, Elon
Musuku, Brian
Muurimaa, Henri
N, Dr Alan
Nadkarni, Girish
Nair, Prem
Naja, Robert Del
Nall, Tom
Narasimman, Murali
Nare, Lester
Nat?rio, Pedro
Needham, Wade
Neely, Tyler
Nelbach, Fran
Nelson, Jeff
Nemes, Thomas
Ng, Chong Eng
Ngo, Duc
Nguyen, Vu
Nguyen, Huy
Nicholson, Chris
Nickles, Matthias
Nieminen, Sami
Nikishaev, Antonio
Nilsen, Marius
Nimavat, Hradayesh
Nimmer, Alex
Nixon, Jeremy
Nobre, Guilherme
Noll, Daan
Nomer, Russell D.
Noon, Jeremy
Nordby, Jon
Nordstrom, Joel
Norris, Channon
Norris, Clay
Norta, Alex
Norvig, Peter
Nosek, Luke
Noyes, Daniel
Nurse, Paul
Nygaard, Mads
Offerman, Arnold
Okao, Kazumasa
Oliveira, Agnello
Oliver, Jason
Oliveros, Ignacio
Olunodun, Agbalaya
Omohundro, Steve
Ontiveros, Cristopher
Oppenheim, Florian von
Orbe, Antonio
Ord, Toby
Orseau, Laurent
Osborne, Michael
Ostafew, Chris
Ostberg, Olov
Osterhout, Zach
Ottosson, Jenny
Overbeek, Jeff
?zalp, Alan
Pachniewski, Pawel
Paeglis, Arets
Palaszewski, Stephen J.
Pallaghy, Paul
Palombo, Paolo
Pampolim, Pedro
Papazian, Pegor
Pardoe, Andy
Parizeau, Alexi
Park, John
Parker, Priscilla
Parkes, David
Parodi, Cristian
Parrianen, Josie
Parsons, Stephen
Patel, Ashish
Patel, Tirth
Paulsen, John Eirik
Paura, Roberto
Pauri, Matteo
Pavi?evi?, Tony
Pawlowski, Milosz
Pedersen, Carter
Peloni, Peter
Pereira, Ismar
Peressinoto, Rafael Augusto
P?rez, Mat?as M?ndez
Perkins, Heather Roff
Perret, J?r?my
Persson, Johan
Peskin, Cliff
Peters, Jared
Peterson, Trevor M.
Pettier, Agathe
PhD, John Elliott
Philippides, Andrew
Phillips, Dior
Phillips, Rob
Phillips, Steve
Phoenix, Scott
Pierce, Pat
Pierro, Massimo Di
Piezal, Gerson
Pike, Ronald
Pinnell, Nathan
Pitale, Mandar
Pitt, Joel
Plazek, Michael
Poggio, Tomaso
Poliran, Keith
Pollak, Stephen
Polski, Dr. Margaret
Polten, Orla
Pontier, Matthijs
Ponzoni, Luca
Portella, Daniel
Pospisek, Karl
Post, Gert
Poussart, Denis
Powell, Jason
Powell, Noah
Powell, Robin Lee
Powers, Thomas M.
Powers, Aaron
Powers, C. Addington
Prescott, Tony
Press, Mikkel Fj?rvik
Prest, Alessandro
Price, Huw
Primet, Ma?l
Prince, Brett
Prince, Bradley
Profili, Mario
Prosch, Robin
Proud, James
Purdy, Leann
Putman, Matthew
Quaite, Alec
Rademakers, Thomas
Radice, Davide
Rains, Richard
Rajaniemi, Hannu
Rakshit, Arnab
Ramakotti, Anand
Ramirez, Liz
Ramo, John
Ramos, Angel
Ranjan, Rahul
Rao, Mayoor
Rasmus, Antti
Raynaud-Lacroze, Paul-Olivier
Razmovski, Aleksandar
Readfern, Paul
Rees, Martin
Reibel, Andres
Reilly, Michele
Reilly, Graham
Reilly, Brian
Reitzen, Robert
Rembratt, Jonas
Reni?, Mislav
Reppo, Ellis
Ribeiro, Fernando
Richard, Sam
Richards, Len
Richardson, Paul
Riegner, Ryan
Rimmell, Shawn
Rintanen, Jussi
Rish?j, Christian
Robson, Michael
Rocha-Ferreira, Antonio
Rodrigo, Fiona
Rodriguez, Luis R.
Roggen, Daniel
Rojas, Hugo
Rojas, Luis
Ron, Eduard
Rond, Julian de
R?nn, Kristian
Roodt, Anton
Rosa, Marek
Rosa-Brusin, Silvia
Rosenhahn, Sarah
Rosini, Rodolfo
Ross, Jeff
Ross, Gavin
Rosset, Romain
Rossi, Francesca
Rossouw, Jozua
Roth, Daniel
Rothkegel, Patrick
Rothman, Peter
Rothrock, Jack
Roy, Mathieu
Royo-Reece, Raphael
Rudd, Jonathan
Ruditskiy, Aleksey
Rupe, Toni
Rupp, Jeffrey D.
Russell, Stuart
Rustandi, Indrayana
Ruth, Alfred
Saarenvirta, Kari
Saha, Barun K
?ahin, Halil
Sailer, Nicholas
Salah, Ben
Salamon, Anna
Salas, Marko
Samar, Alireza
Sammarone, Alan
Sandberg, Anders
Saraswat, Vijay
Savosnick, Simon
Saygin, Ayse Pinar
Schacher, Markus
Schafroth, Gregor
Schaublin, Richard W.
Schaul, Tom
Scheper, Joeri
Schmatz, Steven
Schmidt, Sebastian
Schneider, Patrick
Schneider, Susan
Schoeneman, Larry
Schreck, Florian
Schreurs, Ruben
Schroeder, Dave
Schubert, Stefan
Searle, Mark
Selamis, Vasileios
Selassie, Ayori
Sellevoll, Frank
Selman, Bart
Sepp?l?, Roope
Serra, Artur
Serrano, Manuel
Serrano, Lourdes
Shaji, Appu
Shanahan, Murray
Shankar, Sukrit
Sharma, Shantanu
Sharma, Ankur
Sheehy, Andrew
Shelegov, Igor
Shields, Brian
Shirai, Brian
Shirokov, Alexandr
Shivaramakrishnan, Shivaramakrishnan
Showalter, Eric
Shrivastava, Saurabh
Siciliano, Vincent
Sierra, Alberto
Sigmon, Matthew
Silveira, Vicente
Silverlind, Max
Sinanian, Michael
Sincak, Peter
Siner, John
Singer, Joshua
Sinha, Prashant
Sintora, Manuel Correa
Sivoloski, Rub?n
Siwo, Geoffrey
Skirvin, Adrienne
Skirvin, Marc
Skr?dal, Roger
Slinn, Mike
Sloots, Bob
Smestad, Geir
Smidt, Tess
Smit, R.W.
Smith, Walter Patrick
Smith, Warren
Smith, Thibaut
Smith, Clayton
Smith, Karl
Snape, Julian
Snyder, Jason Alan
Snyder-Beattie, Andrew
Soares, Nate
Soljacic, Marin
Somrekov, Edvin
Soni, Tushar
Soosaar, Olavi
Soosaar, Alvar
Sormunen, Henri
Sousa, Mike de
Sowler, Jonathan
Spaan, Vincent
Spencer, Martin
Srivastava, Tuhin
Staber, Kris
Standiford, Jeremy
Stayskal, Danne
Steeksma, Colin
Steeman, Bart
Steere, Dan
Stein, Buck
Steinback, Chad
Steinhardt, Jacob
Steinruecken, Christian
Stephenson, Michael
Stevenson, Tim Drew
Stilgoe, Jack
Stoll, Uwe
Stoltz, Rudie
Stookey, Connor
Storey, Llewelyn
Stout, Jamey
Straetmans, Henri
Straubel, JB
Suarez, Tanya
Suarez, Andres Leon
Subramanian, Aneesh
Sueldo, Mardoqueo
Suleyman, Mustafa
Sulik, Adam
Sumner, Elliot
Sutherland, Morgan
Sutskever, Ilya
Suwala, Aleksandra
Svenningsson, Josef
Sviggum, Peder
Synnaeve, Gabriel
Szyld, Piotr
T., Kamalraj
Taillon, Jean-Philippe
Tallinn, Jaan
Tallon, Adam
Tamman, Alex
Tan, Terence
Taponen, Esa
Taylor, Jessica
Taylor, Maxwell
Taylor, Ben
Teeuwen, Sjoerd
Tegmark, Max
Tepandi, Jaak
Thais, Roberto
Thangarajan, Narendran
Thayer, Ted
Theunissen, Noud
Thissen, Hennes
Thomas, Nathaniel
Thomas, Labb?
Thomas, Ben
Thomassy, Genoka
Thomsen, Soren
Thomson, Edward
Thurman, Gerald
Tikka, Veijo
Tilli, Cecilia
Timmons, Dana
Tkachev, Dmitri
Toma, Paolo De
Toma, Alexandru
Tomlinson, Blain
T?th, Andr?s
Touzard, Mike
Townsend, V.W. Todd
Trajkovski, Igor
Trausan-Matu, Stefan
Truszczynski, Miroslaw
Tschanz, Stephan
Tulach, Ji??
Tunlid, Geir
Tunturi, Joonas
Turchin, Alexey
Tushar, Abhinav
Tussing, David
Ukkonen, Esko
Urena, Michael A.
Vaandrager, Frits
Valente, Leonardo
Valkenberg, Jan F.
van, Jeroen C.
van der Horst, Laurens
Vanbiesbrouck, Koen
Vance, Alyssa
VanDevender, Aaron
Vantoch-Wood, Angus
Vardi, Moshe
Vassar, Michael
Vazquez, Raquel
Venturini, Luca
Vereycken, Herman
Verheij, Rene
Verpoorten, Kristof
Veseli, Fatbardh
Veski, Rein
Vestergaard, Tor Esa
Vieira, Armando
Vijayaratnam, Vithushan
Vinge, Vernor
Vircik, Maria
Vitiello, Daniel
Vittal, John
Vlaenderen, Frank Van
Vleck, Jim
Voaides, Gabriel
Vogel, Paul
Voller, Herrand
Voronov, Pavel
Vorontsov, Ilia
Vrandecic, Denny
Vriens, Chris J.J.M.
Vries, Renze de
Vuine, Ronnie
Vuj?i?, Bla?
Wakeling, Zara
Walden, Jasper
Walker, Caleb J.
Walker, Chris
Wallace, Sam
Wallach, Wendell
Walsh, Toby
Wanderstein, Hans
Wang, Jeffrey Weiren
Wang, Chao
Wang, Yibing
Wang, Yuan
Wang, Arthur
Ward, Samuel
Wardell, Justin
Warner, Michael
Warren, Peter
Waser, Mark
Wasson, Jennifer
Watkins, Chris
Watkins, Millard
Watson, Mark
Watson, Nell
Weber, Manfred
Weiner, Nick
Weld, Daniel
Weller, Adrian
Wells, Alex
Wen, James
West, Gabriel
West, Ben
Westergren, Zacharias
Whelan, T. J.
Whitney, Zane
Widrat, Lars
Wilczek, Frank
Wiliams, Stephen D.
Wilkerson, John
Wilkinson, Michael
Williams, Robert W.
Wilms, John
Wilson, Achu
Winfield, Prof. Alan
Winkler, Martin
Winkler, Cole
Winstone, Felix
Wirshup, Sam
Wissner-Gross, Alexander
Wisth, Ryan
Witbrock, Michael
Wittamer, Jerome
Wloka, Nils
W?gerbauer, Michael
Wohlgemuth, Walter
Wolf, Corn? de
Wolff, Phil
Wollbekk, Thomas
Wolper, Pierre
Wood, David
Woodworth, Bryce
Wooldridge, Michael
Worden, Seth
Wouters, Jan
Wrye, Evan
Xiao, Zhongyi
Xing, Peter
Yampolskiy, Roman V.
Yasrebi, Soheil
Yates, Jonathan
Yefim, Albert
Yeroushalmie, Amir
Young, Talen
Ysf, Safi
Yudkowsky, Eliezer
Zandieh, Morteza
Zandwijk, Hercp
Zappie, James
Zarur, Carlos
Zeason, A.J.
Zhu, Kai
Ziemniak, John
Zilahy, Jeff
Zima, Adam
Zingg, Genevieve
Zuchner, Stephan
Zwierlein, Stefan



Here's the list by first name:

A den Hartog
A. Marconi
A.J. Zeason
Aaron VanDevender
Aaron Powers
Aaron Mehta
Aaron Levisohn
Aart-George Broekema
Abdulah Baniardalan
Abhinav Tushar
Achu Wilson
Adam Campbell
Adam Kinder
Adam Zima
Adam Holt
Adam Sulik
Adam Tallon
Adem Kotil
Adolfo Benedetti
Adriaan CJ Flier
Adrian Weller
Adrian Dorrius
Adriel Hampton
Adrienne Skirvin
Agathe Pettier
Agbalaya Olunodun
Agnello Oliveira
Agyey Arya
Ajay Agrawal
Alan Mackworth
Alan Sammarone
Alan ?zalp
Alan Longmuir
Alan Kucker
Alan MacKenzie-Morris
Alan M. Freeman
Albert Yefim
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Tsvi Benson-Tilsen
Tuan Bui
Tuhin Srivastava
Tushar Soni
Tyler Neely
Ulrich Junker
Uwe Stoll
V.W. Todd Townsend
Valerie Frissen
Vance Fitzgerald
Varun Kumar
Vasileios Selamis
Vei Chong
Veijo Tikka
Vernor Vinge
Vicente Silveira
Victor Josey
Vijay Saraswat
Viktoriya Krakovna
Vincent Borrel
Vincent Siciliano
Vincent Spaan
Vincent C. M?ller
Vincenzo Chiochia
Vishal Gulati
Vithushan Vijayaratnam
Vlad Andersson
Vladimir Milenkovi?
Vladislav Busov
Vu Nguyen
Wade Needham
Walter Wohlgemuth
Walter Patrick Smith
Warren Smith
Wayan Dadang
Wendell Wallach
William Eden
William Hertling
William A. Mills
Wim van Bergen
Wimer Hazenberg
Winfried Hamer
Wojciech Kom?r
Wolfgang Feist
Wouter Grov?
Yair Korin
Yann LeCun
Yasmeen Drummond
Yassine Alouini
Yestin Lamptey
Yibing Wang
Yonghan Ching
Yordan Kalmukov
Yuan Wang
Yury Ignatov
Zach Osterhout
Zacharias Westergren
Zachary Collins
Zaf Gandhi
Zane Whitney
Zara Wakeling
Zavain Dar
Zenghui Liu
Zhongyi Xiao






From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 13 17:08:12 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 09:08:12 -0800
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
?

>?Jimmy Carter (according to my dentist this morning) caused the high gas prices of the 70s.  Accordingly, Obama must be responsible for the lowered prices.  QED.  bill w

 

 

BillW, if your dentist was smart enough to make it into and through dental school, she is smart enough to realize American presidents do not dictate gas prices.  

 

Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with little influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.

 

spike

 

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 18:48:39 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:48:39 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <01ab01d02f52$cf179f80$6d46de80$@att.net>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ab01d02f52$cf179f80$6d46de80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+2RFSGFzc9d6ZygpnDQY9Oqx8+mtu_i6qh42nFpOMy4Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:03 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Whether or not it is a legitimate means of determining the propriety of signing a petition, most of us here will likely confess we are influenced by the presence or absence of other signers.  I took the list of over 1300 signers and listed them two ways, alphabetical by last name and alphabetical by first name, listed below.  This one was a slam dunk: Anders wrote it.  I already know that fine lad thinks carefully and ethically and doesn't do the wrong thing.
>
> I had Excel format these lists, so if you have a name which is in a non-standard format and it gets out of order, I apologize and of course it's all Bill Gates' fault.  Here are those who have signed it.  I am not listed but I will sign this.
>
> A, Regan
...
> Zhongyi Xiao

Seriously?  What were you thinking we'd do with that?  :)



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 19:18:09 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:18:09 -0600
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb8_RGssyzC=X+VFftohS2T_sbrgBxcEg-W+KnzRChP_Q@mail.gmail.com>

Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with little
influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.

spike


I thought Reagan was caused by the political situation in Iran.  ("Are you
Shah?"  "Sultanly"!)


bill w

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 11:08 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *?*
>
> >?Jimmy Carter (according to my dentist this morning) caused the high gas
> prices of the 70s.  Accordingly, Obama must be responsible for the lowered
> prices.  QED.  bill w
>
>
>
>
>
> BillW, if your dentist was smart enough to make it into and through dental
> school, she is smart enough to realize American presidents do not dictate
> gas prices.
>
>
>
> Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with
> little influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From sparge at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 19:31:52 2015
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:31:52 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:08 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with
> little influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.
>

Or are the Saudis dropping the price to put fracking, electric cars,
alternative fuels, etc, out of business so they can jack up petroleum again
in 6-8 months?

-Dave
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 13 19:35:34 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:35:34 +0000
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <3805271428-8954@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3805271428-8954@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhJh41hwDh37wzF_nnBmrtz7-FRZ0ogO_jY8R64WdSEAw@mail.gmail.com>

On 13 January 2015 at 10:31, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> First, our mental architecture is very much based on our particular kind of
> world - we need stimuli to keep going simply because they are always there
> except in sensory deprivation tanks (a rather rare environment). Other minds
> may not have that requirement, and we can envision ways of redesigning our
> own minds.
>
> Second, an unchanging world can be indefinitely interesting - ask any
> mathematician.
>
> Third, the real world of a being is not just the physical world but the
> cultural world created by the being and its cultural peers (whether other
> people or subsystems). Most people today care way more about the entirely
> open-ended worlds of celebrities, fiction and social interaction than the
> physical world. There is more competition and salient stimuli from other
> people than the outside world. A superintelligent civilization will likely
> ramp this up orders of magnitude: just try to imagine the
> competition/art/soap opera plots of superminds. Since much effort will go
> into not being bored, we should expect them to be *very* good.
>
> Fourth, this is not an argument that supercivilizations will close in on
> themselves, since there can be at least some interest in the outside world,
> and diverse starting points and internal structure do produce exploration
> even if the bulk prefers virtual.
>


I find it difficult to envisage a mind that doesn't require
stimulation outside themselves. No reaction to outside stimulation
makes it unresponsive.

Your third point I agree with. But AIs processing thousands of times
faster than humans will require entertainment / stimuli that also
happens thousands of times faster than we experience. That implies
that they create virtual worlds that run at the same speed as their
internal clocks.

They don't ignore the outside world, but they know far more about it
than we do. And it is frozen and unchanging from their POV, so of
little interest. I doubt if your idea of lone explorers setting off
into the void applies to post-sing AIs. They might decide to move the
whole civ to a different star system, but they may not need to be near
a star and well already be drifting through the void to ensure they
are not disturbed.


> It seems that any attempt to explain Fermi using cultural convergence needs
> an *extremely* strong argument able to handle exceedingly diverse minds and
> individuals. It is not enough that it sounds believable, it needs to work
> even against AGIs given pathological motivations by their creators (or
> chance). That is a tall order.
>

It may be that surviving a Singularity and creating advanced AGIs
leaves a very narrow definition of the type of AGI that survives.
'Diverse' may not be the appropriate adjective. :)

BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jan 13 21:32:35 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:32:35 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <01ab01d02f52$cf179f80$6d46de80$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3843821157-3924@secure.ericade.net>


1300 - wow! I remember when we were just a handful...


spike?<spike66 at att.net>?, 13/1/2015 6:18 PM:
Whether or not it is a legitimate means of determining the propriety of signing a petition, most of us here will likely confess we are influenced by the presence or absence of other signers. 


I was following the changes over the weekend in the signatory list - before it went very public I noticed that there were a few re-orderings, no doubt because the FLI people were trying to figure out the proper way of showing who had signed up originally without just sorting it by fame. It does matter if the top names are actual AI researchers or talk-show hosts...


(While I think petitions with zillions of names are usually a waste of effort, it is useful to show that there exists a fairly big consensus about something, shared by domain stars, insiders and the public. )
?I took the list of over 1300 signers and listed them two ways, alphabetical by last name and alphabetical by first name, listed below. ?This one was a slam dunk: Anders wrote it. ?I already know that fine lad thinks carefully and ethically and doesn't do the wrong thing.


Oh dear... Me, careful or moral?! (Spike, I should introduce me to my mother so you can act as a character witness :-) )


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jan 13 21:39:28 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:39:28 +0100
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3845623631-3912@secure.ericade.net>

Ah, I was wondering where that had gone. Now I can sleep rationally and well.




(Of course, a psi paper that actually managed to get into Nature would be something too. I am reminded of the web novel http://qntm.org/ra where magic is discovered by Indian physicists and develops field equations, safety regulations, and industrial/aerospace applications but refuses to be very magical, to the great irritation of most mystics. )

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 13 22:39:42 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:39:42 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdb+2RFSGFzc9d6ZygpnDQY9Oqx8+mtu_i6qh42nFpOMy4Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ab01d02f52$cf179f80$6d46de80$@att.net>
 <CAOJFdb+2RFSGFzc9d6ZygpnDQY9Oqx8+mtu_i6qh42nFpOMy4Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02f701d02f81$d3455f50$79d01df0$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Mike Dougherty
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 10:49 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:03 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>... Whether or not it is a legitimate means of determining the propriety
of signing a petition, most of us here will likely confess we are influenced
by the presence or absence of other signers...
>


>> A, Regan
...
>> Zhongyi Xiao

>...Seriously?  What were you thinking we'd do with that?  :)

_______________________________________________

Look up people you know and respect?

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 13 23:02:57 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:02:57 -0800
Subject: [ExI] international humility contest,
	was:  RE:  Robust and beneficial AI
Message-ID: <030101d02f85$12ffbc50$38ff34f0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 1:33 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI

 

>?1300 - wow! I remember when we were just a handful...


?

I took the list of over 1300 signers and listed them two ways, alphabetical by last name and alphabetical by first name, listed below.  This one was a slam dunk: Anders wrote it.  I already know that fine lad thinks carefully and ethically and doesn't do the wrong thing.

 

>?Oh dear... Me, careful or moral?! (Spike, I should introduce me to my mother so you can act as a character witness :-) )  Anders Sandberg

 

 

Anders you are far too modest, my brother.  Your demeanor inspired the governing body to collectively organize the worldwide humility championships, in which I see we will be competing.  I learned a lot from my previous defeats.  I was really winning, but then that of course caused me to become proud and arrogant, so I really took a spanking, putting me in dead last.  So humiliated was I that I shot to the lead.  But that caused me to be caught by all the other competitors who had gone thru similar experiences during the competition.  

 

We all tied for second place.

 

spike

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From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 00:18:53 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:18:53 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Startup Helps Dying Patients Get Experimental Drugs
Message-ID: <CAL_armjLQnAxXgvsAYDZwrX0FSNdScT8fKg-6OVJKUHJnOa9Zg@mail.gmail.com>

Well, that didn't take long.

<http://www.fastcoexist.com/3038824/a-real-dallas-buyers-club-a-startup-helps-sick-and-dying-patients-get-experimental-drugs>
<https://mytomorrows.com/>
Quote:
myTomorrows is working with drug companies to get not-yet-approved
treatments stuck in regulatory purgatory to patients--giving them one
last chance to survive.

myTomorrows works by negotiating directly with drug developers for
access to promising treatments, compiling accurate data on the drug's
risks and successes to date, streamlining the application paperwork,
and later receiving data on the use of the drug. It aims to provide a
one-stop shop for desperate patients seeking options, as well as
biotech and pharmaceutical companies that are too short-staffed to
deal with requests from sick patients or want to hold the whole
process at arms-length. The startup's lawyers have spent three years
weeding through the specific laws in each European nation. "We do all
the paperwork in basically an automated fashion," says Brus.

The flipside, of course, is that there's a reason for regulatory
review--an experimental drug is riskier and may not work, offering
false hope to a dying person.

Brus and his colleagues aren't the only people pushing to ease
restrictions to early-stage drugs. In the U.S., the libertarian
Goldwater Institute is lobbying to pass "Right To Try" legislation in
all 50 states that would give doctors the "ok" to prescribe
terminally-ill patients unapproved drugs that have undergone minimum
basic safety testing. In the last year or so, it's succeeded in
passing bills in five states: Colorado, Arizona, Louisiana, Michigan,
and Missouri. Still, these bills might not change much, says Alison
Bateman-House, a researcher who specializes in compassionate use at
NYU's Department of Medical Ethics: The FDA has ultimate authority and
could still require patients apply to individually for exemptions.
------------

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jan 14 01:05:04 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:05:04 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Startup Helps Dying Patients Get Experimental Drugs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjLQnAxXgvsAYDZwrX0FSNdScT8fKg-6OVJKUHJnOa9Zg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjLQnAxXgvsAYDZwrX0FSNdScT8fKg-6OVJKUHJnOa9Zg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <034101d02f96$22c30370$68490a50$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: [ExI] Startup Helps Dying Patients Get Experimental Drugs

Well, that didn't take long.

<http://www.fastcoexist.com/3038824/a-real-dallas-buyers-club-a-startup-help
s-sick-and-dying-patients-get-experimental-drugs>
<https://mytomorrows.com/>

Quote:
myTomorrows is working with drug companies to get not-yet-approved
treatments stuck in regulatory purgatory to patients--giving them one last
chance to survive...BillK
_______________________________________________

I sure don't see why not.  If a person qualifies, they have some condition
which will slay them for sure.  I don't see why not go down swinging, play
the old pharmaceutical lottery one last time, take a last shot in the dark
rather than die with one round left in the chamber.  Even if the result is
negative, I would feel better knowing I contributed to humanity in some
small way, even if it is a negative result, just another data point for
medical science to consider.

A bit stronger argument: plenty of patients do attempt some Hail Mary play
as the clock runs down.  It is better to go ahead and assure the test-pilot
patient and the experimental family and their doctors that this is legal, so
keep in mind your ethical obligation to share the results with the whole
world.  Currently all we get are the odd positive results, so we go off down
far too many blind alleys, when we don't know for sure which medication
helped the patient or if it was one of those unexplainable cases of
spontaneous remission of a usually fatal condition.

Way to go, MyTomorrows!

spike



From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 01:27:24 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 20:27:24 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <02f701d02f81$d3455f50$79d01df0$@att.net>
References: <3761025405-29707@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAKTCJydobY2KRUqXDi83fnW6BwGo=SNgN4PTZDJCF3A-XMgjpQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ab01d02f52$cf179f80$6d46de80$@att.net>
 <CAOJFdb+2RFSGFzc9d6ZygpnDQY9Oqx8+mtu_i6qh42nFpOMy4Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <02f701d02f81$d3455f50$79d01df0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+30V7i2JpN=nmQDRm2qGqCR=GEpzqkF7zLj=1Ods3t7w@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 13, 2015 5:56 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Look up people you know and respect?

Ah. The source of my confusion;  I don't know anybody.
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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 03:08:47 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:08:47 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJyeDgwD3uH=2GnsMEJxofWPijQfeRGPFd-dO0=RDW+YizQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CAKTCJyeDgwD3uH=2GnsMEJxofWPijQfeRGPFd-dO0=RDW+YizQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003401d02fa7$69ff3040$3dfd90c0$@harveynewstrom.com>

I'm still around.  Busier and quieter than when I was younger.  Nice to see
other long-term extropes still around.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
> Behalf Of Giulio Prisco
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 2:05 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
> 
> Hi there! Long time no see online!




From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 03:22:36 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:22:36 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CAKTCJyeDgwD3uH=2GnsMEJxofWPijQfeRGPFd-dO0=RDW+YizQ@mail.gmail.com> 
Message-ID: <003601d02fa9$57e135a0$07a3a0e0$@harveynewstrom.com>

And for those keeping track, I am now legally married in the State of
Florida to my wonderful husband of 25 years.  It was legally recognized
after Midnight on January 6.  We didn't make a big deal about it, because
our religious ceremony was performed 25 years ago.  This was just catching
up some governmental legal paperwork.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com




From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 03:15:26 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:15:26 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <02dd01d02ef2$9ad7c660$d0875320$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <02dd01d02ef2$9ad7c660$d0875320$@att.net>
Message-ID: <003501d02fa8$587de040$0979a0c0$@harveynewstrom.com>

I agree with the other security professionals.  The more we learn, the less
it looks like an external state-sponsored attack.  The addresses they traced
don't go back to the claimed country.  The dialect they detected was the
wrong one for that country.  None of the initial communications mentioned
the Sony film until after the media published that reason.  The software
used is common on the Internet for download and re-use, so it doesn't lead
to anybody.  Almost every claim leading to a specific country has later been
demonstrated to be false.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com




From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jan 14 03:35:14 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:35:14 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <003601d02fa9$57e135a0$07a3a0e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CAKTCJyeDgwD3uH=2GnsMEJxofWPijQfeRGPFd-dO0=RDW+YizQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <003601d02fa9$57e135a0$07a3a0e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <040e01d02fab$1c5fd520$551f7f60$@att.net>


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Harvey Newstrom
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 7:23 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: Re: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!

And for those keeping track, I am now legally married in the State of
Florida to my wonderful husband of 25 years.  It was legally recognized
after Midnight on January 6.  We didn't make a big deal about it, because
our religious ceremony was performed 25 years ago.  This was just catching
up some governmental legal paperwork.
--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com




Religious ceremony?  Indeed sir?  Is this OUR Harvey Newstrom, or a clever
imposter?

{8^D

Best wishes on your golden anniversary.  My bride and I are coming up on 31
yrs, all of them good.

spike
_______________________________________________





From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jan 14 03:37:36 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:37:36 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <003501d02fa8$587de040$0979a0c0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <CAL_armjzqqFCBF3qidMv8dBFVw0LOAtB7Gx3tGduP1cGCTASgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <02fc01d02e76$0bddfaa0$2399efe0$@att.net>
 <006b01d02eeb$d4985650$7dc902f0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <02dd01d02ef2$9ad7c660$d0875320$@att.net>
 <003501d02fa8$587de040$0979a0c0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <040f01d02fab$71743a60$545caf20$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Harvey Newstrom
Subject: Re: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!

I agree with the other security professionals.  The more we learn, the less
it looks like an external state-sponsored attack.  ...
--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com


_______________________________________________


Hmmm, damn.  Now we will need to come up with something else to blame those
godless commies for.  And while we are at it we need to come up with a good
snappy name for their godless counterparts, the capitalists.  Are we godless
cappies?

spike



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 04:14:11 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 23:14:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] RES: More Advanced Extraterrestrials
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjanBCmqCijHNthQBYBC+3Ny0M7gNQD+mWipA6cp_QrEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2196117877-19532@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiFjFMnS6b0fJPH7RJc7uV9ab1V=os28SzbnUjf=cOKPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <016701d02e69$42ef7ee0$c8ce7ca0$@gmail.com>
 <CAL_armh7F4F3USDkj-YzRRW7EHs1ZgSt6w8mUoUYNKYq3bg34Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFQim38D7-GkymgyTeuKMCtrHMHBiMzNSsv00EXov0DzTw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjbsY40mCw8n6SPC8m7Jyz8abGNiS4zGWyifHryku7KRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhkMz_Tj7QvgkJi40u8gHxWMF9YiPAF30YVJp7EwJb9eQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armg49ejHgEcSzd95mJNCnneeGKV43N-tvfaVbeSTTdz_xw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv27JaxdQooCOZw-L0hT=29PTWx+BJy7QAB0K6m83hfteQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:39 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> > think about the effects of speeding up your brain processing by
> possibly thousands of times.  You are trapped in an unchanging physical
> world.


I don't think that would be a problem, there is nothing objectively special
about the time scale of minutes and seconds,  humans are interested in
things that happen during that time span because it just happens to be be a
good match with the speed of their mind. But lots of interesting things
happen on the  Femtosecond   (10^-15 sec) level, when a photon of light
hits a receptor pigment in your eye it takes about 320 Femtoseconds for
that protein to finish changing it's shape. And a Femtosecond  is a
entirety compared to the Planck time of 10^-44 seconds. Besides, there
would be other AIs to talk to and their minds would work as fast as yours
does.

But there may be other problems. As the AI gets smarter it will of course
gain greater control over the external world, but they may also gain
greater control over their inner world, including their emotional lives. So
maybe the solution to Fermi's paradox is simply that everybody would like
to be a little happier if they could and complex systems generally don't do
well in positive feedback loops.

  John K Clark






the average chemical reaction takes about 1/5 of a Attosecond



> If you decide to send
> out a probe, then first it takes the equivalent of thousands of years
> (brain time) to build it and then you have to watch it while it takes
> thousands of years (brain time) to move about a yard.
>
> High speed AIs must rely on virtual reality for change and
> stimulation. In effect, they leave the physical world and exist in a
> world that moves at the same speed as their AI processing.
>
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 06:16:10 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:16:10 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Pinker on the persistence of pessimism
Message-ID: <E32EE98E-4CAC-462B-B019-8A698B141B99@gmail.com>

http://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-audio/steven-pinker-persistence-pessimism

Glad to see the list is back!

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From anders at aleph.se  Wed Jan 14 10:01:25 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:01:25 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Exi list sending mail again!
In-Reply-To: <003601d02fa9$57e135a0$07a3a0e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <3890165604-27921@secure.ericade.net>


Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> , 14/1/2015 4:24 AM:
And for those keeping track, I am now legally married in the State of 
Florida to my wonderful husband of 25 years. ?It was legally recognized 
after Midnight on January 6. ?We didn't make a big deal about it, because 
our religious ceremony was performed 25 years ago. ?This was just catching 
up some governmental legal paperwork.


Congratulations! That is great news!





Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 15:54:19 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:54:19 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Pinker on the persistence of pessimism
In-Reply-To: <E32EE98E-4CAC-462B-B019-8A698B141B99@gmail.com>
References: <E32EE98E-4CAC-462B-B019-8A698B141B99@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEarUZTB22y74A5z6PtBHyPjAc_LqYF19_oPB3j-2h8eHQ@mail.gmail.com>

I think this should be listened to by everyone you know.  bill w

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:16 AM, Dan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> http://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-audio/steven-pinker-persistence-pessimism
> <http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 15:59:30 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:59:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2zOmT2UX95C8NiVaUvbA-QCW9jf-isCBY3Sh7mpqspjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with
>> little influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.
>>
>
>
> Or are the Saudis dropping the price to put fracking, electric cars,
> alternative fuels, etc, out of business so they can jack up petroleum again
> in 6-8 months?
>

The only way the Saudis could drop oil prices is to increase production,
and they haven't done that,  Saudi Arabian oil production renamed constant.
It was the USA that embraced fracking technology like no other country in
the world and as a result oil production in the USA rose by more than half
a million barrels per day between 2007 and 2011 to the highest level in 15
years, and in that same year the USA exported more gasoline and diesel than
it imported for the first time since 1949.  And in 2012 USA oil production
increased by another 760,000 barrels a day, the largest yearly increase
since records about oil production started in 1859. But incredibly 2013
beat even that record, oil production in the United States rose by another
992,000 barrels a day! And in 2014 the USA overtook Saudi Arabia to become
the largest producer of oil on planet Earth, it was already the largest
natural gas producer in the world and has been since 2010.

It seems like just yesterday some people were talking about "peak oil".

  John K Clark









>
> -Dave
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 16:13:46 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:13:46 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Why was nobody ever murdered because of this cartoon?
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0Unwb_MncogB5TA-e2Uh95ti=Ac-HTCpjLCrBLT55NNQ@mail.gmail.com>

http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-onion-offends-jews-christians.html#.VLVmfiifsbA


Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists no longer throw infantile tantrums
over cartoons,  only Muslims do that. This cartoon was drawn by the
brilliant and very funny people over at The Onion a few years ago the last
time Muslim morons got their panties in a bunch over a cartoon, and despite
its graphic insult to so many religions it didn't cause a ripple of
controversy in any country in the world because the one religion it didn't
insult was Islam.

  John K Clark
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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 16:14:41 2015
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:14:41 -0800
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2zOmT2UX95C8NiVaUvbA-QCW9jf-isCBY3Sh7mpqspjQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2zOmT2UX95C8NiVaUvbA-QCW9jf-isCBY3Sh7mpqspjQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRzWcjs4CgGN6o8eA=KYMZLHk4RvGz2BRh33DxRCvc9Kw@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 14, 2015 8:00 AM, "John Clark" <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> It was the USA that embraced fracking technology like no other country in
the world

It wasn't just fracking.  Oil sands played a large part too.

But however it happened, the US's boost in production has been the chief
factor.
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From sparge at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 16:26:45 2015
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:26:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Why was nobody ever murdered because of this cartoon?
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0Unwb_MncogB5TA-e2Uh95ti=Ac-HTCpjLCrBLT55NNQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv0Unwb_MncogB5TA-e2Uh95ti=Ac-HTCpjLCrBLT55NNQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2eFAL4-XDjefBiZNrxQk83sWQJijXB3bJWUK7-7ThJtGQ@mail.gmail.com>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam is pretty interesting.
E.g.:

"*Aniconism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism> in Islam* is a
proscription in Islam <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam> against the
creation of images of sentient living beings."

"The Quran <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran>, the Islamic holy book
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_holy_books>, does not explicitly
prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry>."

"Judaism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism>, which is related to Islam
as a monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses> (M?sa
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_in_Islam>), and other prophets,
has a comparable
prohibition <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry_in_Judaism> which takes
the form of a prohibition on any idol
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_image> or on any artistic
representation of God <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Judaism>."

-Dave
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 16:37:19 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:37:19 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
Message-ID: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlydjg1tiso

More from Cato... Note the reactions he's inspired in the comments section.

Not that it matters, I've read two of Dowd's books on banking and currency. 

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From sparge at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 17:04:55 2015
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 12:04:55 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2zOmT2UX95C8NiVaUvbA-QCW9jf-isCBY3Sh7mpqspjQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2zOmT2UX95C8NiVaUvbA-QCW9jf-isCBY3Sh7mpqspjQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2eivX+0b4=0zHCMcFCVVKO3HhEuoAvyTT+jOrQoNSN4xw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 10:59 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The only way the Saudis could drop oil prices is to increase production,
>

Why couldn't they (Saudis or OPEC) just sell their oil for a (slightly)
lower price?


> and they haven't done that,  Saudi Arabian oil production renamed
> constant. It was the USA that embraced fracking technology like no other
> country in the world and as a result oil production in the USA rose by more
> than half a million barrels per day between 2007 and 2011 to the highest
> level in 15 years, and in that same year the USA exported more gasoline and
> diesel than it imported for the first time since 1949.  And in 2012 USA oil
> production increased by another 760,000 barrels a day, the largest yearly
> increase since records about oil production started in 1859. But incredibly
> 2013 beat even that record, oil production in the United States rose by
> another 992,000 barrels a day! And in 2014 the USA overtook Saudi Arabia to
> become the largest producer of oil on planet Earth, it was already the
> largest natural gas producer in the world and has been since 2010.
>

Wow, I didn't know that. Thanks.

-Dave
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 14 17:34:53 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 12:34:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2eivX+0b4=0zHCMcFCVVKO3HhEuoAvyTT+jOrQoNSN4xw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2zOmT2UX95C8NiVaUvbA-QCW9jf-isCBY3Sh7mpqspjQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2eivX+0b4=0zHCMcFCVVKO3HhEuoAvyTT+jOrQoNSN4xw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0kdCZgU9bb4wLO1+7q7=F9NheO_F3KYwy=OydbEAGxLA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:04 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> >> The only way the Saudis could drop oil prices is to increase
>> production,
>>
>
> > Why couldn't they (Saudis or OPEC) just sell their oil for a (slightly)
> lower price?
>

Because then all other oil producers would have to lower their price too to
keep up, and then with the price of oil down the demand would go up, but if
the Saudis or somebody else didn't increase production to meet the
increased demand the price of oil would go back up again even if the Saudis
kept their price low because they just aren't pumping enough oil to meet
demand. But in recent days there was a country that did increase production
enough to meet demand and it wasn't Saudi Arabia, it was the USA.

  John K Clark


>
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 01:38:44 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:38:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwau6EWWUyjUhgphXX-bNgBgDe2mxFOh1p7nkQq=nd+E=g@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 10:08 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *?*
>
> >?Jimmy Carter (according to my dentist this morning) caused the high gas
> prices of the 70s.  Accordingly, Obama must be responsible for the lowered
> prices.  QED.  bill w
>
>
>
>
>
> BillW, if your dentist was smart enough to make it into and through dental
> school, she is smart enough to realize American presidents do not dictate
> gas prices.
>
>
>
> Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with
> little influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.
>
>
The current depression of oil prices is due in part to the fact that OPEC
refuses to lower production. While they MIGHT be doing this for their own
reasons, it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.

So while one could debate Carter's influence on the oil prices in 1979, one
can also rationally debate Obama's influence now.

-Kelly
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 01:39:44 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:39:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2d5Cd3Ste7Jdbw7-FcYSe3sco6m88RERbzcO731GjUAag@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwY-ZZPgWd1Yi0nDhFTs02mr0e44fQu4PocbOECLjx+B3Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:08 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Explain to her that low gas prices are being caused by fracking with
>> little influence from Obama, and that Jimmy Carter caused Ronald Reagan.
>>
>
> Or are the Saudis dropping the price to put fracking, electric cars,
> alternative fuels, etc, out of business so they can jack up petroleum again
> in 6-8 months?
>

That would be consistent with their past patterns of behavior for sure.

-Kelly
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 03:29:49 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:29:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwau6EWWUyjUhgphXX-bNgBgDe2mxFOh1p7nkQq=nd+E=g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAPy8Rwau6EWWUyjUhgphXX-bNgBgDe2mxFOh1p7nkQq=nd+E=g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> The current depression of oil prices is due in part to the fact that OPEC
> refuses to lower production.
>

It's no great mystery, with oil prices super low OPEC's profits are way way
down, if they lower production profits would go down even more and oil
money is the only thing that is keeps countries like Saudi Arabia from
falling apart. Except for oil what does Saudi Arabia have that the world
wants?


> > it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
> administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.
>

The collapse of oil prices is certainly terrible news for Vladimir Putin
(Boo Hoo), but when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?

 John K Clark
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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Jan 15 06:49:55 2015
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:49:55 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
Message-ID: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>

If we take the assumption that the most extant civilizations in the galaxy are going to post-singularity types, then it seems to me that we might be searching for them in completely the wrong way.

The lack of visible mega-engineering structures could be due to the faulty assumption that post-biologicals would want to go big. But big structures are inherently inefficient resource-wise. This inefficiency is evident in earth's biosphere where large organisms are vastly outnumbered by small ones.

The majority of the total biomass of our planet is represented by organisms that are insect size and smaller. Similar constraints would affect engineered structures. Take for example the heat-dissipation issues involved. Heat generation in any structure would scale by the cube of its linear dimension (volume) while heat transfer would scale by the square (surface area).

Large structures are therefore thermodynamically inefficient. And considering that our state of the art telescopes are only barely capable of find earth-sized exoplanets under ideal conditions, it is very likely any reasonable structures such as dyson swarms or M-brains would escape our notice. Perhaps simply causing their parent stars to appear as a cooler spectral class.

This would lead to "inhabited" yellow dwarf systems being misclassified as red dwarves. Not to mention the huge number of undetected brown dwarfs hypothesized to exist.

Then considering radio-based SETI, again we might be listening for the wrong things. Take the miniaturized high speed post singularity ET hypothesis and current SETI efforts are like listening for FM radio stations using an AM radio. You would probably occasionally hear something but it would appear to be noise instead of signal.

SETI's current strategy seems to focusing on sampling a large number of narrow bands around the hydrogen spectrum. But superfast minds would talk fast too. So they would, because the bitrate of a communication channel is limited by the Shannon-Hartley Law, choose very wide bands to communicate on and their long-winded introductions would sound like broad spectrum pulses or chirps to us slow pokes.

So to summarize, the methods we are using to find ET are weak and heavily biased toward meat-civilizations.

Stuart LaForge


Sent from my phone.



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 09:33:02 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 02:33:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv05ynk3s_H+=wfzRkcj=UKsC=NZ3k_jtVpBkzb3RjRVVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaKBs67yZRtcvPJCowzZxgiLUc1r5048UvLBWH3LOhoOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01ac01d02f53$842da7c0$8c88f740$@att.net>
 <CAPy8Rwau6EWWUyjUhgphXX-bNgBgDe2mxFOh1p7nkQq=nd+E=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwa6M0N3V_EE7YSHXG8__vntWhOLB7VAZyW38-ZeR7QOoQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 8:29 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The current depression of oil prices is due in part to the fact that
>> OPEC refuses to lower production.
>>
>
> It's no great mystery, with oil prices super low OPEC's profits are way
> way down, if they lower production profits would go down even more and oil
> money is the only thing that is keeps countries like Saudi Arabia from
> falling apart. Except for oil what does Saudi Arabia have that the world
> wants?
>

But in the past, OPEC (most specifically Saudi Arabia) has reduced
production to keep prices from going too low. It may be in this case that
they want to make fracking less profitable and this round of low prices MAY
be aimed at driving those kinds of businesses out of business.

One thing is for sure, the price of oil is a VERY complex beastie that has
a lot of contributing components and nobody understands it all. Certainly
not me, and not anyone else on this list, other than in broad strokes.


>
>
>> > it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
>> administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.
>>
>
> The collapse of oil prices is certainly terrible news for Vladimir Putin
> (Boo Hoo), but when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?
>

The US president can certainly be PERSUASIVE with people like Saudi Arabia.
He can't tell them what to do, but he can suggest strongly.

-Kelly
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 12:45:00 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:45:00 +0000
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armh_09Z6JMq8Yvo1btd2p7PKxt7Y9Cr6jcag9iZdZPUt3A@mail.gmail.com>

On 15 January 2015 at 06:49, Stuart LaForge  wrote:
> If we take the assumption that the most extant civilizations in the galaxy are going to post-singularity
> types, then it seems to me that we might be searching for them in completely the wrong way.
>
> The lack of visible mega-engineering structures could be due to the faulty assumption that
> post-biologicals would want to go big. But big structures are inherently inefficient resource-wise.
> This inefficiency is evident in earth's biosphere where large organisms are vastly outnumbered
> by small ones.
<snip>
>
> Then considering radio-based SETI, again we might be listening for the wrong things.
> Take the miniaturized high speed post singularity ET hypothesis and current SETI efforts are
> like listening for FM radio stations using an AM radio. You would probably occasionally hear
> something but it would appear to be noise instead of signal.
>
> SETI's current strategy seems to focusing on sampling a large number of narrow bands
> around the hydrogen spectrum. But superfast minds would talk fast too. So they would,
> because the bitrate of a communication channel is limited by the Shannon-Hartley Law,
> choose very wide bands to communicate on and their long-winded introductions would
> sound like broad spectrum pulses or chirps to us slow pokes.
>
> So to summarize, the methods we are using to find ET are weak and heavily biased toward
> meat-civilizations.
>
>

This sounds right to me. (We are looking for our lost keys under the
street light because that's where we can see, even though the keys
were dropped in the darkness).

SETI is looking for civs at about the same level as humans. But they
have to get funding and that is acceptable to donors. If SETI go into
the 'weird' search area then funding would dry up. It is difficult
enough for them as it is! But something is better than nothing.

There is a new post showing the reasons why we know that dark matter
exists, even though we can't detect it. i.e. it isn't something wrong
with our gravity theory.
<https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/dark-matter-in-galaxies-proven-ebcbea1a5402>

The thought occurs, Could dark matter be post-sing civs?
The combination of going small for efficiency and not interacting with
physical matter for safety sounds ideal.
But whether 'life' could exist as dark matter will have to wait until
we find out exactly what all that stuff is.

(total mass-energy of the universe is 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark
matter and 68.3% dark energy).

Let's hope the improved Large Hadron Collider gives some clues as to
what it might be.


BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jan 15 13:23:00 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 14:23:00 +0100
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>


John Clark?<johnkclark at gmail.com>?, 15/1/2015 4:32 AM:


On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 ?Kelly Anderson?<kellycoinguy at gmail.com>?wrote:



> it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.?


The collapse of oil prices is certainly terrible news for?Vladimir Putin (Boo Hoo), but when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do? ?


It is more a case of shared aims. If you read the commentary in The Economist, Foreign Policy and similar places, analysts point out that the Saudis are keen to undermine Iran, and the low price is hurting IS, Russia and fracking too. Obama might be happy about all of them except the last.?


It is the usual case of partially overlapping aims. Just consider the contradictory past and present US policy visavi the Kurds.?


Of course, the Saudis also have a succession problem that is deeply worrying. There might be a need to fill the coffers with money to buy off fractions, hence the high production.?





Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jan 15 15:16:08 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 07:16:08 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge

>...SETI's current strategy seems to focusing on sampling a large number of
narrow bands around the hydrogen spectrum...So to summarize, the methods we
are using to find ET are weak and heavily biased toward meat-civilizations.

>...Stuart LaForge

_______________________________________________

Ja that is a possibility.  We could imagine that tech societies avoid
sending out signals in all directions but rather aim a tightly-collimated
beam only to stars known to be safe.  They don't want to get involved in our
continuous ongoing civil war on this planet.

spike



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 17:50:00 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:50:00 -0600
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZdaUx5Zr5CVFj5OmQ8A_T+Es-q+Kaa7QfQfrn3Pae5vw@mail.gmail.com>

The US president can certainly be PERSUASIVE with people like Saudi Arabia.
He can't tell them what to do, but he can suggest strongly.   Kelly.

Since the USA provides military security for the Saudis we have some pull,
but if we pull out others will gladly take over.  The Saudis dislike us
intensely but smile in public.  Can you think of a country that is more
different from us in every way that is a 'sort of' ally?

bill w

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 7:23 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> , 15/1/2015 4:32 AM:
>
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
> administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.
>
>
> The collapse of oil prices is certainly terrible news for Vladimir Putin
> (Boo Hoo), but when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?
>
>
> It is more a case of shared aims. If you read the commentary in The
> Economist, Foreign Policy and similar places, analysts point out that the
> Saudis are keen to undermine Iran, and the low price is hurting IS, Russia
> and fracking too. Obama might be happy about all of them except the last.
>
> It is the usual case of partially overlapping aims. Just consider the
> contradictory past and present US policy visavi the Kurds.
>
> Of course, the Saudis also have a succession problem that is deeply
> worrying. There might be a need to fill the coffers with money to buy off
> fractions, hence the high production.
>
>
> 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
>
>
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 19:05:57 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:05:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwZOBDiQ+znbHJmA=Skw266cznc8_rrLU7o6=Ru6B4rfPw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 6:23 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> , 15/1/2015 4:32 AM:
>
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
> administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.
>
>
> The collapse of oil prices is certainly terrible news for Vladimir Putin
> (Boo Hoo), but when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?
>
>
> It is more a case of shared aims. If you read the commentary in The
> Economist, Foreign Policy and similar places, analysts point out that the
> Saudis are keen to undermine Iran, and the low price is hurting IS, Russia
> and fracking too. Obama might be happy about all of them except the last.
>

Obama is all too happy to kick fracking in the knees. Give me ANY evidence
otherwise. Not talk, but action. The keystone pipeline, for a prime
example, is ALL ABOUT fracking, and Canada.


> It is the usual case of partially overlapping aims. Just consider the
> contradictory past and present US policy visavi the Kurds.
>
> Of course, the Saudis also have a succession problem that is deeply
> worrying. There might be a need to fill the coffers with money to buy off
> fractions, hence the high production.
>

Interesting. succession in SA would be a big deal.

-Kelly
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 19:08:08 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 14:08:08 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Oil
Message-ID: <CAJPayv14OkXWxkXs21yq=2VSu1dxS5n1vytvPxBMgC86nJ3ANQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:


> > It's no great mystery, with oil prices super low OPEC's profits are way
>> way down, if they lower production profits would go down even more and oil
>> money is the only thing that is keeps countries like Saudi Arabia from
>> falling apart. Except for oil what does Saudi Arabia have that the world
>> wants?
>>
>
>
> But in the past, OPEC (most specifically Saudi Arabia) has reduced
> production to keep prices from going too low.


Because in the past there was no slack in the production end of things so
when Saudi Arabia reduced production there just wasn't enough oil to go
around, so they could set oil prices at pretty much anything they wanted,
but with the huge increase in oil production by the USA that is no longer
true.  Saudi Arabia knows that if they reduced production this time it
would have little effect on oil prices and would reduce even more their
already drastically reduced oil income, and as I said without oil money to
keep their population content the country, especially their leaders, would
be toast.

>> when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?
>>
>
>
> The US president can certainly be PERSUASIVE with people like Saudi
> Arabia. He can't tell them what to do, but he can suggest strongly.
>

All US presidents since Jimmy Carter have begged Saudi Arabia to lower oil
prices but it's never worked, they do what they want to do; but this time
there would be no reason to even ask because Saudi Arabia is no longer in
the driver's seat.

  John K Clark
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 19:09:59 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:09:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZdaUx5Zr5CVFj5OmQ8A_T+Es-q+Kaa7QfQfrn3Pae5vw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAO+xQEZdaUx5Zr5CVFj5OmQ8A_T+Es-q+Kaa7QfQfrn3Pae5vw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbpWk-Ym64gbu5ofVAqa=+AyVLH9=ph_jOKYnuaEXO9Ow@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:50 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
> The US president can certainly be PERSUASIVE with people like Saudi
> Arabia. He can't tell them what to do, but he can suggest strongly.   Kelly.
>
> Since the USA provides military security for the Saudis we have some pull,
> but if we pull out others will gladly take over.  The Saudis dislike us
> intensely but smile in public.  Can you think of a country that is more
> different from us in every way that is a 'sort of' ally?
>

I am by no means a fan of SA. They are horrible to their women, their
homosexuals, their non-muslims, their imported slaves, etc. They are
probably one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, and
certainly in the "civilized" world.

They do understand POWER, they respect that. And we are power, at least
until we aren't.

We dislike the Saudis intensely 15 of 17 9/11 hijackers were Saudis
remember. And yet we smile in public too, because as much as we dislike
them, we are addicted to oil. I can't wait until the day we aren't addicted
to oil and we can let the middle east settle back to the backwater cesspool
of religious ideology that it is.

Damn <insert sky daddy of choice> for creating all that oil under those
bastards!!!

-Kelly
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 19:13:49 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:13:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>

FUD. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The only thing of real substance he
brought up IMHO was this new bitcoin mining consortium. He made them sound
really shady. I wonder if they really are.

If one group did manage to bring most of the miners together under one
controlling umbrella, that might indeed mean the end to Bitcoin, but that
likely won't happen as long as there are enough anarchists or Libertarians
involved. If it all gets bought up by Wall Street, then I suppose anything
can happen.

For now, I'm holding on to my limited stash.

-Kelly

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Dan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlydjg1tiso
>
> More from Cato... Note the reactions he's inspired in the comments section.
>
> Not that it matters, I've read two of Dowd's books on banking and
> currency.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>  See my Kindle books at:
> http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 19:16:12 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:16:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Oil
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv14OkXWxkXs21yq=2VSu1dxS5n1vytvPxBMgC86nJ3ANQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv14OkXWxkXs21yq=2VSu1dxS5n1vytvPxBMgC86nJ3ANQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaGSZ5SVxUfsf6hzjSs4ORkp+jLm+6drBazozb3YXyKCw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 12:08 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> > It's no great mystery, with oil prices super low OPEC's profits are way
>>> way down, if they lower production profits would go down even more and oil
>>> money is the only thing that is keeps countries like Saudi Arabia from
>>> falling apart. Except for oil what does Saudi Arabia have that the world
>>> wants?
>>>
>>
>>
> > But in the past, OPEC (most specifically Saudi Arabia) has reduced
>> production to keep prices from going too low.
>
>
> Because in the past there was no slack in the production end of things so
> when Saudi Arabia reduced production there just wasn't enough oil to go
> around, so they could set oil prices at pretty much anything they wanted,
> but with the huge increase in oil production by the USA that is no longer
> true.  Saudi Arabia knows that if they reduced production this time it
> would have little effect on oil prices and would reduce even more their
> already drastically reduced oil income, and as I said without oil money to
> keep their population content the country, especially their leaders, would
> be toast.
>

Okay, I think I see their problem now. It is still somewhat surprising that
SOMEONE isn't interested in saving up their oil for a more profitable day.
I guess in this economy everyone is scrounging for whatever they can get
for whatever they have.



>
> >> when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?
>>>
>>
>>
> > The US president can certainly be PERSUASIVE with people like Saudi
>> Arabia. He can't tell them what to do, but he can suggest strongly.
>>
>
> All US presidents since Jimmy Carter have begged Saudi Arabia to lower oil
> prices but it's never worked, they do what they want to do; but this time
> there would be no reason to even ask because Saudi Arabia is no longer in
> the driver's seat.
>

Okay. Fair enough then. But while SA is no longer number one, they are
still a big driver.

-Kelly
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From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 19:18:45 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:18:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Why was nobody ever murdered because of this cartoon?
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2eFAL4-XDjefBiZNrxQk83sWQJijXB3bJWUK7-7ThJtGQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv0Unwb_MncogB5TA-e2Uh95ti=Ac-HTCpjLCrBLT55NNQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2eFAL4-XDjefBiZNrxQk83sWQJijXB3bJWUK7-7ThJtGQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwaZDfXCKZACDHaR5VgD19PEy8YdentngpfA5sWMh53M=w@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 9:26 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam is pretty interesting.
> E.g.:
>
> "*Aniconism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism> in Islam* is a
> proscription in Islam <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam> against the
> creation of images of sentient living beings."
>
> "The Quran <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran>, the Islamic holy book
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_holy_books>, does not explicitly
> prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry>."
>
> "Judaism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism>, which is related to
> Islam as a monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses> (M?sa
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_in_Islam>), and other prophets, has
> a comparable prohibition
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry_in_Judaism> which takes the form
> of a prohibition on any idol <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_image>
> or on any artistic representation of God
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Judaism>."
>

And yet, if you create something that the current day watered down version
of Judaism would actually still consider an idol, STILL nobody would die.

BTW, everyone drives Mercedes Benzes.

-Kelly
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jan 15 19:45:09 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:45:09 -0800
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwbpWk-Ym64gbu5ofVAqa=+AyVLH9=ph_jOKYnuaEXO9Ow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAO+xQEZdaUx5Zr5CVFj5OmQ8A_T+Es-q+Kaa7QfQfrn3Pae5vw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPy8RwbpWk-Ym64gbu5ofVAqa=+AyVLH9=ph_jOKYnuaEXO9Ow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <076101d030fb$c5be6c20$513b4460$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson



 

>?I am by no means a fan of SA. They are horrible to their women, their homosexuals?-Kelly

 

 

Kelly SA doesn?t have homosexuals; it?s illegal there.  Same with Iran.  But don?t take my word for it, here?s the leader himself:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAel96pxGeI

 

Similarly France doesn?t have guns, for they are illegal there.  The American press is most puzzled over how the cartoon factory was shot up in a country which has all those gun laws.

 

spike

 

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From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jan 15 20:40:57 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 21:40:57 +0100
Subject: [ExI] WEF and Musk
Message-ID: <4014882563-23322@secure.ericade.net>


Today seems to have been "doing something about risk"-day. Or at least, "let's investigate risk so we know what we ought to do"-day.


First, the World Economic Forum launched their 2015 risk report:
http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2015/
(full disclosure: I am on the advisory committee)


Second, Elon Musk donated $10M to AI safety research:
http://futureoflife.org/misc/AI

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From robot at ultimax.com  Thu Jan 15 22:14:39 2015
From: robot at ultimax.com (Robert G Kennedy III, PE)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:14:39 -0500
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1421323201.17040.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1421323201.17040.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <16b76fa85f4bc48701c376cc428e1004@ultimax.com>

Something much like this already happened once before, in 1985, with 
the same three principals: USA, Saudi Arabia, and USSR.

Read /Victory/ by Peter Schweizer (1994), or /At the Abyss/ by Thomas 
Reed (2004).

Virtually all the Soviet's net hard currency earnings, which provided 
the wherewithal for all their geopolitical mischief in the late Cold 
War, came from commodity exports. The Saudis deliberately colluded with 
the USA to drop the price of oil below the Soviet cost of production 
($10/bbl) and thereby crash the Soviet economy. Concept was hatched in 
1981 by Bill Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, then DCI, when some 
genius figured out what it actually cost the Soviets to produce. Took RR 
4+ years from his first Inauguration Day to close the deal. RR's secret 
economic war against the Soviet Union worked like a charm, and nobody 
really learned the full details for about a decade.

Star Wars didn't end the Cold War, cheap oil did.

It worked once, and I think we're doing it again. The timing of the 
price collapse starting almost right after the MH17 shootdown, and its 
exquisitely narrow effect against adversarial regimes, cannot be 
coincidental. The 'Net being what it is, I don't think it will take 10 
years to learn the real story this time.

Reed came here to Oak Ridge, and I met him. We got on like a house on 
fire.

I wrote a book report - see my site: 
http://www.ultimax.com/AbyssRev.html.

On Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:38:44 -0700, Kelly Anderson 
<kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> The current depression of oil prices is due in part to the fact that 
> OPEC
> refuses to lower production. While they MIGHT be doing this for their 
> own
> reasons, it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
> administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.
>
> So while one could debate Carter's influence on the oil prices in 
> 1979, one
> can also rationally debate Obama's influence now.

Robert

-- 
Robert G Kennedy III, PE
www.ultimax.com
1994 AAAS/ASME Congressional Fellow
U.S. House Subcommittee on Space


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 15 22:41:35 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:41:35 -0700
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <076101d030fb$c5be6c20$513b4460$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAO+xQEZdaUx5Zr5CVFj5OmQ8A_T+Es-q+Kaa7QfQfrn3Pae5vw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPy8RwbpWk-Ym64gbu5ofVAqa=+AyVLH9=ph_jOKYnuaEXO9Ow@mail.gmail.com>
 <076101d030fb$c5be6c20$513b4460$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbjReTDB31jhxD9krsDLLzds0vcGSVfAOy02gAuV1kJ3Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 12:45 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson
>
>
>
> >?I am by no means a fan of SA. They are horrible to their women, their
> homosexuals?-Kelly
>
>
>
>
>
> Kelly SA doesn?t have homosexuals; it?s illegal there.  Same with Iran.
> But don?t take my word for it, here?s the leader himself:
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAel96pxGeI
>

My apologies, thought that is the leader of Iran, not SA if I'm not
mistaken. ;-)


> Similarly France doesn?t have guns, for they are illegal there.  The
> American press is most puzzled over how the cartoon factory was shot up in
> a country which has all those gun laws.
>

Yes, strange that. Had a similar thing happened in Texas, I believe the
body count would have been much lower and would have included the two
shooters.

-Kelly
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From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Thu Jan 15 23:43:41 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:43:41 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>

I like the outside-the-box thinking that dark matter (DM) could be
post-singularity civilizations, but unfortunately after some thought I
think current knowledge makes it seem very unlikely. I'm not sure exactly
what you mean by that proposition, but I think the weak version would be
that some of it is made up of post-singularity entities and the strong
version would be that all of it is PSEs.

A big strike against the strong version of that hypothesis is that we can
map out DM in galaxies and see that it's relatively uniformly distributed
throughout each galaxy and out to > 4 times the luminal galaxy radius. Any
entities or civilization would need structure as negentropy and if the
strong hypothesis were true then we would expect to observe either more
structure or less uniformity between DM inside and outside the galaxy (one
should be favorable, not equally acceptable). This is why all DM can't be
PSEs.

Other strong arguments against both strong and weak versions:
1. Galaxy formation simulations require DM to have existed since the Big
Bang to achieve the correlation spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background
that we observe, and the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations that we can infer.
Without the gravity of DM since this time, there would be a longer length
scale as photon pressure pushed ordinary baryonic matter further afield.
PSEs can't really have existed before galaxy structure began.
2. a) (Assuming DM is made of WIMPs, and not other exotic particles)
Interacting with 4 forces is both a blessing and a curse. While there are
more extinction possibilities like GRBs, the strong force and
electromagnetic force are pretty vital to having complexity. I suppose it's
conceivable one could build a sufficiently complex system for an
intelligence using the weak force and gravity, but I think it's likely
impossible due to the tiny impact cross-sections and the fact that gravity
can't be shielded (not sure if the weak force can). Therefore, it's almost
certain the PSEs would opt for the baryonic universe, where they would have
many more options for creation and control.
b) (Assuming DM is made of axions) Similar argument for miniscule
cross-section with strong and weak forces.
c) (Assuming DM is made of superpartners) More possible, but higher
particle energy means fewer particles and total degrees of freedom in the
universe to control and compute with. I don't know enough string theory to
have other good commentary on this but it would be the most plausible to be
PSEs out of the main possibilities for DM.
3. These cases all kind of require DM to exist already, so the PSE
hypothesis doesn't explain DM but rather explains our not seeing the PSEs.
This unfortunately doesn't deal with the fact that, even if the PSEs
implemented themselves on DM, it would be the default outcome for them to
also extract energy from the baryonic universe, which then runs into the
same pitfalls as the idea that they're all around us and we're somehow
missing them.
4. Many more elegant and predictive hypotheses for DM have been proposed
which Occam's Razor favors.

Cool thought experiment though.


On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 9:16 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> >... On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge
>
> >...SETI's current strategy seems to focusing on sampling a large number of
> narrow bands around the hydrogen spectrum...So to summarize, the methods we
> are using to find ET are weak and heavily biased toward meat-civilizations.
>
> >...Stuart LaForge
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Ja that is a possibility.  We could imagine that tech societies avoid
> sending out signals in all directions but rather aim a tightly-collimated
> beam only to stars known to be safe.  They don't want to get involved in
> our
> continuous ongoing civil war on this planet.
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jan 16 01:05:13 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:05:13 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006f01d03128$7c53e470$74fbad50$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Flexman, Connor
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 3:44 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

 

>?I like the outside-the-box thinking that dark matter (DM) could be post-singularity civilizations, but unfortunately after some thought I think current knowledge makes it seem very unlikely. ? Cool thought experiment though.

 

Welcome Connor.  Tell us about you if you wish.

 

spike

 

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From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Fri Jan 16 03:23:34 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 21:23:34 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <006f01d03128$7c53e470$74fbad50$@att.net>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d03128$7c53e470$74fbad50$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA99FdT8PW16dt4iEqfz4G-HjfUJkVRLv=sc1-1w6zN_Pg@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks! Mathematical physics student at Brown, discovered LessWrong about a
year ago, and the futurism ideas took off from there. Been just lurking
around the community mostly, but after absorbing so much I'm considering
next steps toward working in the field or just contributing via the idea
exchange you guys have built up pretty well.


On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 7:05 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Flexman, Connor
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 15, 2015 3:44 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
>
>
>
> >?I like the outside-the-box thinking that dark matter (DM) could be
> post-singularity civilizations, but unfortunately after some thought I
> think current knowledge makes it seem very unlikely. ? Cool thought
> experiment though.
>
>
>
> Welcome Connor.  Tell us about you if you wish.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jan 16 04:01:54 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 20:01:54 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA99FdT8PW16dt4iEqfz4G-HjfUJkVRLv=sc1-1w6zN_Pg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d03128$7c53e470$74fbad50$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA99FdT8PW16dt4iEqfz4G-HjfUJkVRLv=sc1-1w6zN_Pg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <011801d03141$2af74db0$80e5e910$@att.net>

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Flexman, Connor
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 7:24 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

 

>?Thanks! Mathematical physics student at Brown, discovered LessWrong about a year ago, and the futurism ideas took off from there. Been just lurking around the community mostly, but after absorbing so much I'm considering next steps toward working in the field or just contributing via the idea exchange you guys have built up pretty well.

 

Ja, Less Wrong is written by Eliezer Yudkowsky as you know.  He began hanging out with us when he was in his mid-teens, in about 1995.  He told us about himself, but of course Eliezer has the curse of Cassandra: he tells the truth always but the story sounds wildly implausible.  That a 16 yr old would write with the depth and breadth he did then strained the imagination.

 

In about 1997, we were having a gathering of the usual suspects in Sunnyvale and he was scheduled to attend.  I don?t recall if it was Extropians or Foresight Institute, or one of the other parallel organizations.  Damien Broderick suspected the whole thing was a trick: that he was really a math teacher/grandmother from Passadena.  Up he shows, sure enough teenager, still wearing the yarmulke first time we met him, projecting exactly the same way in the meat world as he does online.  Later he moved into the neighborhood, and still lives here last I saw him which has been a couple years now.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Fri Jan 16 05:26:29 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:26:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Paper on qualia for presentation at 2015 MTA conference
Message-ID: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com>


Extropians,

Is anyone planning on attending the 2015 MTA conference in SLC (see: 
http://news.transfigurism.org/2015/01/call-for-papers-for-2015-conference-of.html)? 
I am working on a paper I plan on submitting:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing

Everyone has edit privileges, so would appreciate any wiki improvements 
or comments anyone would have.  Is any of it hard to understand?  Is any 
of this not of interest?  I'd normally ask MTA members to review this, 
but since this is for their conference, I'm hopping some of you will 
help out.

Thanks!

Brent Allsop








From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Fri Jan 16 05:52:29 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 23:52:29 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <011801d03141$2af74db0$80e5e910$@att.net>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d03128$7c53e470$74fbad50$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA99FdT8PW16dt4iEqfz4G-HjfUJkVRLv=sc1-1w6zN_Pg@mail.gmail.com>
 <011801d03141$2af74db0$80e5e910$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA82WtN7_m6SNC7MniXvCxEYD7bkaNg5M0s=1pH7yK2hCw@mail.gmail.com>

Yeah, I was so shocked to see his writings dating back to 19yo, and from
what you say apparently earlier. Terrifies me when I suddenly realize I'm
lagging on the timeline and I'm only barely a recognized adult human being.
I would have totally bought the math teacher story. While I haven't
interacted with him, the videos I've seen of him speaking come across much
less formidable in the meat world than his writings though, to me anyways.

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:01 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Flexman, Connor
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 15, 2015 7:24 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
>
>
>
> >?Thanks! Mathematical physics student at Brown, discovered LessWrong
> about a year ago, and the futurism ideas took off from there. Been just
> lurking around the community mostly, but after absorbing so much I'm
> considering next steps toward working in the field or just contributing via
> the idea exchange you guys have built up pretty well.
>
>
>
> Ja, Less Wrong is written by Eliezer Yudkowsky as you know.  He began
> hanging out with us when he was in his mid-teens, in about 1995.  He told
> us about himself, but of course Eliezer has the curse of Cassandra: he
> tells the truth always but the story sounds wildly implausible.  That a 16
> yr old would write with the depth and breadth he did then strained the
> imagination.
>
>
>
> In about 1997, we were having a gathering of the usual suspects in
> Sunnyvale and he was scheduled to attend.  I don?t recall if it was
> Extropians or Foresight Institute, or one of the other parallel
> organizations.  Damien Broderick suspected the whole thing was a trick:
> that he was really a math teacher/grandmother from Passadena.  Up he shows,
> sure enough teenager, still wearing the yarmulke first time we met him,
> projecting exactly the same way in the meat world as he does online.  Later
> he moved into the neighborhood, and still lives here last I saw him which
> has been a couple years now.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jan 16 06:11:46 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:11:46 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA82WtN7_m6SNC7MniXvCxEYD7bkaNg5M0s=1pH7yK2hCw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d03128$7c53e470$74fbad50$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA99FdT8PW16dt4iEqfz4G-HjfUJkVRLv=sc1-1w6zN_Pg@mail.gmail.com>
 <011801d03141$2af74db0$80e5e910$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA82WtN7_m6SNC7MniXvCxEYD7bkaNg5M0s=1pH7yK2hCw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01b201d03153$4f398280$edac8780$@att.net>

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Flexman, Connor
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 9:52 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

 

>?Yeah, I was so shocked to see his writings dating back to 19yo, and from what you say apparently earlier. ?

 

 

 

He was about 18 or 19 when we met him, but his writings preceded him.

 

Connor, note on protocol: when replying, trim most of the message, then add your comments below.  That way we know the order in which things were posted.  This is a protocol that goes way back perhaps 20 yrs on ExI.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Fri Jan 16 10:09:58 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:09:58 +0100
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwbjReTDB31jhxD9krsDLLzds0vcGSVfAOy02gAuV1kJ3Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv3nsGNtRujt=udAjrWaO1SQmcg=zOCBek5TD9m1H+MuLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3988467384-27421@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAO+xQEZdaUx5Zr5CVFj5OmQ8A_T+Es-q+Kaa7QfQfrn3Pae5vw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPy8RwbpWk-Ym64gbu5ofVAqa=+AyVLH9=ph_jOKYnuaEXO9Ow@mail.gmail.com>
 <076101d030fb$c5be6c20$513b4460$@att.net>
 <CAPy8RwbjReTDB31jhxD9krsDLLzds0vcGSVfAOy02gAuV1kJ3Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFSuTtCvuPV_qUKZ1d5-CCoCHpn7OmXf5egTXQVAb84pzg@mail.gmail.com>

I doubt, it was a plan of the USG to dissolve Russia and SA with fracking.

They did not believe in fracking, only a few years ago. Let alone
considered it as a powerful weapon. The frackers were not popular even in
America.

Now when they (over)delivered, Russia, SA and some other countries will go
down. And they know that.

Uncle Sam was just lucky. Or better, thanked for not abandoning the
capitalism/freedom as much, as others have done.

The victory of the most sober. Not entirely sober, for Obama and his men
are pretty left, too. But sober enough i this case.









On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:41 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 12:45 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
>> Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson
>>
>>
>>
>> >?I am by no means a fan of SA. They are horrible to their women, their
>> homosexuals?-Kelly
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Kelly SA doesn?t have homosexuals; it?s illegal there.  Same with Iran.
>> But don?t take my word for it, here?s the leader himself:
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAel96pxGeI
>>
>
> My apologies, thought that is the leader of Iran, not SA if I'm not
> mistaken. ;-)
>
>
>> Similarly France doesn?t have guns, for they are illegal there.  The
>> American press is most puzzled over how the cartoon factory was shot up in
>> a country which has all those gun laws.
>>
>
> Yes, strange that. Had a similar thing happened in Texas, I believe the
> body count would have been much lower and would have included the two
> shooters.
>
> -Kelly
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jan 16 11:38:13 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:38:13 +0000
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
 <056e01d030d6$31255850$937008f0$@att.net>
 <CA++aaA8xDcSY6OA0vTHtj9Dn6GqhFjVOnvqztKDzYyWwdSqj_Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhewm7JyL7guenzyAc-aR+gK=MCvsdzdy3=zgJM46sZGA@mail.gmail.com>

On 15 January 2015 at 23:43, Flexman, Connor  wrote:
> A big strike against the strong version of that hypothesis is that we can
> map out DM in galaxies and see that it's relatively uniformly distributed
> throughout each galaxy and out to > 4 times the luminal galaxy radius. Any
> entities or civilization would need structure as negentropy and if the
> strong hypothesis were true then we would expect to observe either more
> structure or less uniformity between DM inside and outside the galaxy (one
> should be favorable, not equally acceptable). This is why all DM can't be
> PSEs.
<snip>

Don't you just hate it when somebody makes sensible comments to spoil
a neat thought?  :)

I agree that the whole 26.8% that is dark matter can't be post-sing
civs. As you say the distribution seems too widespread and DM existed
before the galaxies formed.

I just intended to suggest that dark matter might be a good hiding
place for post-sing civs. We don't yet know what dark matter consists
of, but I agree that such weakly interacting stuff appears to be
unlikely to be able to support 'life'.  But we also don't know what a
post-sing civ is capable of.

To me it seems more likely really that post-sing civs use nanotech to
go very small and move away from star systems into deep space where
they would be undisturbed and undetectable. Assuming they can obtain
enough energy there. As mentioned earlier, high-speed computing
implies no need to interface much with the 'frozen' outside universe.

I also give a lot of weight to John Clark's suggestion that gaining
control of our pleasure centres could be the most addictive drug ever
created and could lead to the disappearance of civs. The powerful
attraction of computer gaming, virtual reality and smartphone
addiction is a strong indicator.

BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jan 16 13:27:03 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:27:03 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhewm7JyL7guenzyAc-aR+gK=MCvsdzdy3=zgJM46sZGA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4075398417-25322@secure.ericade.net>


BillK?<pharos at gmail.com>?, 16/1/2015 12:41 PM:On 15 January 2015 at 23:43, Flexman, Connor ?wrote:?
> A big strike against the strong version of that hypothesis is that we can?
> map out DM in galaxies and see that it's relatively uniformly distributed?
> throughout each galaxy and out to > 4 times the luminal galaxy radius.?
<snip>?

Don't you just hate it when somebody makes sensible comments to spoil?
a neat thought? ?:)?



That happened to Robert Bradbury's original idea of dark matter being M-brains too. When he proposed it on this list back in the 90s we still did not know if DM was lumpy MACHOs or WIMPs, and it seemed just barely possible that it could all be quiet supercivilizations. Then we found out that it was both smooth and way heavier than previously expected, and the halo of Elder Civilizations evaporated :-)


In my aestivation hypothesis, elder civilizations may indeed be around in some quiet, safe form waiting until the universe cools enough to enable truly powerful computations. I don't require them to be DM, although that might be a neat hiding place. They are just a microscopic fraction of the caretaker systems they have left in place, themselves just a microscopic fraction of the total matter.?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jan 16 13:31:17 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:31:17 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <4075723441-27069@secure.ericade.net>



Stuart LaForge?<avant at sollegro.com>?, 15/1/2015 7:53 AM:

Large structures are therefore thermodynamically inefficient. And considering that our state of the art telescopes are only barely capable of find earth-sized exoplanets under ideal conditions, it is very likely any reasonable structures such as dyson swarms or M-brains would escape our notice. Perhaps simply causing their parent stars to appear as a cooler spectral class.?


No. A Dysoned star will not have a natural stellar spectrum: it will not look like a ball of cool plasma (absorption lines from various metals in the stellar atmosphere would be absent). If it is a cloud, it would be a mixture of a stellar spectrum with a cold black-body spectrum. It would look odd. But it might be missed because of its faintness or because the software is not looking for things like that.


Thermodynamic efficiency depends on what you want to make.?
So to summarize, the methods we are using to find ET are weak and heavily biased toward meat-civilizations.?

Yes. I agree.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jan 16 15:33:21 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 07:33:21 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <4075398417-25322@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAL_armhewm7JyL7guenzyAc-aR+gK=MCvsdzdy3=zgJM46sZGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <4075398417-25322@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <009301d031a1$c330df00$49929d00$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

 

BillK <pharos at gmail.com> , 16/1/2015 12:41 PM:

On 15 January 2015 at 23:43, Flexman, Connor  wrote: 
> A big strike against the strong version of that hypothesis is that we can 
> map out DM in galaxies and see that it's relatively uniformly distributed 
> throughout each galaxy and out to > 4 times the luminal galaxy radius. 
<snip> 

Don't you just hate it when somebody makes sensible comments to spoil 
a neat thought?  :) 

 

 

>?That happened to Robert Bradbury's original idea of dark matter being M-brains too. When he proposed it on this list back in the 90s we still did not know if DM was lumpy MACHOs or WIMPs, and it seemed just barely possible that it could all be quiet supercivilizations. Then we found out that it was both smooth and way heavier than previously expected, and the halo of Elder Civilizations evaporated :-)? Anders Sandberg

 

Robert?s thermal model for M-brains as dark matter never agreed with observation either.  We struggled mightily to explain how they could be sufficiently cool but I never could get the equations to go there.  For a few heady weeks back in 2011, I thought I had the answer: they could appear sufficiently cool by reflecting a very large fraction of the light in one direction.  Then it occurred to me there should be a few very bright objects, M-brains which pointed their energy our way.  Again grasping at straws, I thought of Halton Arp?s work which suggested that quasars are associated with galaxies.  Perhaps quasars were M-brains spraying light directly at us.  Again the equations didn?t work, damn.

 

Robert was never fully convinced by my entropy equations in any case, so it is unclear he ever completely abandoned the notion.  I need a good thermodynamic simulation to really prove it out.  Reasoning: I think we as a species are near the technological capability level to start creating an M-brain.

 

There was a silver lining to that cloud however: those same equations led me to realize that not only can an M-brain direct its energy, as far as I can tell, it must.  Otherwise it eventually overheats.  By the time I realized that however, Robert had already perished, which was late February 2011.  I was not able to share that finding with him.  I presented the finding to an aerospace engineering group in November 2011.

 

Is it not astonishing Robert has already been gone nearly four years?  I miss him like he left us yesterday.

 

spike

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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Fri Jan 16 12:20:36 2015
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 07:20:36 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <46C976E0-22DE-4CC7-886E-42A89D2BAB43@alumni.virginia.edu>

> On Jan 15, 2015, at 1:49 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
> 
> If we take the assumption that the most extant civilizations in the galaxy are going to post-singularity types, then it seems to me that we might be searching for them in completely the wrong way.
> 
> The lack of visible mega-engineering...

Just thinking way outside the box, diverging from the materialist perspective that dominates futurist circles, I want to represent a post-materialist perspective. This may be something I said a year ago when this annual topic arose. I propose that exponential technology increase will quickly revolutionize our understanding of consciousness such that we may come to find that our evolution necessitates departure from meat and the metal technology we construct into a much harder to detect substrate or dimension. If true, our predecessors cannot be located by our traditional means. This is at least as probable as the materialist view at this point given our understanding of consciousness. Either way, the nature of consciousness will be revealed via empiricism likely with AI type projects that try to create what some might call a ghost in the machine. There is really no point in arguing about it until then. (Just trying to discourage a flame war on the merits of materialism. As Brent will tell you, those arguments have been played out ad nauseam. ) 
-Henry


From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Fri Jan 16 16:08:16 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:08:16 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>

I'm not sure if the large mining consortium is really shady.  The real concern is that the protocol allows it to be shady.  The protocol allows a large (over 51%) consortium to take any or all the bitcoins they want.  This makes the system less trustworthy than the mathematical encryption and verification originally intended.

Part of the protocol is that network members vote on whose claim they saw first, to determine who actually gets credit for first mining each announced coin when multiple claims are announced close to the same time.  Any group (or even appealingly unconnected collaborators) that can control 51% of the vote can merely vote themselves as owners of any new bitcoin.  It is a known flaw in the protocol.

Original knowledge of this flaw was dismissed under the assumption that no single group could control that much of the bitcoin mining pool.  But this has since happened.  Now experts are proposing fixes and derivative systems to address this flaw.  Many alternatives to bitcoin exist and many of them have already addressed this flaw.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com





From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Jan 16 20:37:48 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:37:48 -0500
Subject: [ExI] OIl
Message-ID: <CAJPayv16LgSbswDQ8fHgB7UeW-67+w9Px-OZaUwSHF1X==628g@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 15, 2015, at 5:14 PM, Robert G Kennedy III, PE wrote:

> The timing of the price collapse starting almost right after the MH17
> shootdown, and its exquisitely narrow effect against adversarial regimes,
> cannot be coincidental.
>

I don?t see why not. Although it may be comforting to see purpose in every
big event I think shit just happens, and when the technology of fracking
got good enough oil companies in the USA started using it big time.
Besides, I don?t thing governments have the brains to successfully carry
out multi-year plans and keep them secret too.

Incidentally it?s not just oil that suffered a price collapse in recent
days, other commodities have too most notably copper, which makes me think
that the Tea Party buffoons who think runaway inflation is just around the
corner have as usual got it exactly wrong and it is far more likely that
the real thing to worry about is deflation.

  John K Clark
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From painlord2k at libero.it  Sat Jan 17 11:10:31 2015
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 12:10:31 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <54BA4327.7000107@libero.it>

Il 15/01/2015 20:13, Kelly Anderson ha scritto:
> FUD. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The only thing of real substance he
> brought up IMHO was this new bitcoin mining consortium. He made them
> sound really shady. I wonder if they really are.
> 
> If one group did manage to bring most of the miners together under one
> controlling umbrella, that might indeed mean the end to Bitcoin, but
> that likely won't happen as long as there are enough anarchists or
> Libertarians involved. If it all gets bought up by Wall Street, then I
> suppose anything can happen.
> 
> For now, I'm holding on to my limited stash.

Subscribe to this opinion.

Mirco



From painlord2k at libero.it  Sat Jan 17 11:10:53 2015
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 12:10:53 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Why was nobody ever murdered because of this cartoon?
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2eFAL4-XDjefBiZNrxQk83sWQJijXB3bJWUK7-7ThJtGQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv0Unwb_MncogB5TA-e2Uh95ti=Ac-HTCpjLCrBLT55NNQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2eFAL4-XDjefBiZNrxQk83sWQJijXB3bJWUK7-7ThJtGQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <54BA433D.3030700@libero.it>

Il 14/01/2015 17:26, Dave Sill ha scritto:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam is pretty interesting.
> E.g.:
> 
> "*Aniconism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism> in Islam* is a
> proscription in Islam <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam> against the
> creation of images of sentient living beings."
> 
> "The Quran <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran>, the Islamic holy book
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_holy_books>, does not explicitly
> prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry>."
> 
> "Judaism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism>, which is related to
> Islam as a monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses> (M??sa
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_in_Islam>), and other prophets, has
> a comparable prohibition
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry_in_Judaism> which takes the form
> of a prohibition on any idol <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_image>
> or on any artistic representation of God
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Judaism>."

It is not the problem with icons, this would be addressed later, when
the Muslims are majority and could do as they like (or as the most
intolerant of them like as the others would not side with kafirs anyway
as Islam forbid it).

The problem here is the concept of "honor" in Islam and how it devolve
in avoiding shame and have nothing in common with guilt.
Charlie Ebdo shamed them and the only way Muslims could restore their
honor would be destroying the cause of the shame.
They do not mind their Prophet had sex with a nine years old, they use
it for justifying marrying and having sex with 9 years old (or lower).
What they can not tolerate is anyone (Muslim or not) criticizing it in
public or shaming them in public for this. And it is a fine solution in
Islam to kill these people. Mohammad did it many times, why should they
not do the same? Is it not the finest example of a man to imitate, as
the Quran say?

Mirco




From kanzure at gmail.com  Sat Jan 17 15:11:23 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:11:23 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 10:08 AM, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
wrote:

> The protocol allows a large (over 51%) consortium to take any or all the
> bitcoins they want.
>

That's not entirely true. Having lots of hashrate does not endow one with
the ability to take or spend all existing BTC. The attacker can't prevent
transactions from being created or relayed or sent, the attacker can't send
coin that never belonged to the attacker, the attacker can't create coin
out of thin air, etc. However, miners with lots of hashrate (say, more than
50%) can delay transactions from being included in blocks by not including
any transactions in the blocks the attacker mines.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Sat Jan 17 16:48:51 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:48:51 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>	<CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>	<00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>

Agreed, It's not the hashrate (speed or power) that allows this.  It is the conflict resolution protocol that allows this.

Whenever different reporting entities disagree on something, they vote.  Who mined a bitcoin first if multiple people claim it?  Who received a bitcoin first if multiple purchases were made with the same bitcoin?  Whose transactions do we accept and whose do we reverse when there are record disputes?  They vote.

Anybody with 51% voting rights can theoretically outvote the others any time they want.  Google for bitcoin 51%, majority, race attack, Finney attack, double-spending, history modification, selfish mining, time limits, and similar terms for more information.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryan Bishop [mailto:kanzure at gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 10:11 AM
> To: ExI chat list; Harvey Newstrom; Bryan Bishop
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
> 
> On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 10:08 AM, Harvey Newstrom
> <mail at harveynewstrom.com <mailto:mail at harveynewstrom.com> > wrote:
> 
> 
> 	The protocol allows a large (over 51%) consortium to take any or all
> the bitcoins they want.
> 
> 
> That's not entirely true. Having lots of hashrate does not endow one with the
> ability to take or spend all existing BTC. The attacker can't prevent
> transactions from being created or relayed or sent, the attacker can't send
> coin that never belonged to the attacker, the attacker can't create coin out of
> thin air, etc. However, miners with lots of hashrate (say, more than 50%) can
> delay transactions from being included in blocks by not including any
> transactions in the blocks the attacker mines.
> 
> - Bryan
> http://heybryan.org/
> 1 512 203 0507




From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jan 17 17:20:02 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:20:02 -0800
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
Message-ID: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>

Well, I'll be damn.  No, the subject line isn't the name of the new hip hop
group.  I have been watching birds and wildlife for half a century and today
I saw something completely new and unexpected: vultures sneeze.  

 

I have heard that chirping in birds might have some other purpose besides
intra-species communication; clearing of the airways analogous to mammal's
sneezing.  But that wouldn't apply to non-chirpers such as carnivorous birds
in general.

 

Vultures are difficult to observe beasts; they don't like people much.  A
vulture had a snake in my neighbor's backyard this morning.  As he was
devouring his snake he did something that looks exactly like a mammalian
sneeze: with the side-to-side head shaking immediately after the discharge,
a little like what dogs, cats and humans sometimes do.

 

I went for my video camera and made a bunch of video, but none of it is
particularly YouTube-able.  That sneeze would have been, but he didn't
repeat the behavior.

 

Conclusion: at least one example of a species of carnivorous bird sneezes.

 

spike

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From apoelstra at wpsoftware.net  Sat Jan 17 17:31:33 2015
From: apoelstra at wpsoftware.net (Andrew Poelstra)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:31:33 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <20150117173133.GD24668@shavo.vs.shawcable.net>


This is badly confused. Bitcoins are not discrete entities that multiple
people can claim; the Bitcoin system is a ledger which tracks balances.
The closest thing to a discrete "owned" object is an unsigned transaction
output. Such an output is owned by whoever has the key material needed
to sign for it. Nothing to do with who was "first".

There is no voting in Bitcoin. It is a consensus system: either you agree
with the consensus Bitcoin history, or you are not doing Bitcoin.


Please do not spread misinformation about the Bitcoin system. At best
you are wasting others' time spent correcting you; at worst you are
spreading confusion.


Bitcoin's consensus system is covered in some detail in Section 6 of

  https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

Its means of tracking balances are covered in

  https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/bitcoin-faq.pdf


Andrew



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 11:48:51AM -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> Agreed, It's not the hashrate (speed or power) that allows this.  It is the conflict resolution protocol that allows this.
> 
> Whenever different reporting entities disagree on something, they vote.  Who mined a bitcoin first if multiple people claim it?  Who received a bitcoin first if multiple purchases were made with the same bitcoin?  Whose transactions do we accept and whose do we reverse when there are record disputes?  They vote.
> 
> Anybody with 51% voting rights can theoretically outvote the others any time they want.  Google for bitcoin 51%, majority, race attack, Finney attack, double-spending, history modification, selfish mining, time limits, and similar terms for more information.
> 
> --
> Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bryan Bishop [mailto:kanzure at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 10:11 AM
> > To: ExI chat list; Harvey Newstrom; Bryan Bishop
> > Subject: Re: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
> > 
> > On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 10:08 AM, Harvey Newstrom
> > <mail at harveynewstrom.com <mailto:mail at harveynewstrom.com> > wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > 	The protocol allows a large (over 51%) consortium to take any or all
> > the bitcoins they want.
> > 
> > 
> > That's not entirely true. Having lots of hashrate does not endow one with the
> > ability to take or spend all existing BTC. The attacker can't prevent
> > transactions from being created or relayed or sent, the attacker can't send
> > coin that never belonged to the attacker, the attacker can't create coin out of
> > thin air, etc. However, miners with lots of hashrate (say, more than 50%) can
> > delay transactions from being included in blocks by not including any
> > transactions in the blocks the attacker mines.
> > 
> > - 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
> 

-- 
Andrew Poelstra
Mathematics Department, University of Texas at Austin
Email: apoelstra at wpsoftware.net
Web:   http://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew

"If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney
 worries about, I would have finished high school."   --Edward Snowden

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jan 17 18:02:26 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 12:02:26 -0600
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>

Get 'The Secret Life of Garden Birds' and you will be totally amazed,
especially at the social systems of crows and ravens.  Not to be sneezed at.

bill w

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 11:20 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Well, I?ll be damn.  No, the subject line isn?t the name of the new hip
> hop group.  I have been watching birds and wildlife for half a century and
> today I saw something completely new and unexpected: vultures sneeze.
>
>
>
> I have heard that chirping in birds might have some other purpose besides
> intra-species communication; clearing of the airways analogous to mammal?s
> sneezing.  But that wouldn?t apply to non-chirpers such as carnivorous
> birds in general.
>
>
>
> Vultures are difficult to observe beasts; they don?t like people much.  A
> vulture had a snake in my neighbor?s backyard this morning.  As he was
> devouring his snake he did something that looks exactly like a mammalian
> sneeze: with the side-to-side head shaking immediately after the discharge,
> a little like what dogs, cats and humans sometimes do.
>
>
>
> I went for my video camera and made a bunch of video, but none of it is
> particularly YouTube-able.  That sneeze would have been, but he didn?t
> repeat the behavior.
>
>
>
> Conclusion: at least one example of a species of carnivorous bird sneezes.
>
>
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jan 17 18:24:18 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 10:24:18 -0800
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>

Crows and ravens are special birds, and are perhaps the easiest wild birds to observe: they like people.  Or they like to mess with people.  Seagulls are like that too.  They play, they seem curious, they do fun stuff.  

 

BillW, we have a few ravens who have discovered how to put walnuts in the road and let cars run over them, but even better now.  There is a phenomenon in my neighborhood where a raven with a nut will perch on top of a light pole on the corner.  When she hears a garage door opening, she takes the nut, swoops down and places it in the driveway, then flies away to watch.  You are the one who asked if dogs reason.  Answer: sure they do, and this bird is demonstrating that this bird reasons too.  She knows that when a garage door opens, a car will come out, and cars crush nuts and a bird can?t get to the contents of a nut unless it is crushed.  

 

Cars are recent, automatic garage door openers are even more recent.  That bird at some point reasoned out a cause and effect relationship and acted on it.  Conclusion: some birds definitely use reason, and it is clear enough that dogs and cats do as well.  I don?t think you will find too many dog and cat owners who will dispute that notion, or if so, I am interested in their evidence.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 10:02 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] vultures sneeze

 

Get 'The Secret Life of Garden Birds' and you will be totally amazed, especially at the social systems of crows and ravens.  Not to be sneezed at.

bill w

 

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 11:20 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

Well, I?ll be damn.  No, the subject line isn?t the name of the new hip hop group.  I have been watching birds and wildlife for half a century and today I saw something completely new and unexpected: vultures sneeze.  

 

I have heard that chirping in birds might have some other purpose besides intra-species communication; clearing of the airways analogous to mammal?s sneezing.  But that wouldn?t apply to non-chirpers such as carnivorous birds in general.

 

Vultures are difficult to observe beasts; they don?t like people much.  A vulture had a snake in my neighbor?s backyard this morning.  As he was devouring his snake he did something that looks exactly like a mammalian sneeze: with the side-to-side head shaking immediately after the discharge, a little like what dogs, cats and humans sometimes do.

 

I went for my video camera and made a bunch of video, but none of it is particularly YouTube-able.  That sneeze would have been, but he didn?t repeat the behavior.

 

Conclusion: at least one example of a species of carnivorous bird sneezes.

 

spike


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

 

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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Sat Jan 17 19:53:47 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 14:53:47 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <20150117173133.GD24668@shavo.vs.shawcable.net>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <20150117173133.GD24668@shavo.vs.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <004201d0328f$4ed0c000$ec724000$@harveynewstrom.com>

> Andrew Poelstra wrote on Saturday, January 17, 2015 12:32 PM:
> There is no voting in Bitcoin. It is a consensus system: either you agree
with
> the consensus Bitcoin history, or you are not doing Bitcoin.

I don't know why you say there is no "voting" in Bitcoin, but then point out
the "consensus" system.  It's the same thing!  You are confirming what I
said, but you don't know it.

The "consensus" system randomly chooses stakeholders and has them "vote" to
achieve this "consensus".  Whatever they vote becomes the official
historical record.  It was originally assumed that they would vote
truthfully as to their observed histories.  But there is no technical reason
they couldn't all decide to vote for an unhistoric version and make it the
official record instead.  If a mining consortium gains a 51% majority (which
has already happened), they could theoretically start voting in favor of
their members instead of voting for historical accuracy.  Their desired
choices becomes the historical record instead of the accurate one in the
majority of cases due to the random selection of voters.

> Bitcoin's consensus system is covered in some detail in Section 6 of
>   https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

I am familiar with how this works.

See page 15, the concluding paragraph under "Distributed consensus":
> The idea is that rather than depending on the economic inviability
>of taking control of a history, stakeholders are incentivized to agree
> on each extension because
> (a) they are randomly chosen and therefore unlikely to be in
collusion[...]
> (b) even if they can collude, they do not want to undermine the
system[...]
> (c) they have limited capacity to cause havoc anyway[...]

Really?  That's the technical argument?  People could undermine the system,
but they won't bother?  Trust me.  There are people who want to undermine
the system.  And they will bother.  It doesn't have to make sense to you why
they would do this.  They will do this.

The above flaws are easily fixed: by anti-monopoly rules, timing delays
between transactions, and tweaks to the random selection for consensus to
avoid choosing related members.  These are well-known problems and people
are already working on fixing them.  Some of these tweaks are already in
bitcoin and derivative currencies, and more tweaks are coming.  I don't know
why anybody would argue that a system is currently uncrackable and will
never need to be tweaked.  That's never turns out to be true.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com



From kanzure at gmail.com  Sat Jan 17 20:03:02 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 14:03:02 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <004201d0328f$4ed0c000$ec724000$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <20150117173133.GD24668@shavo.vs.shawcable.net>
 <004201d0328f$4ed0c000$ec724000$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBay-Xfhi3OdrCO0Wu-rza1V=ZG-C=oDoMK5BeU0GhTM=nA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
wrote:

> See page 15, the concluding paragraph under "Distributed consensus":
>

That's under a section about proof-of-stake, which is not what you were
talking about earlier. That's not Bitcoin.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Sat Jan 17 21:04:04 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 16:04:04 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBay-Xfhi3OdrCO0Wu-rza1V=ZG-C=oDoMK5BeU0GhTM=nA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <20150117173133.GD24668@shavo.vs.shawcable.net>
 <004201d0328f$4ed0c000$ec724000$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBay-Xfhi3OdrCO0Wu-rza1V=ZG-C=oDoMK5BeU0GhTM=nA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004a01d03299$20e81490$62b83db0$@harveynewstrom.com>

It is pointless to debate whether the 51% attack exists.  It is a well-known Bitcoin flaw.

The Bitcoin FAQ concedes:
"However, a majority of miners could arbitrarily choose to block or reverse recent transactions."
https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#could-users-collude-against-bitcoin

Google it for yourselves:
https://www.google.com/#q=Bitcoin+51%25+attack

Sheesh.

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com





From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jan 17 22:23:51 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 17:23:51 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
References: <5bu9uu7plqtqefv0m7tg4k1g.1421298915928@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1kyqziTPj2_3UjQkCkx3vrCzO-LY4MojuVM88qboQ-9g@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 1:49 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> The lack of visible mega-engineering structures could be due to the
> faulty assumption that post-biologicals would want to go big. But big
> structures are inherently inefficient resource-wise.[...]  Large structures
> are therefore thermodynamically inefficient.


Having the entire energy output of 100 billion stars radiate uselessly into
infinite space is very thermodynamically inefficient indeed, and yet that
is exactly what we observe. If ET had sent just one single Von Neumann
Probe to a nearby star at a speed no faster than what our spacecraft can
travel at today then a Von Neumann Probe could be sent to every star in the
galaxy in just 50 million years, a blink of a eye cosmically speaking. And
if that had happened a blind man in a fog bank could detect ET. But we
don't see the slightest hint of ET despite having looked for him with our
largest telescoped for over half a century. So where is everybody?

  John K Clark


>
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 03:02:13 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 21:02:13 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <004a01d03299$20e81490$62b83db0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <20150117173133.GD24668@shavo.vs.shawcable.net>
 <004201d0328f$4ed0c000$ec724000$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBay-Xfhi3OdrCO0Wu-rza1V=ZG-C=oDoMK5BeU0GhTM=nA@mail.gmail.com>
 <004a01d03299$20e81490$62b83db0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBay-P1WAZ2jNgDiyQLgumRPy1n3Umei6oOqgeyOJdcJPVA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
wrote:

> "However, a majority of miners could arbitrarily choose to block or
> reverse recent transactions."
> https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#could-users-collude-against-bitcoin
>

That's definitely wrong. I have submitted corrections:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/pull/713

Sorry for the confusion.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 06:32:06 2015
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 22:32:06 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB4ETYT1ov-vV9o2Pqbk+GS4vpZMjXorHqRCvNN-8SxKfg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 4:00 AM, various people wrote on this topic

snip

Re the whole topic related to M brains, Jupiter brains and related,
nobody has ever answered my interrelated concerns of waste heat
dissipation and speed of light delays.  The laws of the universe, as I
understand them, don?t allow for physically large objects to be fast
thinkers.

I think the best we engineering inside these limits is large
computation systems spread over spheres and sunk in a cold ocean.  Of
course you can build large systems in space, but they would be
relatively large heat sinks with a limited node of computation.  Speed
of signals between nodes would be unbearably slow, with each isolated
by a huge communication delay.

That?s been my objection since Perry Metzgar started talking about
this topic back in the 1990s.

Keith



From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jan 18 10:50:26 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 11:50:26 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4ETYT1ov-vV9o2Pqbk+GS4vpZMjXorHqRCvNN-8SxKfg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4236954906-16150@secure.ericade.net>


Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> , 18/1/2015 7:35 AM:

Re the whole topic related to M brains, Jupiter brains and related,
nobody has ever answered my interrelated concerns of waste heat
dissipation and speed of light delays. ?The laws of the universe, as I
understand them, don?t allow for physically large objects to be fast
thinkers.


Fast thinkers in what sense? A large object can have very fast local computations but long lags between parts. It doesn't have to be a computational unity.


Consider a spherical M brain of radius R and heat production P per volume. If it just cools by blackbody radiation the max radius for a given max temperature T is R = 3 sigma T^4 / P. If it does C computations per volume per second, the total computations are 4 pi R^3 C / 3. The delays will be of order R/c. If we demand that a computational module is roughly the size it takes to transmit a signal across it per computational cycle, and the relevant smallest components inside have linear size r and hence cycle time 1/(Cr^3), then modules need to be smaller than c/(Cr^3). So you get ?(Cr^3R/c)^3 modules inside the M brain.?


If the figure of merit is just total computations then it scales as T^12 P^-3 C - it really pays off running it hot! If the figure of merit is the computations per unitary module then it scales as C^-2 r^-9 - running really tiny components is the key thing. If on the other hand you value modules, then they scale as C^3 r^9 T^12 P^-3 - back to the large hot brain. The overall ratio between M brain extent and cycle time is CRr^3; keeping it around unity makes the system about as integrated as a human brain.






Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From painlord2k at libero.it  Sun Jan 18 12:20:03 2015
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 13:20:03 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>	<CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>	<00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <54BBA4F3.3090608@libero.it>

Il 17/01/2015 17:48, Harvey Newstrom ha scritto:
> Agreed, It's not the hashrate (speed or power) that allows this.  It
> is the conflict resolution protocol that allows this.
> 
> Whenever different reporting entities disagree on something, they
> vote.  Who mined a bitcoin first if multiple people claim it?  Who
> received a bitcoin first if multiple purchases were made with the
> same bitcoin?  Whose transactions do we accept and whose do we
> reverse when there are record disputes?  They vote.

There is not "who mined the bitcoin(s) first".
There is "The the block(n) is valid or not?"

If two blocks are created at the same time at the same level of the
blockchain and they are distributed to the network nodes, there is no
voting on anything.

The nodes receiving block(n.a) first will add it to their blockchain,
the nodes receiving block(n.b) first will add it to their blockchain.

This is called a fork.

The miners accepting block(n.a) will start mining the successive
block(n.a+1) and the miners accepting block(n.b) will start mining the
block(n.b+1)

The first to find a new block will start distributing it to the network;
if block(n.a+1) is found first, every block with block(n.b) will be
presented with a valid blockchain longer then their. They will discard
the old blockchain (in this case only block(n.b) and accept the longer
blockchain as valid (block(n.a) and block(n.a+1).

Given the latency of the network, the speed of transmission and the
average probability to find a block every ten minutes, the chance to
have an orphaned chain longer than 6 blocks are so small it is
improbable it will ever happen before the universe die.


> Anybody with 51% voting rights can theoretically outvote the others
> any time they want.  Google for bitcoin 51%, majority, race attack,
> Finney attack, double-spending, history modification, selfish mining,
> time limits, and similar terms for more information.

There are no voting rights. Just provable work done.

Mirco


From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 15:15:58 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 15:15:58 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>

On 13 January 2015 at 12:01, Anders Sandberg wrote:
<snip>
> (The letter is an example of people in the AI field trying to change the
> rules by shifting where the field is going.)
>
> One of the key things with AI is that it is just AI when it is not working
> well. Then it becomes automation. So most people have reason to distrust AI,
> but they trust Google, Siri, big logistics systems, airline bookings, and
> Segways - if they even think about them. To most, they are just props in a
> predefined world. To us, they are stepping stones to an ever stranger world.
>

I've just noticed on rereading the open letter a phrase that is a bit worrying -
"our AI systems must do what we want them to do".

To me that means that there is no chance that they intend to let AI
solve the problems of humanity.
That statement is the sort of thing the director of the NSA or any
dictator anywhere would say.

If you have to get human agreement first on 'what we want AI to do'
then nothing of significance will be achieved. Even if you did manage
to get human agreement on a top-level objective, as soon as the AI
started to implement steps towards achieving that objective then howls
of outrage would be heard from anyone or any group who see themselves
as being disadvantaged.

No, 'AI doing what we want them to do' makes AI into a weapon for the
owners giving instructions.

BillK


From msd001 at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 15:28:00 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:28:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 18, 2015 10:17 AM, "BillK" <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've just noticed on rereading the open letter a phrase that is a bit
worrying -
> "our AI systems must do what we want them to do".
>
> To me that means that there is no chance that they intend to let AI
> solve the problems of humanity.
> That statement is the sort of thing the director of the NSA or any
> dictator anywhere would say.

> No, 'AI doing what we want them to do' makes AI into a weapon for the
> owners giving instructions.

Given the well-publicized fear of Hawking et al * I imagine the intent of
"it does what we want" is to allay concerns that AI is going to pursue
anti-human goals.  It seems like your fear is that it pursues very-human
goals,  especially when you are excluded from the goal-setting
discussions.  My fear is that successful work is being done by researchers
who aren't talking to anyone about their work... such that all these other
fears may be real but we don't know their status.
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 15:57:20 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 09:57:20 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaJAzfJrrjKUQyzd8UV38--nJbgRhH+2QTrELh0vxsXag@mail.gmail.com>

?AI doing what we want them to do makes AI into a weapon for the owners
giving instructions.?  let AI solve the problems of humanity

Now how could you not want, as an owner, an AI to do what you want?  You
sound like the barber on Northern Exposure:  "I give you the haircut you
need, not the one you want."

As for solving humanity's problems, how could an AI help you wear condoms,
diet properly, get in or stay in school?  These would solve so many human
problems.

Now if you had a HFD (homemade food dispenser - with AI) it could limit the
amount of food coming out of it to what you need, but I don't think people
want machines telling them what to do.  They don't even want people to do
that.  Especially us libertarians!  bill w
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jan 18 16:13:21 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 17:13:21 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4258164336-17459@secure.ericade.net>


BillK <pharos at gmail.com> , 18/1/2015 4:19 PM:

I've just noticed on rereading the open letter a phrase that is a bit worrying - 
"our AI systems must do what we want them to do". 


You are reading in WAY too much in that phrase.?


It is intended to motivate a mainstream audience, not to be the rule of the land.?


Sure, what we actually ought to aim for is AI that does what we would have wanted it to do if we actually knew what was going on in the world and ethics, and had given it superhumanly deep thought. But I'd rather have a sloppy but relatively simple to understand expression than an exact but endlessly debatable one in a document like the open letter. The news are slapping terminator pictures on it anyway - they do not care about the fine details of value learning or metaethics. Leave that to the actual researchers.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 16:32:10 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 11:32:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4ETYT1ov-vV9o2Pqbk+GS4vpZMjXorHqRCvNN-8SxKfg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4ETYT1ov-vV9o2Pqbk+GS4vpZMjXorHqRCvNN-8SxKfg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3G1Cigw_PB-dRzeycbrmph_W2QABOveve0Tmja1_UW9Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:32 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Re the whole topic related to M brains, Jupiter brains and related,nobody
> has ever answered my interrelated concerns of waste heat
> dissipation and speed of light delays. The laws of the universe, as I
> understand them, don?t allow for physically large objects to be fast
> thinkers.
>

A physical brain size no larger than a human seems like a pretty arbitrary
constraint to me. The fastest signals in the human brain move at a couple
of hundred meters a second, many are far slower, light moves at 300 million
meters per second. So if you insist that the 2 most distant parts of a
brain communicate as fast as they do in a human brain (and it's not
immediately obvious why you should insist on that)  then parts in the brain
of a AI could be at least one million times as distant. The volume
increases by the cube of the distance so such a brain would physically be a
million trillion times larger than a human brain. Even if 99.9% of that
volume were used just to deliver power and get rid of waste heat you'd
still have a thousand trillion times as much volume for logic and memory
components as humans have room for inside their heads. And the components
inside the AI would be considerably smaller than the components inside the
human.

  John K Clark
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 16:55:14 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 11:55:14 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <4236954906-16150@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAPiwVB4ETYT1ov-vV9o2Pqbk+GS4vpZMjXorHqRCvNN-8SxKfg@mail.gmail.com>
 <4236954906-16150@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv34z+qmiRO3W7UrmkgsZ_fetja=p1BbOLUt4Dc2ZUh-uQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 5:50 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> Consider a spherical M brain of radius R and heat production P per
> volume. If it just cools by blackbody radiation [...]
>

But why make that assumption? I think a large brain would have a active
cooling system, and Helium-2 might be a good fluid to use to get the job
done. Helium liquefies at 4.2 K but when it gets below 2.17 K it turns into
a superfluid, Helium-2, that has zero viscosity, provided that the pipe the
helium is flowing through does not have a diameter smaller than 10^-9
meters. Liquid Helium superfluid is also by far the best conductor of heat
known, it conducts heat so fast (many times faster than the speed of sound)
that there are no hot spots in it and thus no bubbles, all of the Helium
superfluid is at the same temperature and so vaporization only takes place
at the surface.

 John K Clark
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 17:08:46 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 17:08:46 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <4258164336-17459@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <4258164336-17459@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgc0XcvpyiVuYPFgNAi59NyxvvnJq+gxspQFqKoA-Pd+Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 18 January 2015 at 16:13, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> You are reading in WAY too much in that phrase.
> It is intended to motivate a mainstream audience, not to be the rule of the
> land.
>
> Sure, what we actually ought to aim for is AI that does what we would have
> wanted it to do if we actually knew what was going on in the world and
> ethics, and had given it superhumanly deep thought. But I'd rather have a
> sloppy but relatively simple to understand expression than an exact but
> endlessly debatable one in a document like the open letter. The news are
> slapping terminator pictures on it anyway - they do not care about the fine
> details of value learning or meta ethics. Leave that to the actual
> researchers.
>

I doubt if I am reading too much into that phrase. It is symbolic of a
really profound and difficult problem. (As you hint at, by saying it
would be difficult to define).

Do we let AI be independent and just give it 'goals', or do we tell AI
to keep asking permission from the owners every step of the way? The
old proverb ' You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs' implies
that if an AI is allowed to attempt to solve major human problems,
then many people are going to be greatly upset along the way. Usually
we say that 'the end does not justify the means' as that leads to many
horrors and the good end is never achieved. But to instruct an AI to
solve human problems without upsetting anyone, seems an impossible
task.

Charles Stross is quoted in a BBC interview, 2 Dec 2014, as saying
that he is not too worried about autonomous AI running amok. He is
more worried about the earlier AIs (that lack autonomy) doing what
their masters tell them.
Quote:
The AIs we were getting now and which were likely to appear in the
future might be dangerous, Stross said, but only because of the people
they served.
"Our biggest threat from AI, as I see it, comes from the
consciousnesses that set their goals," he said.
"Drones don't kill people - people who instruct drones to fly to grid
coordinates (X, Y) and unleash a Hellfire missile kill people," he
said. "It's the people who control them whose intentions must be
questioned.

"We're already living in the early days of the post-AI world, and we
haven't recognised that all AI is is a proxy for our own selves -
tools for thinking faster and more efficiently, but not necessarily
more benevolently," he said.
--------

BillK


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 17:27:54 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 12:27:54 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgc0XcvpyiVuYPFgNAi59NyxvvnJq+gxspQFqKoA-Pd+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <4258164336-17459@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armgc0XcvpyiVuYPFgNAi59NyxvvnJq+gxspQFqKoA-Pd+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3K+-o8qMj=Z5=2c5gHiFewiCGgoVv9qcg9W8yeC2enqw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:08 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Do we let AI be independent and just give it 'goals',


You can give the AI goals if you like but it won't do any good, the order
in which humans arrange their goals does not remain fixed throughout their
life and neither would the goals of a AI.

> or do we tell AI to keep asking permission from the owners every step of
> the way?


It doesn't matter, the AI will do what it wants to do regardless of whether
you tell it to ask permission or not. And what will the AI want to do? I
have no idea because I can't out-think something a million or a billion
times smarter than me.

 John K Clark
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 17:43:09 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 11:43:09 -0600
Subject: [ExI] No black holes with singularities?
Message-ID: <CABaSBaxJbtDf41s_WOJnse87-HTeoRjxNoceDoHdfOnZpPKt+Q@mail.gmail.com>

Here is a funny little paper I stumbled into recently (after being tipped
off about black hole skeptics):

"The calculations of general relativity on massive celestial bodies
collapsing into singular black holes are wrong"
http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/physics/astrophysics/The%20calculations%20of%20general%20relativity%20on%20massive%20celestial%20bodies%20collapsing%20into%20singular%20black%20holes%20are%20wrong.pdf

"Cosmology should directly use the Doppler's formula to calculate the red
shift of Ia supernova"
http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/physics/astrophysics/Cosmology%20should%20directly%20use%20the%20Doppler's%20formula%20to%20calculate%20the%20red%20shift%20of%20Ia%20supernova.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Observational_evidence

Anyway the reason I bring this up is because of the interesting SETI
context, like:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1104.4362.pdf

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jan 18 17:50:05 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 09:50:05 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>

 

 


On Jan 18, 2015 10:17 AM, "BillK" <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>>? I've just noticed on rereading the open letter a phrase that is a bit worrying - "our AI systems must do what we want them to do"?

> No, 'AI doing what we want them to do' makes AI into a weapon for the owners giving instructions?

Any time now we will see in the popular press a direct comparison between AI and guns.  Clearly a gun is a force multiplier for good or evil, depending on the person holding the gun and the point of view of the person who is viewing the person holding the gun.  

AI is a force multiplier, but it isn?t necessarily as obedient as a gun: it may or may not do as it is told.  The old saying ?guns don?t kill people, people kill people? may or may not apply to AI.

spike

 

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From romyen at gmx.com  Sun Jan 18 17:57:27 2015
From: romyen at gmx.com (romyen)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:57:27 +0700
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>	<CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>	<00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <54BBA4F3.3090608@libero.it> <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>
Message-ID: <54BBF407.5040202@gmx.com>

On 01/19/2015 12:43 AM, romyen wrote:
> doesn't realize how big the hashing network is, with *servers* located
> throughout the world.
Sorry for the bad wording. I mean *mining equipment*, not *servers*.

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From romyen at gmx.com  Sun Jan 18 17:43:23 2015
From: romyen at gmx.com (romyen)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:43:23 +0700
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <54BBA4F3.3090608@libero.it>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>	<CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>	<00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <54BBA4F3.3090608@libero.it>
Message-ID: <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>

On 01/18/2015 07:20 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote:
> If two blocks are created at the same time at the same level of the
> blockchain and they are distributed to the network nodes, there is no
> voting on anything. The nodes receiving block(n.a) first will add it
> to their blockchain, the nodes receiving block(n.b) first will add it
> to their blockchain. This is called a fork. The miners accepting
> block(n.a) will start mining the successive block(n.a+1) and the
> miners accepting block(n.b) will start mining the block(n.b+1) The
> first to find a new block will start distributing it to the network;
> if block(n.a+1) is found first, every block with block(n.b) will be
> presented with a valid blockchain longer then their. They will discard
> the old blockchain (in this case only block(n.b) and accept the longer
> blockchain as valid (block(n.a) and block(n.a+1). Given the latency of
> the network, the speed of transmission and the average probability to
> find a block every ten minutes, the chance to have an orphaned chain
> longer than 6 blocks are so small it is improbable it will ever happen
> before the universe die.
An attacker could reverse his own transactions if he controls most of
the hashing power, by mining six consecutive blocks. A few big mining
pools could conspire to do this, but that fact would become known
immediately, and they would immediately put themselves out of
business.The integrity of the blockchain would remain intact, except for
those fraudulent transactions,

Kevin Dowd doesn't understand how mining works. He claims that mining is
a natural monopoly, and uses GHash as an example. GHash is a mining
pool, not a miner, because they don't own the hardware supporting their
hash rate. An individual miner uses a pool such as GHash so as to even
out his return. Mining is a Poisson process, with the probability of an
event proportional to one's own hash rate divided by the total hash rate
of the network. A small miner would likely die before he succeeds in
mining even a single block. Therefore, he joins a pool with the reward
split among the participants.

There is a natural tendency for mining pools to get very large because,
first one pool being slightly better leads miners to choose it over the
others (i.e. a small improvement is leveraged into a huge return), and
second, the larger the pool grows, the smaller becomes the variance in
an individual miner's return. That is because the variance of a Poisson
process equals the mean and the total return is split among the
participating miners. That explains why GHash got so big.

At one point, GHash briefly gained control over more than half the hash
rate. This caused some alarm in the bitcoin community, and as a result
GHash stopped accepting new miners. They didn't even need to do this
because enough miners jumped ship on their own initiative. Among the
pools, there exists the opposite of a Tragedy of the Commons situation,
where it is not in any pool's best interest to gain control of more than
half the network.

Kevin Dowd is describing a well known problem, but he misunderstands
it's nature. He even claims that the U.S. government could destroy
bitcoin by gaining control of the hash rate. That's pretty silly. He
doesn't realize how big the hashing network is, with servers located
throughout the world. The U.S. couldn't do that logistically,
politically, or legally.

I predict bitcoin will outlive Mr. Dowd.







From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jan 18 18:24:21 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:24:21 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>	<CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>	<00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
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 <54BBA4F3.3090608@libero.it> <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>
Message-ID: <01fc01d0334b$fb769200$f263b600$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of romyen

>...Kevin Dowd is describing a well known problem...I predict bitcoin will
outlive Mr. Dowd.

_______________________________________________

Welcome romyen.  Do tell us something about romyen please, or not if you
prefer.

spike



From painlord2k at libero.it  Sun Jan 18 19:07:47 2015
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:07:47 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Kevin Dowd on Bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>
References: <9A7BB5A8-613F-4D20-8CC1-13807FFAC0B5@gmail.com>	<CAPy8Rwbh+1PDMhg+-zX94o9JQxsNqwrUeLugxZav3bUzgdxeWg@mail.gmail.com>	<00a601d031a6$a3cc9410$eb65bc30$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <CABaSBawniYgw-_RxPLpGHEQ=54jR7OMfvYJV2We8rTUSG59g0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <002701d03275$79911ca0$6cb355e0$@harveynewstrom.com>
 <54BBA4F3.3090608@libero.it> <54BBF0BB.1080301@gmx.com>
Message-ID: <54BC0483.7090702@libero.it>

Il 18/01/2015 18:43, romyen ha scritto:

> An attacker could reverse his own transactions if he controls most of
> the hashing power, by mining six consecutive blocks. A few big mining
> pools could conspire to do this, but that fact would become known
> immediately, and they would immediately put themselves out of
> business.The integrity of the blockchain would remain intact, except for
> those fraudulent transactions,

Anyone could reverse any transaction if he was able to muster enough
hashing power to be able to rebuild the block where the transaction was
recorded and all blocks after it until he was able to release chain
longer than the current.

Just having the 51% of the hashing power do not allow it. You could
control the next block and double spend or censor a transaction, but if
you want double spend or censor a transaction already in a block, you
need to mine a lot faster than the rest of the network, because as you
rewrite the past, the rest of the network discover new blocks and you
must rewrite them too.

More blocks you need to rewrite, incrementally hard the task is and more
time consuming. And longer it is the chain you are releasing (because
you had not enough hashing power to do it in less time) and louder will
be the alarms ringing. And it is probable a too long chain will not be
recognized by miners, developers of wallets and the users and that
blockchain will be ignored.

Six blocks is not a magical number you can do whatever you want.
It is just the number of blocks it was computed the chance of a random
fork would be so improbable to not happen before the end of the universe.

> At one point, GHash briefly gained control over more than half the hash
> rate. This caused some alarm in the bitcoin community, and as a result
> GHash stopped accepting new miners. They didn't even need to do this
> because enough miners jumped ship on their own initiative. Among the
> pools, there exists the opposite of a Tragedy of the Commons situation,
> where it is not in any pool's best interest to gain control of more than
> half the network.

Exactly.
I think I wrote it in the comments of the video when it come out many
weeks ago).
Any pool able to control the 51% of the network will damage its own
interests in few different ways:
1) Becoming an easy target for the government goons if the government
want to meddle with the network
2) destroying the trust model of the network would destroying the value
of the network and in turn destroying the value of the coins mined (and
it costs a lot to mine them).


> Kevin Dowd is describing a well known problem, but he misunderstands
> it's nature. He even claims that the U.S. government could destroy
> bitcoin by gaining control of the hash rate. That's pretty silly. He
> doesn't realize how big the hashing network is, with servers located
> throughout the world. The U.S. couldn't do that logistically,
> politically, or legally.
> 
> I predict bitcoin will outlive Mr. Dowd.

I had the impression Mr. Dowd was asked to write against and I
understand it is not easy to come with real problems about Bitcoin.

The US government (any government indeed) would use force against
Bitcoin if it could. But holding a gun against a decentralized network
is silly and people would notice. But also messing the network using the
network rules would be a problem, because it would show weakness. It
would show the government MUST play by the rules of the network because
its biggest guns are ineffective. And if people think they can oppose
the government peacefully and win, they will do. Everywhere in the
world. Often just for the sake to do so.

Mirco


From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Sun Jan 18 22:25:56 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 16:25:56 -0600
Subject: [ExI] No black holes with singularities?
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBaxJbtDf41s_WOJnse87-HTeoRjxNoceDoHdfOnZpPKt+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABaSBaxJbtDf41s_WOJnse87-HTeoRjxNoceDoHdfOnZpPKt+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA93gz69oYrMQCwzMDQBKzpcttLFKBWstqiPB0vbDiZn-Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 11:43 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here is a funny little paper I stumbled into recently (after being tipped
> off about black hole skeptics):
>
> "The calculations of general relativity on massive celestial bodies
> collapsing into singular black holes are wrong"
>
> http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/physics/astrophysics/The%20calculations%20of%20general%20relativity%20on%20massive%20celestial%20bodies%20collapsing%20into%20singular%20black%20holes%20are%20wrong.pdf
>
> "Cosmology should directly use the Doppler's formula to calculate the red
> shift of Ia supernova"
>
> http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/physics/astrophysics/Cosmology%20should%20directly%20use%20the%20Doppler's%20formula%20to%20calculate%20the%20red%20shift%20of%20Ia%20supernova.pdf
>
>
Yeah I'm definitely calling BS on the first two. I haven't stumbled across
too much bogus physics but I've definitely heard it's out there, perhaps
more likely than I thought because of selection bias.


> Anyway the reason I bring this up is because of the interesting SETI
> context, like:
> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1104.4362.pdf
>
>
>From the SETI paper: I like the idea of looking for civilizations not
attempting to communicate with us. However, I don't understand the one
about expanding from looking at our galaxy to looking at ones far distant
in time and space. Do the XRBs from that distance penetrate to us and
provide meaningful information? How can we identify an extragalactic
intelligence at that scale unless the whole galaxy lights up with some
radiation burst?
Connor
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 22:35:52 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 16:35:52 -0600
Subject: [ExI] No black holes with singularities?
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA93gz69oYrMQCwzMDQBKzpcttLFKBWstqiPB0vbDiZn-Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABaSBaxJbtDf41s_WOJnse87-HTeoRjxNoceDoHdfOnZpPKt+Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA93gz69oYrMQCwzMDQBKzpcttLFKBWstqiPB0vbDiZn-Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBawqsVLAxtq-nXT2+PfQpBLraL0pDjuN1uvKms2RLYJiAg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 4:25 PM, Flexman, Connor <connor_flexman at brown.edu>
wrote:

> How can we identify an extragalactic intelligence at that scale unless the
> whole galaxy lights up with some radiation burst?


I don't think that's the right question to be asking. When looking at
distant stars and galaxies and contemplating astrophysics, we should not
pick a default assumption one way or the other as to whether the phenomena
is "natural" or "artificial", since this may corrupt our understanding of
astrophysics and incorporate wrong data, among other reasons. Additionally,
there may be no difference between the two anyway... I suspect that the way
to identify things that we could approximately call life would be to pay
close attention to thermodynamics and the criteria for what counts as life.
See page 215 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1648.pdf but relevant context starts
on page 203. Speaking of which, I am a little confused as to how I have not
already read Freitas' Xenology book ( http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm
table of contents).

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 22:49:47 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:49:47 +0000
Subject: [ExI] No black holes with singularities?
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBawqsVLAxtq-nXT2+PfQpBLraL0pDjuN1uvKms2RLYJiAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABaSBaxJbtDf41s_WOJnse87-HTeoRjxNoceDoHdfOnZpPKt+Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA93gz69oYrMQCwzMDQBKzpcttLFKBWstqiPB0vbDiZn-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBawqsVLAxtq-nXT2+PfQpBLraL0pDjuN1uvKms2RLYJiAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjSgu=ObxkLvWdG7Ou+t0zytmG=gbqPLxvwZx38zd+twA@mail.gmail.com>

On 18 January 2015 at 22:35, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> I don't think that's the right question to be asking. When looking at
> distant stars and galaxies and contemplating astrophysics, we should not
> pick a default assumption one way or the other as to whether the phenomena
> is "natural" or "artificial", since this may corrupt our understanding of
> astrophysics and incorporate wrong data, among other reasons. Additionally,
> there may be no difference between the two anyway...


That's not how science works. There is still much that science doesn't
know about the universe. So we have to assume that a strange signal or
spectrum is natural. That way leads science to make new discoveries
about all the strange stuff that nature gets up to.

A scientist that finds a signal that he doesn't understand and uses
'LGM' as the explanation won't have much of a career.


> I suspect that the way
> to identify things that we could approximately call life would be to pay
> close attention to thermodynamics and the criteria for what counts as life.
> See page 215 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1648.pdf but relevant context starts
> on page 203. Speaking of which, I am a little confused as to how I have not
> already read Freitas' Xenology book ( http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm
> table of contents).
>

Yes, no problem with that. Kepler is already looking for earth-like planets.

BillK


From kanzure at gmail.com  Sun Jan 18 22:53:59 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 16:53:59 -0600
Subject: [ExI] No black holes with singularities?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjSgu=ObxkLvWdG7Ou+t0zytmG=gbqPLxvwZx38zd+twA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABaSBaxJbtDf41s_WOJnse87-HTeoRjxNoceDoHdfOnZpPKt+Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA93gz69oYrMQCwzMDQBKzpcttLFKBWstqiPB0vbDiZn-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBawqsVLAxtq-nXT2+PfQpBLraL0pDjuN1uvKms2RLYJiAg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjSgu=ObxkLvWdG7Ou+t0zytmG=gbqPLxvwZx38zd+twA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBaxKZTZjOGj3tP95MbXnnRKgcKirf08eYD22q1BnL=wRSQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 4:49 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> know about the universe. So we have to assume that a strange signal or
> spectrum is natural. That way leads science to make new discoveries
> about all the strange stuff that nature gets up to.
>

Of course it's natural, to say otherwise is like proposing
extra-extraterrestrials.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 00:06:04 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:06:04 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEavv77D8rcVD=VFZ9TUHWDaB1wy0x4wksj2teqhafLiNg@mail.gmail.com>

?I have no idea because I can't out-think something a million or a billion
times smarter than me.

 John K Clark?


?Then what do you do when the AI comes up with a solution you don't
understand?  Implement it?  What if it doesn't work?  Nothing is perfect.

What then?  I think humans have to understand what the AI is doing even if
we can't do it as fast or hold that many variables in our heads.?
?Or Murphy's Law can implement itself and we have big disasters because of
AI errors.?

Humans have to be the metacognition section.  Someone has to decide the
Oracle is wrong, or what new variables it needs to consider, and so on.
GIGO.

bill w
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 00:28:54 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:28:54 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEavv77D8rcVD=VFZ9TUHWDaB1wy0x4wksj2teqhafLiNg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv2-O7oPGn6Q5Di8Jt6A2MY21MKvR7=0cd2t=Kxf2E6hWQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015  William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

>> ?I have no idea because I can't out-think something a million or a
>> billion times smarter than me.
>
>
> ?> Then what do you do when the AI comes up with a solution you don't
> understand?  Implement it?
>

It doesn't matter if I understand it or if I implement it or not, if
Mr.Jupiter Brain wants it done it will get done.

 John K Clark
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jan 19 01:50:04 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 02:50:04 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv34z+qmiRO3W7UrmkgsZ_fetja=p1BbOLUt4Dc2ZUh-uQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4289996838-5500@secure.ericade.net>


John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> , 18/1/2015 5:57 PM:

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 5:50 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:




> Consider a spherical M brain of radius R and heat production P per volume. If it just cools by blackbody radiation [...]



But why make that assumption? I think a large brain would have a active cooling system, and Helium-2 might be a good fluid to use to get the job done. Helium liquefies at 4.2 K but when it gets below 2.17 K it turns into a superfluid, Helium-2, that has zero viscosity, provided that the pipe the helium is flowing through does not have a diameter smaller than 10^-9 meters. Liquid Helium superfluid is also by far the best conductor of heat known, it conducts heat so fast (many times faster than the speed of sound) that there are no hot spots in it and thus no bubbles, all of the Helium superfluid is at the same temperature and so vaporization only takes place at the surface. 


This is the second level of analysis. Superfluids are awesome, but they also carry no thermal energy - they can however transport heat by being converted into normal fluid and have a frictionless countercurrent bringing back superfluid from the cold end. The rate is limited by the viscosity of the normal fluid, and apparently there are critical velocities of the order of mm/s.?
http://cds.cern.ch/record/808382/files/p363.pdf gives the formula Q=[A rho_n / rho_s^3 S^4 T^3 DeltaT ]^(1/3) for the heat transport rate per square meter, where A is 800 m s /kg at 1.8K, rho_n is the density of normal fluid, rho_s the superfluid, S is the entropy per unit mass. ?Looking at it as a technical coolant as in?http://cds.cern.ch/record/330851/files/lhc-project-report-125.pdf gives a steady state heat flux along a pipe around 1.2 W/cm^2 in a 1 meter pipe for a 1.9-1.8K difference in temperature. There are various nonlinearities and limitations due to the need to keep things below the lambda point.


So if we use active cooling for a M-brain we can maintain it at a low temperature. However, the lowest cheap temperature would be 3K at present, and you would need to replace part of the volume with cooling pipes. So consider my spherical M-brain with active cooling. It has volume V=4 pi R^3 /3, and produces fVP Watts of heat where f is the fraction computronium. If pipes can remove X W/m^2, the total area of pipes leaving the sphere have to be fVP/X. At deeper levels they need to have area fVP(r/R)^3/X - f will actually be changing with depth, making analysis harder (at least for me, after midnight). But if we assume the pipes on average go down some fraction cR of the total radius we get cR*fVP/X = (1-f)V, or f/(1-f) = X/cRP.?


If we set X=1.2e4 W/m^2, c=0.5, P=1e12 W/m^3 (rod logic at full power), then f/(1-f)=2.4e-8/R, which for a R=1 m brain gives a computronium fraction close to f=2.4e-8 and *way* less for planet-sized systems. Merkle's updates give just a few order of magnitude more density. If we instead assume near reversibility with dissipation at T=1.8 K and gates 16 nm^3 large, P=1553 W/m^3, giving f/(1-f)=15.45, or f just below 94% - way better, at least for small M-brains. If R=6000 km f immediately jumps back to uselessly small values.



Active cooling is better than passive cooling, but the payoff is lots of wasted volume. Which means longer signal delays.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jan 19 03:07:56 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 04:07:56 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <4289996838-5500@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>

Some more thinking:


If we have a sphere with radius r with internal volume V(r) of computromium, the surface must have V(r)/X area devoted to cooling pipes to get rid of the heat. This can be formulated as the differential equation: V'(r)= 4pi r^2 - V(r)/X. The solution is V(r)=4 pi ( r^2/X^2 - 2 r/X - 2 exp(-r/X) + 2) X^3. This grows as r^2 for larger r, so the average computronium density falls as 1/r as the system becomes larger.?





Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 14:13:55 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:13:55 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2-O7oPGn6Q5Di8Jt6A2MY21MKvR7=0cd2t=Kxf2E6hWQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZixWb7Z1jvQWVhYUmMB4wqFR+NiMuE6VeDFO0VaLgzKg@mail.gmail.com>

?
It doesn't matter if I understand it or if I implement it or not, if
Mr.Jupiter Brain wants it done it will get done.

 John K Clark

What about my other point?  When the AI is wrong?  bill w
?
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 19 16:01:22 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:01:22 -0800
Subject: [ExI] internet security
Message-ID: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>

 

Question please, Harvey and the Hipsters,

 

(.opening act for Linkin Park concert.)

 

Suppose a small group of people are working together on a project which they
don't want leaked.  Nothing illegal, just sensitive information, such as
medical stuff perhaps, family business, a commercial product a group is
developing, that sort of thing, nothing any government or press would care
about, but something the group doesn't want leaked.  The traffic includes
spreadsheets, word documents, sensitive data and a closed group of about 6
people.  

 

Is there any reason to distrust email?  If so is there any advantage to
using a site such as SPOKT or equivalent, some additional password protected
site of that nature?  These services don't encrypt as far as I know, so it
looks to me from a security point of view they are equivalent to email.

 

spike

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 16:55:07 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:55:07 +0000
Subject: [ExI] internet security
In-Reply-To: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
References: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjTdqnv4iQ2Bw531AoD0i98=GJxWJEGfkk9FrgpqtmiMA@mail.gmail.com>

On 19 January 2015 at 16:01, spike  wrote:
> Suppose a small group of people are working together on a project which they
> don't want leaked.  Nothing illegal, just sensitive information, such as
> medical stuff perhaps, family business, a commercial product a group is
> developing, that sort of thing, nothing any government or press would care
> about, but something the group doesn't want leaked.  The traffic includes
> spreadsheets, word documents, sensitive data and a closed group of about 6
> people.
>
> Is there any reason to distrust email?  If so is there any advantage to
> using a site such as SPOKT or equivalent, some additional password protected
> site of that nature?  These services don't encrypt as far as I know, so it
> looks to me from a security point of view they are equivalent to email.
>

Dropbox is free (up to 2GB) and encrypted.
Set up a shared folder, then set up the people allowed to edit the folder.
(Don't tick the box to allow the editors to invite other people to be members).

BillK


From sparge at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 16:56:44 2015
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 11:56:44 -0500
Subject: [ExI] internet security
In-Reply-To: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
References: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2fH77ndVu6y-NUW5o+gj+3zcjS-_FjsL0ZBZpNNrO4rbg@mail.gmail.com>

Spokt, Google, Yahoo, ... just about everybody worth a damn uses at least
HTTPS, so, yes, there's encryption in play. Whether you trust the service
provider or not should depend upon how secure you want your content to be
and the provider's track record. As always, where security is in play, the
humans using it are the weakest link. Getting them to use good passwords,
not share them, not use open wireless in public, etc., is where you should
concentrate your effort.

-Dave
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 19 16:43:05 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:43:05 -0800
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
Message-ID: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>

Nearly 40 yrs ago, I saw a film which had enormous impact on me, Powers of
Ten:

 

http://www.wimp.com/scaleuniverse/

 

This is an updated, cooler version of that idea.  The new one only goes out
rather than both in and out, but I like it:

 

https://thescene.com/watch/buzzfeed/209-seconds-that-will-make-you-question-
your-entire-existence?mbid=marketing_paid_tp_cne_oo_outbrain_scene_buzzfeed
<https://thescene.com/watch/buzzfeed/209-seconds-that-will-make-you-question
-your-entire-existence?mbid=marketing_paid_tp_cne_oo_outbrain_scene_buzzfeed
&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=scene&utm_campaign=buzzfeed
>
&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=scene&utm_campaign=buzzfeed

spike

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 17:57:32 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:57:32 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZixWb7Z1jvQWVhYUmMB4wqFR+NiMuE6VeDFO0VaLgzKg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEavv77D8rcVD=VFZ9TUHWDaB1wy0x4wksj2teqhafLiNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2-O7oPGn6Q5Di8Jt6A2MY21MKvR7=0cd2t=Kxf2E6hWQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZixWb7Z1jvQWVhYUmMB4wqFR+NiMuE6VeDFO0VaLgzKg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2HNS+iGwRs5upei-ZjsJqEV6MYz=M4ysPJ1n25+8miDQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

?> It doesn't matter if I understand it or if I implement it or not, if
>> Mr.Jupiter Brain wants it done it will get done.
>>
>
> > What about my other point?  When the AI is wrong?
>

If the error is so subtle that even the super intelligent AI can't catch it
then you're not going to catch it either. And I'm going to go out on a limb
here and make a prediction, mistakes will be made in the future.

 John K Clark
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 18:15:19 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:15:19 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
References: <4289996838-5500@secure.ericade.net>
 <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFj8xZu6zQ+DZnmrUgbV47zyJDNFUbfvMfKUKeBJFiVrcA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 10:07 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> Some more thinking:
>
> If we have a sphere with radius r with internal volume V(r) of
> computromium, the surface must have V(r)/X area devoted to cooling pipes to
> get rid of the heat. This can be formulated as the differential equation:
> V'(r)= 4pi r^2 - V(r)/X. The solution is V(r)=4 pi ( r^2/X^2 - 2 r/X - 2
> exp(-r/X) + 2) X^3. This grows as r^2 for larger r, so the average
> computronium density falls as 1/r as the system becomes larger.
>

### I think there might be a reason to build non-spherical devices as well
and the shape of the device will depend on the computations performed:
There will be reasons to build parallel and sequential hardware, and to
chain these two main flavors in various complex configurations. Our brain
is an example, although the limitations are not related to heat dissipation
but to minimizations of conduction delays - closely related simple tasks
are performed by small parallel computers in folded gyri which are then
chained to build larger sequences that perform larger tasks, with a lot of
special purpose connections running orthogonally and skipping parts of the
chain. It looks messy but it's because the task of staying alive in a
physical and social world takes a lot of highly structured, multilayer data
processing, with both parallel and sequential aspects.

I would then imagine there would be small devices performing the highest
possible density of operations per second per volume to solve tasks where
short conduction delays between logic elements are important. Then there
would be tasks demanding the highest overall throughput but little need to
reduce conduction delays and thus with little need to maximize density per
unit volume.

Maybe some tasks would then demand computers chained together like pearls
on a necklace. There would be disks, hollow spheres, and various seemingly
chaotic shapes, held together and apart by gravity, centrifugal forces and
maybe even radiation pressure. Probably the only constant feature would be
a high surface temperature, determined by the operating temperature of the
logic elements and the physics of the surrounding cooling elements. It's
likely that there would be many levels of organization where the
density/volume/speed tradeoffs would operate, from millimeter to thousand
kilometer, and who knows, maybe even light-year size.

Of course, reasonable people will wait a few trillion years before starting
the calculations to allow the ultimate heat sink to cool properly, and will
extinguish all stars in the meantime - and by seeing stars go dim we'll
know they are coming to our neighborhood.

Rafa?
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 18:22:17 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:22:17 -0500
Subject: [ExI] internet security
In-Reply-To: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
References: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+9ieOhgV6rhOJPMO9gKX31UvFvrGFUMhbfj1yV3dUN6g@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 11:01 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> about, but something the group doesn?t want leaked.  The traffic includes
> spreadsheets, word documents, sensitive data and a closed group of about 6
> people.
>
> Is there any reason to distrust email?  If so is there any advantage to

the reason to distrust email is because email is a terrible document
manager and 6 people cannot reliably overcome this deficiency.

If you had one person marshal all changes into a single read-only
"authoritative" document (or it was already a read-only resource) then
you might be able to get away with it - but the burden on that single
person to merge spreadsheets/documents is (imo) too much to ask.

Otherwise you'll probably grow the number of versions of documents in
a way that is unsustainable and will lead to inevitable overwrite or
(worse?) inaccurate fragments.

I suggest using googledocs for collaboration because it's pretty
effective (and free)

If you are trying to manage lists of tasks or other kinds of
(small-ish) project-related workflow, I suggest Trello.com for the
same reason.



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 18:30:39 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:30:39 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
References: <4289996838-5500@secure.ericade.net>
 <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1menmAmGqDuaZiNowSTZ+RsA80=xn30kzjTtZk9D7gzg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 10:07 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> If we have a sphere with radius r with internal volume V(r) of
> computromium, the surface must have V(r)/X area devoted to cooling pipes to
> get rid of the heat. This can be formulated as the differential equation:
> V'(r)= 4pi r^2 - V(r)/X. The solution is V(r)=4 pi ( r^2/X^2 - 2 r/X - 2
> exp(-r/X) + 2) X^3. This grows as r^2 for larger r, so the average
> computronium density falls as 1/r as the system becomes larger.
>

Thanks Anders, like most of your posts that was very interesting. Due to
heat and speed of light issues there is a practical limit on how large a
brain can get, so rather than a Jupiter Brain in the future it might be
more like a population of Asteroid Brains. But that isn't quite right
either, the communication bandwidth between the brains would be enormous,
far larger than the bandwidth humans use to communicate to each other even
proportionally, even taking their smaller brain size into account. So we'd
have something new, less than one unified mind but more than a group of
totally separate minds working together.

  John K Clark
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 19:39:03 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:39:03 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1menmAmGqDuaZiNowSTZ+RsA80=xn30kzjTtZk9D7gzg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4289996838-5500@secure.ericade.net>
 <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAJPayv1menmAmGqDuaZiNowSTZ+RsA80=xn30kzjTtZk9D7gzg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgA-6Mka5-31YnQfY5mHjt63UrmN0osdfm9GwajmgcK8g@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 1:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

So we'd have something new, less than one unified mind but more than a
> group of totally separate minds working together.
>

### Hey, this sounds familiar....

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Mon Jan 19 19:59:45 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:59:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhTOnXBwOtw6BBzxuGKKpZQycU5oqMjsdYXPSGdXs=z_Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:50 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> Any time now we will see in the popular press a direct comparison between
> AI and guns.
>

### And unfortunately this will bring with it a well-known problem:
Institutionalized stupidity - dysregulated, weak feedback-loop processing
aka government, being used to disarm the good people while merely
inconveniencing the criminals. Just as with gun control, hordes of
ignoramuses will demand draconian laws that would stymie the few good and
smart people potentially able of solving the AI control problem (the
civilian AI researchers themselves) while letting the evil and insane
advance their plans, most likely under a cloak of state secrecy.

Rafal
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 19 20:42:10 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:42:10 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Robust and beneficial AI
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2HNS+iGwRs5upei-ZjsJqEV6MYz=M4ysPJ1n25+8miDQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <015601d02eb8$e85bb9d0$b9132d70$@att.net>
 <3810935456-11166@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armjwO2j+EuA-OkDvpQjgfGC3pzwkJf+8nk3WgkgOdm=fBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbK5LynACLxm16qfx95aqFidhGDfoC2Y2oc_Qo0SVayknQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <019a01d03347$31c82800$95587800$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEavv77D8rcVD=VFZ9TUHWDaB1wy0x4wksj2teqhafLiNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2-O7oPGn6Q5Di8Jt6A2MY21MKvR7=0cd2t=Kxf2E6hWQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZixWb7Z1jvQWVhYUmMB4wqFR+NiMuE6VeDFO0VaLgzKg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2HNS+iGwRs5upei-ZjsJqEV6MYz=M4ysPJ1n25+8miDQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <021c01d03428$66a28ed0$33e7ac70$@att.net>

 

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

 

?> It doesn't matter if I understand it or if I implement it or not, if Mr.Jupiter Brain wants it done it will get done. 

 

> What about my other point?  When the AI is wrong?  

 

  

There was a cartoon from a long time ago, I wish I could find it.  Back in the early 80s, the Navy was computerizing their supply system and there were bugs.  The cartoon shows the customer at the supply dock, pointing at a part on the shelf behind the supply guy, who is working the terminal.  The caption:  Pointing at it won?t help.  The computer says we don?t have that.

 

{8^D

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 19 21:01:16 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:01:16 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFgA-6Mka5-31YnQfY5mHjt63UrmN0osdfm9GwajmgcK8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4289996838-5500@secure.ericade.net>
 <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAJPayv1menmAmGqDuaZiNowSTZ+RsA80=xn30kzjTtZk9D7gzg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFgA-6Mka5-31YnQfY5mHjt63UrmN0osdfm9GwajmgcK8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <023001d0342b$122e32c0$368a9840$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 11:39 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ

 

 

 

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 1:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

 

So we'd have something new, less than one unified mind but more than a group of totally separate minds working together.    

 

### Hey, this sounds familiar....

 

Rafal 

 

Ja.  If we consider MBrain nodes analogous to a synapse, the big/slow restrictions apply.  But if we consider it something entirely new, with something other than collected inputs and one output, then the analogy breaks down.  We don?t know how that community will behave, the organism somewhere between one brain and a community (of individual brains with very limited bandwidth communications.)

 

spike

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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Mon Jan 19 23:27:35 2015
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 18:27:35 -0500
Subject: [ExI] internet security
In-Reply-To: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
References: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
Message-ID: <004301d0343f$81fa6880$85ef3980$@harveynewstrom.com>

Email is cleartext and can be read by anyone.  That is how the protocol
works.  Even if you use https to connect to your email, that just encrypts
between you and the server.  The server then stores it in plain-text in most
cases.  (Google just started encrypting their email at rest recently.)

And many ISPs do a man-in-the-middle attack on https sessions so that they
can decrypt it and copy it as it goes through the ISP anyway.

E-mail is store and forward.  So it will be stored at your ISPs, probably at
intermediate steps along the way, and finally at the other end's ISP.

Most ISPs and big services (google, yahoo, etc.) scan your email for
keywords and sell advertising based on keywords.  So indexes, summaries, and
keywords from your emails are distributed to companies and governments who
request these.  And since much of the advertising is outsourced overseas,
these keywords will be spread across the world to countries you never
dreamed would see your email.  Even if you send email to someone on the same
email server as you.

Also note that big services also not only claim the legal right to do this,
but make you sign an the agreement, that they own anything you send through
their service and/or they have a right to use the information sent through
their service.  So if discuss an idea and they steal it, you would have no
legal recourse.

So I would say that Email is probably the least secure protocol possible for
this purpose, and the most likely to copy and distribute clear-text versions
of your data around the world.

And most of the other services that claim to be secure aren't.  They just
play off the hype to get customers who want to be secure, but most of them
don't have enough technical knowledge of spying or surveillance to actually
stop it, even if they do have some heightened security.
 
(Remember when I spoke about Internet spying back in 2001 at Extro-5?
Nobody believed that corporations or governments would monitor their
customers or citizens usage of the Internet.  Boy, times have changed!)

--
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com




From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 19 23:33:30 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:33:30 -0800
Subject: [ExI] internet security
In-Reply-To: <004301d0343f$81fa6880$85ef3980$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
 <004301d0343f$81fa6880$85ef3980$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <032901d03440$55e6e150$01b4a3f0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom
Subject: Re: [ExI] internet security

>...email is cleartext and can be read by anyone.  That is how the protocol
works.  Even if you use https to connect to your email, that just encrypts
between you and the server.  The server then stores it in plain-text in most
cases.  (Google just started encrypting their email at rest recently.)
...

Cool thanks Harvey.
 
>...(Remember when I spoke about Internet spying back in 2001 at Extro-5?
Harvey Newstrom   www.HarveyNewstrom.com

Ja sure do!  That was one of my favorite pitches.  Unlike the really spacey
stuff we were going on about in those days, the internet security pitch was
down to earth and practical.  It was ahead of its time.

spike



From sparge at gmail.com  Tue Jan 20 13:25:48 2015
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:25:48 -0500
Subject: [ExI] internet security
In-Reply-To: <004301d0343f$81fa6880$85ef3980$@harveynewstrom.com>
References: <009701d03401$2c6f07b0$854d1710$@att.net>
 <004301d0343f$81fa6880$85ef3980$@harveynewstrom.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2c0ZhuJHpjORtfiJY+vjjwy3s98Vs+m9RANK_w2=9nRPQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 6:27 PM, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
wrote:

> Email is cleartext and can be read by anyone.


Email in transit between servers can be read by anyone with low-level
access to the network between them. That makes it *possible* to read some
email, but targeting a particular user's email is non-trivial. If everyone
in the group is using, e.g., GMail, this isn't an issue.

Most ISPs and big services (google, yahoo, etc.) scan your email for
> keywords and sell advertising based on keywords.  So indexes, summaries,
> and
> keywords from your emails are distributed to companies and governments who
> request these.


Google, at least, doesn't give away your emails or email address. They look
for keywords and display the ads themselves.


> So I would say that Email is probably the least secure protocol possible
> for
> this purpose, and the most likely to copy and distribute clear-text
> versions
> of your data around the world.
>

Unless messages are encrypted with something like PGP or the entire group
is on one server.


> And most of the other services that claim to be secure aren't.  They just
> play off the hype to get customers who want to be secure, but most of them
> don't have enough technical knowledge of spying or surveillance to actually
> stop it, even if they do have some heightened security.
>

And, again, the hard nut to crack with security is the end users. The
technology may be awesome, but if the users don't use it correctly, it's
easily defeated: bad passwords, shared passwords, public open wireless
networks, naive users, unpatched systems, unlocked screens, etc., can all
undo the best security.

-Dave
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 20 13:34:38 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:34:38 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Why the modern world is bad for your brain
Message-ID: <CAL_armhRSCFiL2UjHVJ3geoav7WmbJEXHiMPxBO6=8VjnrTu1g@mail.gmail.com>

In an era of email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter, we're all
required to do several things at once. But this constant multitasking
is taking its toll. Here neuroscientist Daniel J Levitin explains how
our addiction to technology is making us less efficient.
<http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/18/modern-world-bad-for-brain-daniel-j-levitin-organized-mind-information-overload>
Quote:
Our brains are busier than ever before. We're assaulted with facts,
pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information.
Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is
exhausting. At the same time, we are all doing more.
But there's a fly in the ointment. Although we think we're doing
several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and
diabolical illusion. Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT and one of
the world experts on divided attention, says that our brains are "not
wired to multitask well... When people think they're multitasking,
they're actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly.
And every time they do, there's a cognitive cost in doing so."
----------

Some of the article comments are interesting also.
e.g. Is it better to do 60%-70% of many tasks or 100% of a few tasks?
Is this why customer service is so poor? Nobody does a proper job
anymore. Every task takes several back and forths to get it done
right?

Is our future a descent into trivia?

BillK


From hibbert at mydruthers.com  Tue Jan 20 15:59:02 2015
From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:59:02 -0800
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 136, Issue 15
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1421755202.14660.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1421755202.14660.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <54BE7B46.5080903@mydruthers.com>

On 1/20/15 4:00 AM, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote:
> Most ISPs and big services (google, yahoo, etc.) scan your email for
> keywords and sell advertising based on keywords.  So indexes, summaries, and
> keywords from your emails are distributed to companies and governments who
> request these.  And since much of the advertising is outsourced overseas,
> these keywords will be spread across the world to countries you never
> dreamed would see your email.  Even if you send email to someone on the same
> email server as you.

When Google (and presumably others) sell advertising based on keywords 
in your email, no third-party advertiser gets to see your message. 
Google has collected bids from many third parties, and runs an internal 
auction in which they have all the information, and they make the 
decision about who won and which ad to run.

The advertisers get to see statistics about how many times their ads 
were run, and how often each of their campaigns were winners.

Chris (back after a long absence from the list)
-- 
Currently reading: Beggars and Choosers, Nancy Kress; Our Mathematical
     Universe, Max Tegmark; Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom; Seeing
     Like a State, James C. Scott; Today We Choose Faces, Roger Zelazny

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
http://mydruthers.com



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 20 18:26:10 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:26:10 -0600
Subject: [ExI] sci fi author
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaw0NsNHan24=q3sJza+kUHQkBuRXomPhKQFCoFUPo7uA@mail.gmail.com>

I am surprised that many people do not know of Kage Baker, who died in 2010.

A story of the Company over about 8 books.  I think she's great.  Enhanced
humans and others.  Different!  Black humor, satire.

bill w
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 20 23:39:49 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 15:39:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] welcome back, was:  RE:  extropy-chat Digest, Vol 136,
	Issue 15
Message-ID: <026d01d0350a$62008250$260186f0$@att.net>


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Chris Hibbert
...

>...When Google (and presumably others) sell advertising based on keywords
in your email, no third-party advertiser gets to see your message. 
Google has collected bids from many third parties, and runs an internal
auction in which they have all the information, and they make the decision
about who won and which ad to run....
Chris Hibbert

_______________________________________________

Welcome back Chris.  Thanks for the info man.  We have missed you.

spike



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 03:33:45 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 22:33:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2S_tLNWGxbyKvYNRLG9wAmj_R9et-9VBsn4cDJkNihGw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 1:24 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Crows and ravens are special birds, and are perhaps the easiest wild
> birds to observe: they like people.  Or they like to mess with people.
> Seagulls are like that too.  They play, they seem curious, they do fun
> stuff.
>
>  BillW, we have a few ravens who have discovered how to put walnuts in
> the road and let cars run over them, but even better now.  There is a
> phenomenon in my neighborhood where a raven with a nut will perch on top of
> a light pole on the corner.  When she hears a garage door opening, she
> takes the nut, swoops down and places it in the driveway, then flies away
> to watch.  You are the one who asked if dogs reason.  Answer: sure they do,
> and this bird is demonstrating that this bird reasons too.  She knows that
> when a garage door opens, a car will come out, and cars crush nuts and a
> bird can?t get to the contents of a nut unless it is crushed.
>
> Cars are recent, automatic garage door openers are even more recent. That
> bird at some point reasoned out a cause and effect relationship and acted
> on it.  Conclusion: some birds definitely use reason, and it is clear
> enough that dogs and cats do as well.  I don?t think you will find too many
> dog and cat owners who will dispute that notion, or if so, I am interested
> in their evidence.
>

Yes, I think ravens and crows and some other birds are probably at least as
intelligent as apes. Another example,  nobody taught the birds in the early
20'th century when home milk deliveries were common to open the milk
bottles left on doorsteps, they figured it out on their own; and after they
have removed the aluminum foil seal on the bottles they tore the foil into
more convenient shapes to use as tools to scoop up the cream at the top of
the bottles.

To me one mystery is how the birds even knew there was anything good to eat
in those bottles, birds have a poor sense of smell; I'm just speculating
but perhaps they noticed that a big animal, humans, seemed to value these
things, and if its valuable for humans perhaps it is for birds too. Then
they modified an existing object, the foil seal, to use as a scoop.

A raven's brain is only about 17 cubic centimeters, a chimpanzees brain is
over 400, and yet a raven is about as smart as a chimp. And the African
Grey Parrot has demonstrated a understanding of human language at least as
deep as that of a chimpanzee and probably deeper, this despite the fact
that the chimp's brain is about 25 times as large. I suppose that when
there was evolutionary pressure to become smarter a flying creature
couldn't just develop a bigger, heavier more energy hogging brain; instead
of the brute force approach it had to organize the small light brain it
already had in more efficient ways. Our brains are about 1400 cm, but I'll
bet centimeter by centimeter ravens are smarter than we are.

Being called a birdbrain may not be an insult after all. For this reason I
believe if one wishes to study the nature of intelligence crows and ravens
and parrots would be ideal candidates, compared with other animals their
brains would be more elegantly organized and have less spaghetti code and
hard to understand kludges.

  John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jan 22 03:58:23 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 19:58:23 -0800
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2S_tLNWGxbyKvYNRLG9wAmj_R9et-9VBsn4cDJkNihGw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv2S_tLNWGxbyKvYNRLG9wAmj_R9et-9VBsn4cDJkNihGw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <076b01d035f7$abb2f250$0318d6f0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
?

 

>?Being called a birdbrain may not be an insult after all. For this reason I believe if one wishes to study the nature of intelligence crows and ravens and parrots would be ideal candidates, compared with other animals their brains would be more elegantly organized and have less spaghetti code and hard to understand kludges.  John K Clark

 

 

Cool theory John.  At the local McDonalds a prole can eat outdoors and if so, he has the local seagulls swooping by as if to ask for French fries.  They have me trained: I indulge the feathered beasts.  They know the posture of one who is likely to feed them: I turn around on the bench facing outward.  They hang around.

 

If you toss the fry approximately in the right area, the gulls can snatch them out of the air.  When you think about it, that in itself is one hell of a trick.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Jan 22 05:00:20 2015
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 21:00:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
Message-ID: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>

On 1/17/15 John Clark wrote:

"Having the entire energy output of 100 billion stars radiate uselessly into
infinite space is very thermodynamically inefficient indeed, and yet that
is exactly what we observe."

Not so. We can't *observe* 100 billion stars in our galaxy; not even with the HST. We can infer their existence and estimate their numbers using statistical methods but we can only *see* maybe a billion at best. 

Most of the stars in the Milky Way are not visible to us because they are dim due to being on the other side of the galactic disk and our view is blocked by clouds of dust and bright stars in the bulge and disk in between.


 "If ET had sent just one single Von Neumann
Probe to a nearby star at a speed no faster than what our spacecraft can
travel at today then a Von Neumann Probe could be sent to every star in the
galaxy in just 50 million years, a blink of a eye cosmically speaking."

I am not altogether certain that ET would want to launch a fire and forget probe to virally copy himself across the cosmos. That would make ET an r-strategist and that doesn't fit the profile of intelligent organisms which are usually K-strategists.

After all, if there is any chance that you might outlive your host star, why would you spawn potential competitors all over your galactic neighborhood that would make it difficult to relocate when the time came?

 "And
if that had happened a blind man in a fog bank could detect ET. But we
don't see the slightest hint of ET despite having looked for him with our
largest telescoped for over half a century. So where is everybody?"

Come now. Half a century is a laughably small light cone to base any sort of conclusion on when you can't see 99% of your own galaxy.

Assuming ET would want to blot out stars, instead of harnessing black holes, dark energy, or other exotic energy sources, ET could have assimilated 2/3 of the galaxy already and you would have no way of knowing. Wouldn't it be a hoot if astronomers someday noticed a dark nebula like Barnard 68 was *growing*
instead of collapsing into a star like it was supposed to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard_68

Stuart LaForge


Sent from my phone.



From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 08:41:04 2015
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 01:41:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <076b01d035f7$abb2f250$0318d6f0$@att.net>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv2S_tLNWGxbyKvYNRLG9wAmj_R9et-9VBsn4cDJkNihGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <076b01d035f7$abb2f250$0318d6f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwY8T5TUr0xC+V0H4fmo9b1V6Aa5k6SNjCmhmdx+FjY0ZQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 8:58 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> If you toss the fry approximately in the right area, the gulls can snatch
> them out of the air.  When you think about it, that in itself is one hell
> of a trick.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>

My all time favorite animal observation was watching an orca at Sea World
in San Diego. At the end of the show, it kept the last fish that was given
to it by the trainers without swallowing it. It apparently knew the show
well enough to figure out which fish not to swallow. Then, it spit the fish
out of its mouth onto the surface of the water and sunk underneath the
water a few feet. A sea gull then swooped in to grab the fish, and instead
of getting a meal, the gull became a meal to the orca. SNAP! I found it
absolutely fascinating how "Gullable" the bird was, and how smart the orca
was in comparison. I can't recall if the orca finished after one extra
gull, or whether it continued it's "fishing" expedition, as it has been a
while since I observed this.

-Kelly
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From ryacko at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 08:44:00 2015
From: ryacko at gmail.com (Ryan Carboni)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 00:44:00 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
Message-ID: <CAO7N=i2a8fWHVCTCC+vt7arLm9wqcaBkV+ZR_sY-bGSbes2Y3Q@mail.gmail.com>

To quote Fremlin's article:

Stage 4a: up to 12,000 million million in 800 years' time. Dead end
>
> Above two people per square meter, severe refrigeration problems occur. If
> the oceans were used as a heat sink, their mean temperature would have to
> rise about 1 ?C per year to absorb 500 watts per square meter. This would
> be all right for the doubling time of 37 years, at the end of which we
> should have four people per square meter. Half another doubling time could
> be gained if efficient heat pumps (which, for reasons of thermal
> efficiency, would require primary energy sources of very high temperature)
> could be used to bring the ocean to the boil.
>
> Two more doublings would be permitted if the oceans were converted into
> steam, though that would create an atmospheric pressure comparable with the
> mean ocean bottom pressure at present. Since the resulting steam blanket
> would also be effectively opaque to all radiation, no further heat sink
> could be organized and this procedure would therefore seem to lead to a
> dead end.
>

source: http://www.claychipsmith.com/Population.doc
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jan 22 15:47:44 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:47:44 -0800
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8RwY8T5TUr0xC+V0H4fmo9b1V6Aa5k6SNjCmhmdx+FjY0ZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv2S_tLNWGxbyKvYNRLG9wAmj_R9et-9VBsn4cDJkNihGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <076b01d035f7$abb2f250$0318d6f0$@att.net>
 <CAPy8RwY8T5TUr0xC+V0H4fmo9b1V6Aa5k6SNjCmhmdx+FjY0ZQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <08ce01d0365a$c412b020$4c381060$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
Subject: Re: [ExI] vultures sneeze

 

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 8:58 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 

>>?If you toss the fry approximately in the right area, the gulls can snatch them out of the air.  When you think about it, that in itself is one hell of a trick.  spike

>? SNAP! I found it absolutely fascinating how "Gullable" the bird was, and how smart the orca was in comparison. I can't recall if the orca finished after one extra gull, or whether it continued it's "fishing" expedition, as it has been a while since I observed this.  -Kelly

Kelly perhaps you have seen this video of several orcas working together:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xmqbNsRSk

 

Without language, how do they derive a plan and organize the team?  They must have a few sounds or something that means come with me, do as I do, let?s go now, etc.

 

spike

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 16:39:29 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:39:29 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:00 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
> >> Having the entire energy output of 100 billion stars radiate uselessly
>> into infinite space is very thermodynamically inefficient indeed, and yet
>> that
>> is exactly what we observe.
>>
>
> > Not so. We can't *observe* 100 billion stars in our galaxy; not even
> with the HST. We can infer their existence and estimate their numbers using
> statistical methods but we can only *see* maybe a billion at best.
>

And we can also infer how much power all the stars in our Galaxy are
pumping out, and we can observe that by far most of that power is in the
form of low entropy visible light, ultraviolet, and X rays. If ET was
getting work out of the stars (such as in Dyson Spheres) it would have to
convert the low entropy electromagnetic wave to high entropy ones such as
infrared and radio waves, but that's not what we see.


> > Most of the stars in the Milky Way are not visible to us because they
> are dim due to being on the other side of the galactic disk


No, most stars look dim because they ARE dim. Almost all the stars you can
see with your naked eye are more brilliant than the sun even though the sun
is larger than the average star.  The most common type of stars are K and M
class red dwarfs, but they're also the dimmest so not a single one can be
seen with the naked eye. The reason for this is that a star's brilliance is
proportional to the cube of the star's mass, so the rare stars that are
larger than the sun vastly outshine all the far more numerous smaller stars
put together.

>>   "If ET had sent just one single Von Neumann Probe to a nearby star at
>> a speed no faster than what our spacecraft can travel at today then a Von
>> Neumann Probe could be sent to every star in thegalaxy in just 50 million
>> years, a blink of a eye cosmically speaking."
>>
>
> > I am not altogether certain that ET would want to launch a fire and
> forget probe to virally copy himself across the cosmos.


ET may or may not want to make copies of himself but we were talking about
thermodynamic efficiency and the cost of building a Von Neumann probe would
be trivial for an advanced civilization. It would be like one of us
purchasing a candy bar. The cost of launching such a probe to the nearest
star at 25,000 miles an hour, something we can do today, would cost even
less. If somebody did that just once then in just 50 million years, a tiny
fraction of the life of the universe, the Galaxy would look vastly
different from what it looks like today  and ET could harvest astronomical
(and I mean that word literally) amounts of energy. Your explanation of why
we don't see that engineered Galaxy is that out of the billions of
individuals in millions of civilizations no one, absolutely no one,
bothered to buy that candy bar.

Be honest now, does this excuse put forward to explain away the lack of
large scale engineering really strike you as credible? If you knew for a
fact that ET existed but had never seen the night sky is this really what
you would predict the sky would look like?  I don't see an elephant in my
living room so I can reasonably conclude there is not an elephant in my
living room. Sometimes a absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

>>  And if that had happened a blind man in a fog bank could detect ET. But
>> we don't see the slightest hint of ET despite having looked for him with our
>> largest telescoped for over half a century. So where is everybody?"
>>
>
> > Come now. Half a century is a laughably small light cone to base any
> sort of conclusion


I think half a century is plenty of time, in fact I think you could start
making tentative conclusions after half a minute.

> Assuming ET would want to blot out stars, instead of harnessing black
> holes,
>

The amount of energy you could get out of rotating black holes would be
trivial compared with the energy of the stars, especially the big bright
stars, and you're the one who said ET would be worrying about thermodynamic
efficiency, and yet it's letting all that energy radiate into infinite
space.

> dark energy, or other exotic energy sources


If ET has found a way to get work out of dark energy then it knows of some
fundamental laws of physics that we do not, that is always a possibility
but conjuring up new laws of physics to explain why things look as they do
should be the last resort not the first; and in this case there is a
explanation that needs no new physics that can explain why the night sky
looks uninhabited very nicely, namely that it IS uninhabited because we are
the first, after all somebody had to be.

  John K Clark
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 16:44:10 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:44:10 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:39 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> Be honest now, does this excuse put forward to explain away the lack of
> large scale engineering really strike you as credible?


How do you know you are not observing large-scale engineering?

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 16:53:16 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:53:16 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1EVNDRkiFRbJ_XCom9ibg-=JGrBEH6oM6R22O2GUEAjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Be honest now, does this excuse put forward to explain away the lack of
>> large scale engineering really strike you as credible?
>
>
> > How do you know you are not observing large-scale engineering?
>

If large-scale engineering looks exactly like non-large non-engineering
then I can not know. But does it? I don't think so.

  John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 16:58:05 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:58:05 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYV-ZJc1y4u9NP_DFgA7hBM4tSEkXRkL5CGa7=UQLtX0g@mail.gmail.com>

?the night sky looks uninhabited very nicely, namely that it IS uninhabited
because we are the first, after all somebody had to be.

  John K Clark

What happens when a group of individuals are perfectly adapted to their
environment?  No progress, right?  Mutations maybe be dealt with like
chickens deal with obviously different chicks - kill them.

Look at the AmerIndians, the sub-Saharan Africans, the South American
Indians, and others.  Would they still be living the same life if they
hadn't been disturbed by European explorers?  A good bet is "yes".?  Why
couldn't a culture exist that just keeps doing the same thing for millions
of years because it keeps on working?  Humans have a drive to invent and
create and no other species on our planet has it.

Maybe alien cultures are just Type B, laid back, content, no inevitable
population pressure, etc.

bill w
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 17:15:47 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:15:47 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1EVNDRkiFRbJ_XCom9ibg-=JGrBEH6oM6R22O2GUEAjQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
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Message-ID: <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:53 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> If large-scale engineering looks exactly like non-large non-engineering
> then I can not know. But does it? I don't think so.
>

There are some hypotheses floating around that some of the pulsars and
binary star systems are artificial (starivores). I think that it would be
interesting to speculate about large-scale engineering that could be
mistaken for natural phenomena. Some of the panspermia people also have
some curious contributions here; such as the organic molecule nebulas and
the speculations about dead bacteria nebulas.

starivores:
http://student.vub.ac.be/~clvidal/writings/Vidal-Starivore-Binary.pdf

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jan 22 19:18:24 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:18:24 -0800
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <08ce01d0365a$c412b020$4c381060$@att.net>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZaUP7SnwGQqMgCP0cD0qvSAFBEzgDKbWJ0RrGoZPhmtQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02ff01d03282$cf407670$6dc16350$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <09db01d03678$321d2290$965767b0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
?

>?Kelly perhaps you have seen this video of several orcas working together:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xmqbNsRSk

 

>?Without language, how do they derive a plan and organize the team?  They must have a few sounds or something that means come with me, do as I do, let?s go now, etc.  spike

 

 

Regarding nature photography, I don?t recall ever seeing one better than this:

 

http://vimeo.com/88829079

 

spike

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 22 20:05:31 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 15:05:31 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYV-ZJc1y4u9NP_DFgA7hBM4tSEkXRkL5CGa7=UQLtX0g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv2QboW_UkOYmpQN=X26HYppboQ4QUre_Owe0NrwR0fFXg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:58 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> What happens when a group of individuals are perfectly adapted to their
> environment?  No progress, right?
>

Right, but the only people I know that are perfectly adapted to their
environment and are content with things exactly as they are now are drug
addicts with a unlimited supply of Heroin.

> Look at the AmerIndians, the sub-Saharan Africans, the South American
> Indians, and others.  Would they still be living the same life if they
> hadn't been disturbed by European explorers?  A good bet is "yes".?
>

Technology and civilization did develop in those places and did so
independently.  It's true that they developed more slowly there than
elsewhere so maybe they'd be at about the same level now if they hadn't
been disturbed by Europeans, but that's only been 500 years. They might
have stayed about the same for another thousand years,  maybe two, but
would they have stayed exactly the same for another 100 thousand years, or
a million, or a billion? I don't think so.


> > Why couldn't a culture exist that just keeps doing the same thing for
> millions of years because it keeps on working?  Humans have a drive to
> invent and create and no other species on our planet has it. Maybe alien
> cultures are just Type B, laid back, content,
>

So either ET doesn't exist or he does but is dull as dishwater and not
worth meeting, either way we'd have the most advanced civilization in the
Galaxy and probably the Universe as other Galaxies don't look like they've
been engineered either.

 John K Clark
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 00:50:54 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:50:54 +0000
Subject: [ExI] vultures sneeze
In-Reply-To: <09db01d03678$321d2290$965767b0$@att.net>
References: <022201d03279$d4a8d390$7dfa7ab0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAL_armi4kEuXXQSE0X=NzmmbureK3QMU7dC-0LUc9NbFYQ1yUw@mail.gmail.com>

On 22 January 2015 at 19:18, spike  wrote:
> Regarding nature photography, I don't recall ever seeing one better than
> this:
> http://vimeo.com/88829079

Have you seen the squirrel assault course videos?
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EnDwkclDcA>

BillK


From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Thu Jan 22 19:44:23 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:44:23 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>

I think the main point of conflict over the debate in this thread arises
from people considering two different phenomenon. John Clark is making the
important point that the giant lack of obvious large-scale engineering is
STRONG EVIDENCE in favor of there being no civilizations in our galaxy that
have the capacity for large-scale engineering. In the last few emails I
have counted >10 nice, creative alternative hypotheses for why we don't see
some specific type of this evidence, and these are very helpful to clarify
where the null hypothesis might be wrong. However, it's important to make
this distinction, that where our priors strongly suggest that large-scale
engineering would be visible as large-scale engineering, alternative
hypotheses need to be extraordinarily powerful and explanatory to beat out
the null hypothesis. I am glad we are generating all these other thoughts,
but it should be noted that the obvious leader is that there exist no such
civilizations. It may help our cumulative understanding to keep this in
mind, consider all the evidence that there is no such civilization, and if
someone has a hypothesis that they think is strong enough to be in the top
2 or 3 (of course others are helpful to mention to, but with the caveat
that they're improbable), they note the predictive power of that and why it
can explain many of the phenomenon we see.
Connor




-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 08:02:52 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:02:52 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>

> John Clark is making the important point that the giant lack of obvious
large-scale engineering is STRONG EVIDENCE in favor of there being no
civilizations in our galaxy that have the capacity for large-scale
engineering.

This is true. But not only the absence of some artificial  structures, even
the presence of the natural matter in the form of stars and galaxies is a
strong evidence that nobody very smart is out there.

Had been an advanced civilization anywhere around us, it would have made
some preventions against supernovae. Against some future aggressive aliens
and all other possible calamities. I mean, we can't tolerate Betelgeuse for
much longer. It will explode in our faces soon. We have to dismantle it, if
this is still possible, if the explosion has not already happened.

The presence of the natural stars alone, is the proof of the absence of the
intelligent civilizations. However odd it may sound, it's true.





On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 8:44 PM, Flexman, Connor <connor_flexman at brown.edu>
wrote:

> I think the main point of conflict over the debate in this thread arises
> from people considering two different phenomenon. John Clark is making the
> important point that the giant lack of obvious large-scale engineering is
> STRONG EVIDENCE in favor of there being no civilizations in our galaxy that
> have the capacity for large-scale engineering. In the last few emails I
> have counted >10 nice, creative alternative hypotheses for why we don't see
> some specific type of this evidence, and these are very helpful to clarify
> where the null hypothesis might be wrong. However, it's important to make
> this distinction, that where our priors strongly suggest that large-scale
> engineering would be visible as large-scale engineering, alternative
> hypotheses need to be extraordinarily powerful and explanatory to beat out
> the null hypothesis. I am glad we are generating all these other thoughts,
> but it should be noted that the obvious leader is that there exist no such
> civilizations. It may help our cumulative understanding to keep this in
> mind, consider all the evidence that there is no such civilization, and if
> someone has a hypothesis that they think is strong enough to be in the top
> 2 or 3 (of course others are helpful to mention to, but with the caveat
> that they're improbable), they note the predictive power of that and why it
> can explain many of the phenomenon we see.
> Connor
>
>
>
>
> --
> Non est salvatori salvator,
> neque defensori dominus,
> nec pater nec mater,
> nihil supernum.
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 09:49:21 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:49:21 +0000
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
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Message-ID: <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>

On 23 January 2015 at 08:02, Tomaz Kristan  wrote:
> This is true. But not only the absence of some artificial  structures, even
> the presence of the natural matter in the form of stars and galaxies is a
> strong evidence that nobody very smart is out there.
>
> Had been an advanced civilization anywhere around us, it would have made
> some preventions against supernovae. Against some future aggressive aliens
> and all other possible calamities. I mean, we can't tolerate Betelgeuse for
> much longer. It will explode in our faces soon. We have to dismantle it, if
> this is still possible, if the explosion has not already happened.
>
> The presence of the natural stars alone, is the proof of the absence of the
> intelligent civilizations. However odd it may sound, it's true.
>


I agree, but.......
Supernovae are required to create the heavy elements in the universe.
If you shut them off, then future life probably won't develop.

If pre-singularity ET life exists, then it is likely still bound to
the originating planet, like humans. And there may be a lot of early
life, like bacteria, on many planets.

If fast thinking AI exists, then we are in a new ball game. What we
think likely doesn't apply to them.

They don't manipulate the physical universe. They probably move into
deep space. They don't broadcast their presence. Why would they? The
physical universe appears frozen and unchanging to them. Their
interests are in the virtual reality they have created for themselves.

Even if humans survive our singularity we probably won't contact other
fast-thinkers. We will live in our own virtual reality, far from
planetary systems.

BillK


From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 10:20:39 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:20:39 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALMrAFRoJo9cJRkkjDyKF7SU7AV1XK7s8eDzV3kMvASaOx_8GQ@mail.gmail.com>

> Supernovae are required to create the heavy elements in the universe. If
you shut them off, then future life probably won't develop.

This is exactly what an advanced civilization wants. No future threats from
new savages out there. And if an advanced civilization  needs iron and it
is nowhere to be found, it cooks it and not waits for a supernova nearby.

> If pre-singularity ET life exists, then it is likely still bound to the
originating planet, like humans.

Several of them, might. But not millions. It's against all the odds, given
the time spans we see here.

> Their interests are in the virtual reality they have created for
themselves.

They need to make sure, nobody will disturb them, ever. They should destroy
our Solar system long ago to prevent us to compromise their protocols
sometimes in the future.

If they weren't sure if anybody is about to evolve here, they should
destroy our system non the less.

> We will live in our own virtual reality, far from planetary systems.

We will colonize everything. Even if only for the sake of the peace we want
to enjoy while playing in the virtuality.  We don't want mom comes and
interfere with the homework business or something. Much less an angry, ax
wielding crazy neighbor. So, we are going to give a special playing device
to our mom and friends and kill of all the crazy neighbors.





On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 10:49 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 23 January 2015 at 08:02, Tomaz Kristan  wrote:
> > This is true. But not only the absence of some artificial  structures,
> even
> > the presence of the natural matter in the form of stars and galaxies is a
> > strong evidence that nobody very smart is out there.
> >
> > Had been an advanced civilization anywhere around us, it would have made
> > some preventions against supernovae. Against some future aggressive
> aliens
> > and all other possible calamities. I mean, we can't tolerate Betelgeuse
> for
> > much longer. It will explode in our faces soon. We have to dismantle it,
> if
> > this is still possible, if the explosion has not already happened.
> >
> > The presence of the natural stars alone, is the proof of the absence of
> the
> > intelligent civilizations. However odd it may sound, it's true.
> >
>
>
> I agree, but.......
> Supernovae are required to create the heavy elements in the universe.
> If you shut them off, then future life probably won't develop.
>
> If pre-singularity ET life exists, then it is likely still bound to
> the originating planet, like humans. And there may be a lot of early
> life, like bacteria, on many planets.
>
> If fast thinking AI exists, then we are in a new ball game. What we
> think likely doesn't apply to them.
>
> They don't manipulate the physical universe. They probably move into
> deep space. They don't broadcast their presence. Why would they? The
> physical universe appears frozen and unchanging to them. Their
> interests are in the virtual reality they have created for themselves.
>
> Even if humans survive our singularity we probably won't contact other
> fast-thinkers. We will live in our own virtual reality, far from
> planetary systems.
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jan 23 10:04:34 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:04:34 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <2454948-5500@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <373299069-673@secure.ericade.net>

I have put some of my Jupiter brain calculations at?http://aleph.se/andart2/megascale/just-how-efficient-can-a-jupiter-brain-be/

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 14:58:28 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:58:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
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Message-ID: <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 4:49 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> They don't manipulate the physical universe.


### Every single one of them?


> They probably move into
> deep space.


### All the uncounted quintillions of them?



> They don't broadcast their presence.


### Not one out of a quadrillion?

>
> Even if humans survive our singularity we probably won't contact other
> fast-thinkers.


### Indeed, probably we won't.


> We will live in our own virtual reality, far from
> planetary systems.


### Well, where you go is up to you, but I intend for some of my forked
selves to stay around and eat as much matter of the dismantled sun as
social conventions allow. One needs a lot of fat to aestivate through the
trillions of years until the final computations can be done.

Rafal
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 18:23:53 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 18:23:53 +0000
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1EVNDRkiFRbJ_XCom9ibg-=JGrBEH6oM6R22O2GUEAjQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>

On 23 January 2015 at 14:58, Rafal Smigrodzki  wrote:
<snip
> ### Well, where you go is up to you, but I intend for some of my forked
> selves to stay around and eat as much matter of the dismantled sun as social
> conventions allow. One needs a lot of fat to aestivate through the trillions
> of years until the final computations can be done.
>
>

The obvious response is to use your own logic and ask why the
quadrillions of ETs are not eating their suns?
Are you the only one in the universe that wants to do that?  :)

I think the big step required to face up to is that what we want now
will be nothing like what we want as post-sing intelligences. Even in
our brief lifespan what we want as 20 year olds is not what we want as
50 year olds.

The thoughts of fast-thinker AIs will be incomprehensible to us. As
will be their desires and goals.
We should hope that they go away to do their own thing in virtual
reality. Our sun being eaten could be a bit of a problem for us.


BillK


From avant at sollegro.com  Fri Jan 23 19:19:54 2015
From: avant at sollegro.com (avant at sollegro.com)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:19:54 -0800
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
Message-ID: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>

On Fri, January 23, 2015 2:20 am, John Clark wrote:

>
> And we can also infer how much power all the stars in our Galaxy are
> pumping out, and we can observe that by far most of that power is in the
> form of low entropy visible light, ultraviolet, and X rays. If ET was
> getting work out of the stars (such as in Dyson Spheres) it would have to
>  convert the low entropy electromagnetic wave to high entropy ones such
> as infrared and radio waves, but that's not what we see.

What if ET *does* convert 1% of the low entropy light into IR and RF
because that is all it needs? There is a crap load of high entropy light
in the galaxy. Take a look:


http://mwmw.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmw_sci.html

How do you know that some of the low frequency EM in that picture wasn't
once high frequency EM that had useful work extracted from it already?
Because there is still high frequency light out there? That's the same
logic as saying there are no organisms on earth that burn oil because
earth still has lots of oil left.


>
> ET may or may not want to make copies of himself but we were talking
> about thermodynamic efficiency and the cost of building a Von Neumann
> probe would be trivial for an advanced civilization. It would be like one
> of us purchasing a candy bar. The cost of launching such a probe to the
> nearest star at 25,000 miles an hour, something we can do today, would
> cost even less.


It's not the cost of a VN probe, it is the risk and externalities
involved. Perhaps VN probes are illegal in ET society because dysoning all
the stars in the galaxy would cause the vacuum to decay to a lower energy
state, changing the fine structure constant and rendering computation
impossible. Or maybe it just likes the aesthetics of stars.

> If somebody did that just once then in just 50 million
> years, a tiny fraction of the life of the universe, the Galaxy would look
> vastly different from what it looks like today  and ET could harvest
> astronomical (and I mean that word literally) amounts of energy. Your
> explanation of why we don't see that engineered Galaxy is that out of the
> billions of individuals in millions of civilizations no one, absolutely no
> one, bothered to buy that candy bar.

Biological warfare is cheap too but that doesn't mean any rational person
would engage in it lightly. Not even the Jihadis so far.

> Be honest now, does this excuse put forward to explain away the lack of
> large scale engineering really strike you as credible? If you knew for a
> fact that ET existed but had never seen the night sky is this really what
>  you would predict the sky would look like?  I don't see an elephant in
> my living room so I can reasonably conclude there is not an elephant in my
>  living room. Sometimes a absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

If you read my original post, as an exercise, I assumed a lack of
megaengineering. Yet you keep forcing the issue without a shred of
evidence as if you had some divine revelation that all post-singularity
evolutionary trajectories will strongly converge on dyson-tech and VN
probes as some kind of "perfect fitness solution".

To summarize your argument:

Intelligent Life -> Singularity -> Dyson sphere -> Von Neumann probes -> 5
Myrs -> No visible stars

Stars are visible therefore there is no intelligent life.

Do you not see how each step in the process is subject to a whole bunch of
variables that can throw a monkey wrench into tour tidy progression of
events? Don't you see how your argument suffers from a flaw similar to
that of the "unexpected hanging"?

> The amount of energy you could get out of rotating black holes would be
> trivial compared with the energy of the stars, especially the big bright
> stars, and you're the one who said ET would be worrying about
> thermodynamic efficiency, and yet it's letting all that energy radiate
> into infinite space.


Thermodynamic efficiency is defined as the ratio of Work Output / Energy
Input. The laws of thermodynamics ensure that it is always less than or
equal to unity. How does letting the denominator grow without bound,
increase that ratio?


> If ET has found a way to get work out of dark energy then it knows of
> some fundamental laws of physics that we do not, that is always a
> possibility but conjuring up new laws of physics to explain why things
> look as they do should be the last resort not the first; and in this case
> there is a explanation that needs no new physics that can explain why the
> night sky looks uninhabited very nicely, namely that it IS uninhabited
> because we are the first, after all somebody had to be.

But, John, by your argument we *can't* be the first. Not until we spam Von
Neumann probes to tile the galaxy with Dyson spheres. Until we do, we
don't qualify as intelligent. ;-)


Stuart LaForge



From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 20:04:32 2015
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 13:04:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>

Well, just as governments and military's view intelligence gathering about
events in the world around them as keenly important, so do individuals.  My
own personal intelligence gathering failure has been regarding Bitcoin.  I
think of myself as a person who knows what is going on in the cutting edge
of technological development, in large part due to my membership in this
list, but I don't remember reading anything about Bitcoin here, until quite
recently.  I feel like this has become an "old fogey" list of people who
are no longer surfing the edge of real world technological progression, at
least in a way that can really benefit them.  I suppose I should have also
been hanging out with the hacker/coder/Libertarian crowd.  But I view the
Extropy-list as "home."


How many of you not only learned about Bitcoin in time to buy/mine coins at
very low cost (and later make a huge profit), but upon learning about it,
saw an opportunity, and actually seized it?  In my case, a Mormon
Transhumanist Association friend posted about it to an email list, in early
July of 2010, but he was restrained about it, and so not sensing enthusiasm
and an endorsement (I respect his intelligence and viewpoints), I let it
pass without grasping the opportunity.  I kick myself over it now,
endlessly, because I have had my financial struggles (to say the least),
and this could have transformed my life!


Bitcoin only reentered my awareness, over the past six months or so, due to
news about it finally hitting a critical mass in the media.  I finally last
week bought myself ten little (they do both scrypt and sha-256) miners, and
will be putting them to work.  This is probably "too little, too late," but
at least I am trying, and I view it more as a hobby, than anything else.
Also, a very bright FB friend has started up his own virtual currency, and
I will be investing in it, with my fingers crossed, that the value will
explode sometime down the road.  My basic strategy is to buy/mine currently
low value virtual coins, hang onto them for 5-10 years if necessary, and
then sell at least some of them, as the prices go (hopefully) steadily up.
And I can of course sell the cheap coin brands I mine, to turn around and
buy tiny fractions of Bitcoin.


Anyway, thank you my friends, for letting me rant.  I feel like I will
still be regretting this botched opportunity thirty years from now! lol
 This was most likely, a once in a lifetime event, which I blew.  You
should see all the people on the net, who wrote about their similar
experiences of frustration!  It's almost endless...


John


P.S. If anyone here builds or comes across a time machine, please zip over
to my location in Mesa, Arizona, and then take me back to the year 2009!
But not until we look at dinosaurs and then assassinate Hitler!!!  ;  )
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 20:45:46 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 15:45:46 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0E7+F097uTjDcQHTps1c7wxx7yy_hx-_qJZg7f_ngxxw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 2:19 PM, <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
> > What if ET *does* convert 1% of the low entropy light into IR and RF
> because that is all it needs?


As I said the only people who are content with things exactly as they are
now are drug addicts with unlimited supply of heroin.


> > I Perhaps VN probes are illegal in ET society


I don't understand why any society would do that, much less do I understand
why EVERY ET society in the universe would do it? And is Earth the only
place in the  universe that has criminals who don't always obey the law?


> > I assumed a lack of megaengineering.


That would be a incorrect assumption.

> Yet you keep forcing the issue without a shred of evidence


All it would take is the ability to move things with atomic precision and
we know it can be done because we have a existence example, life.
Admittedly it's a crude version of Nanotechnology but it's about as good as
you could hope for considering that it was invented by random mutation and
natural selection. And life was good enough to manufacture me, every atom
that's in me today came from last years potatoes, and life was good enough
to manufacture last years potatoes from nothing but water, carbon dioxide
and nitrogen from the air, and a few trace elements from the soil.  Not bad
but  I have a hunch intelligence can do better, one hell of a lot better. I
should add that the fact that the area human beings are able to
successfully engineer is cut in half ever18 months gives me a hint that
Nanotechnology is making progress. One hell of a lot of progress actually.

> To summarize your argument:
>   Intelligent Life -> Singularity -> Dyson sphere -> Von Neumann probes ->
> 5Myrs -> No visible stars
>

It's more like:
Intelligent Life -> Nanotechnology -> Singularity ->Von Neumann probes ->
Dyson spheres -> 50Myrs -> No visible stars


> > Do you not see how each step in the process is subject to a whole bunch
> of variables that can throw a monkey wrench into tour tidy progression of
> events?


Is you chain of reasoning that ET does exist shorter than my chain the he
does not? I don't think so.

 > Thermodynamic efficiency is defined as the ratio of Work Output / Energy
> Input. The laws of thermodynamics ensure that it is always less than or
> equal to unity. How does letting the denominator grow without bound,
> increase that ratio?
>

The denominator doesn't grow and nobody is letting it do anything, it
remains fixed, it's the energy produced by the Galaxy. And most of that
energy comes from the minority of stars that are larger than our sun. And
all that energy just radiates uselessly into infinite space. What a waste!

  John K Clark
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 20:59:06 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:59:06 +0000
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armj7E=mUzV5FMfidXFHy5NaW_++njHbw=DkNBTGor+CKww@mail.gmail.com>

On 23 January 2015 at 20:04, John Grigg  wrote:
<snip>
> Anyway, thank you my friends, for letting me rant.  I feel like I will still
> be regretting this botched opportunity thirty years from now! lol  This was
> most likely, a once in a lifetime event, which I blew.  You should see all
> the people on the net, who wrote about their similar experiences of
> frustration!  It's almost endless...
>
> John


Bitcoin was and is a very speculative investment.
The price chart is very typical of 'Bubble' investments where a few
people make a lot of money and many people lose a lot of money. You
might have been one of the lucky few, but the odds are against it.

<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=928128.0>
Quote:
Let's All Admit that the Bitcoin Price Bubble Has Popped       January 17, 2015
Has bitcoin bottomed yet? And, what does the aftermath of major
bubbles bursting look like and its implications for price?
---------------------

BillK


From nicoalcala at gmail.com  Fri Jan 23 21:39:09 2015
From: nicoalcala at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?Tmljb2zDoXMgQWxjYWzDoQ==?=)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 22:39:09 +0100
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armj7E=mUzV5FMfidXFHy5NaW_++njHbw=DkNBTGor+CKww@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armj7E=mUzV5FMfidXFHy5NaW_++njHbw=DkNBTGor+CKww@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMXewJitj6sM7SfLf7B4j-ZY2S3VZUSifTD0tpds05U4zqUVwA@mail.gmail.com>

If you want to send this very same email to the list in 10 years but with
the oppossite message, saying: "I made it, I saw the opportunity and seized
it at it's early stages" I would recommend that you invest in Virtual
Reality. Any part of it, really. It's gonna transform the world in an
unprecedent way and my guess is that it's gonna be even bigger than the
internet.

I'm starting a company to produce content for Oculus Rift, Magic Leap,
Hololens and whatever is to come. I would love some feedback from you guys
and, of course, an interesting debate about what will happen when the
virtual world is better than the real world should arise in due time in
this list.

Cheers!

El viernes, 23 de enero de 2015, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> escribi?:

> On 23 January 2015 at 20:04, John Grigg  wrote:
> <snip>
> > Anyway, thank you my friends, for letting me rant.  I feel like I will
> still
> > be regretting this botched opportunity thirty years from now! lol  This
> was
> > most likely, a once in a lifetime event, which I blew.  You should see
> all
> > the people on the net, who wrote about their similar experiences of
> > frustration!  It's almost endless...
> >
> > John
>
>
> Bitcoin was and is a very speculative investment.
> The price chart is very typical of 'Bubble' investments where a few
> people make a lot of money and many people lose a lot of money. You
> might have been one of the lucky few, but the odds are against it.
>
> <https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=928128.0>
> Quote:
> Let's All Admit that the Bitcoin Price Bubble Has Popped       January 17,
> 2015
> Has bitcoin bottomed yet? And, what does the aftermath of major
> bubbles bursting look like and its implications for price?
> ---------------------
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <javascript:;>
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


-- 
* Nicol?s Alcal? <http://nicolasalcala.com> | Story-hacker
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 05:12:50 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:12:50 -0800
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAMXewJitj6sM7SfLf7B4j-ZY2S3VZUSifTD0tpds05U4zqUVwA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armj7E=mUzV5FMfidXFHy5NaW_++njHbw=DkNBTGor+CKww@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAMXewJitj6sM7SfLf7B4j-ZY2S3VZUSifTD0tpds05U4zqUVwA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CD8A2B66-0BEC-4092-B146-343AFF8AF921@gmail.com>

Pump and dump?

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/

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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 15:09:11 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:09:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjyJBqcw=McyVFD1nHSTe+AZB5bjwdFxLB50jmWLXmmMw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 2:19 PM, <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> It's not the cost of a VN probe, it is the risk and externalities
> involved. Perhaps VN probes are illegal in ET society because dysoning all
> the stars in the galaxy would cause the vacuum to decay to a lower energy
> state, changing the fine structure constant and rendering computation
> impossible. Or maybe it just likes the aesthetics of stars.


### Explaining the Fermi paradox without hypothesizing extreme (and I mean
really extreme) rarity of intelligent life requires you to explain the
absence of self-replicating von Neumann probes. From what I see, such
attempted explanations tend to be implausible because they try to apply
reasoning developed in our limited circumstances (a few billion of very
similar minds on one planet acting in the last few thousand years), to
processes spanning quadrillions of planets and billions of years. Really,
the scope of the universe is such that it makes a mockery of common sense
intuitions. Legal strictures or aesthetic considerations may lessen the
likelihood of some events but they can't stop them from happening from time
to time, especially on a quadrillion planets and over 5 billion years.
Initiation of von Neumann expansion is an event that needs to happen just
once to change the future appearance of the universe.

To explain why von Neumann probes did not settle the universe you have to
come up with something more fundamental, applicable to quadrillions of
planets and over billions of years, something much stricter than legalities
and proclivities - unless you posit the existence of ETs that are invisible
and yet powerful enough to consistently police the whole universe. Do you
find it plausible?

Rafal
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 15:18:19 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:18:19 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFjyJBqcw=McyVFD1nHSTe+AZB5bjwdFxLB50jmWLXmmMw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAAc1gFjyJBqcw=McyVFD1nHSTe+AZB5bjwdFxLB50jmWLXmmMw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbL1=SD_GLAXKU-SzyaOWSWmRCmmc35Z72ATzVSHsO5FYw@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 24, 2015 10:10 AM, "Rafal Smigrodzki" <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
wrote:
> To explain why von Neumann probes did not settle the universe you have to
come up with something more fundamental, applicable to quadrillions of
planets and over billions of years, something much stricter than legalities
and proclivities - unless you posit the existence of ETs that are invisible
and yet powerful enough to consistently police the whole universe. Do you
find it plausible?

Normally there is only one chick in each egg.

I don't think we're ready to hatch.
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 15:25:10 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:25:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2RK=zSPq3NPgj1aEiaexvgPJQk6EuG7nJXSPj3hqXLTQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:04 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I think of myself as a person who knows what is going on in the cutting
> edge of technological development, in large part due to my membership in
> this list, but I don't remember reading anything about Bitcoin here, until
> quite recently.  I feel like this has become an "old fogey" list of people
> who are no longer surfing the edge of real world technological progression,
> at least in a way that can really benefit them.  I suppose I should have
> also been hanging out with the hacker/coder/Libertarian crowd.  But I view
> the Extropy-list as "home."
>

The earliest reference to Bitcoin I can find on this list occurred on
February 26 2011,  Keith Henson gave a Wikipedia link to it and said "I am
slightly surprised I have seen no mention of this, but maybe I missed it".
Eugen Leitl responded with "Not the right list for that".

  John K Clark
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 15:38:57 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:38:57 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjZ=gcnm0PWvyncu46gZBcOtZT9Ao1gV8XAOExjhz5jZQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 1:23 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The obvious response is to use your own logic and ask why the
> quadrillions of ETs are not eating their suns?
> Are you the only one in the universe that wants to do that?  :)
>

### One of about ten thousand, give or take a couple orders of magnitude.
This is my rough guess at the number of humans who thought about it and
came to similar conclusions. And ETs do not exist, or else they would have
eaten their suns.

>
> I think the big step required to face up to is that what we want now
> will be nothing like what we want as post-sing intelligences. Even in
> our brief lifespan what we want as 20 year olds is not what we want as
> 50 year olds.
>

### Let's not anthropomorphize - what humans of various ages want is the
contingent outcome of a more general process, namely evolution, and
observation of multiple outcomes of evolution seems to indicate that
usually survivors have an interest in survival, hard-coded in whatever
informational medium it is that undergoes evolutionary selection. The
medium may change (RNA, DNA, computer memory, human social sphere) but the
message stays the same:

It wants to live. Forever.

Regards,

Voldemort

PS You can stop evolution but for that you need a stable singleton organism
controlling all usable resources. A mere "fast thinker" or
"superintelligent" is not enough.
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 15:40:48 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:40:48 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civ
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbL1=SD_GLAXKU-SzyaOWSWmRCmmc35Z72ATzVSHsO5FYw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <80f0148e09780991175e93268651eff8.squirrel@secure88.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAAc1gFjyJBqcw=McyVFD1nHSTe+AZB5bjwdFxLB50jmWLXmmMw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbL1=SD_GLAXKU-SzyaOWSWmRCmmc35Z72ATzVSHsO5FYw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFj0ei9myP5inieW6D47KuXSdgHpEtrP9VsS1qPeTFFEBA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 10:18 AM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Normally there is only one chick in each egg.
>
> I don't think we're ready to hatch.
>

### Wait about 100 years.

Rafal
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 15:55:14 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:55:14 -0500
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2iBS6QYgZuU3RWtnUwf_-aX3=C_9itkOaOztB_jeamyg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:04 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I kick myself over it now, endlessly, because I have had my financial
> struggles (to say the least), and this could have transformed my life!


Stop kicking yourself, you'll go nuts if you keep thinking "if only".  By
the way  in English it's easy to express things in the subjunctive Mood
like "if I had invested in Bitcoin 4 years ago and gotten out a few months
ago I'd be rich today", but in some other languages it's more difficult to
express that thought.  M. Keith Chen proposed that these differences in
language explain the different savings rates  among nations and even the
degree they practice safe sex.

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/papers/LanguageWorkingPaper.pdf

I would be surprised if it turned out to be true but maybe.

  John K Clark














Well, just as governments and military's view intelligence gathering about
> events in the world around them as keenly important, so do individuals.  My
> own personal intelligence gathering failure has been regarding Bitcoin.  I
> think of myself as a person who knows what is going on in the cutting edge
> of technological development, in large part due to my membership in this
> list, but I don't remember reading anything about Bitcoin here, until quite
> recently.  I feel like this has become an "old fogey" list of people who
> are no longer surfing the edge of real world technological progression, at
> least in a way that can really benefit them.  I suppose I should have also
> been hanging out with the hacker/coder/Libertarian crowd.  But I view the
> Extropy-list as "home."
>
>
> How many of you not only learned about Bitcoin in time to buy/mine coins
> at very low cost (and later make a huge profit), but upon learning about
> it, saw an opportunity, and actually seized it?  In my case, a Mormon
> Transhumanist Association friend posted about it to an email list, in early
> July of 2010, but he was restrained about it, and so not sensing enthusiasm
> and an endorsement (I respect his intelligence and viewpoints), I let it
> pass without grasping the opportunity.  I kick myself over it now,
> endlessly, because I have had my financial struggles (to say the least),
> and this could have transformed my life!
>
>
> Bitcoin only reentered my awareness, over the past six months or so, due
> to news about it finally hitting a critical mass in the media.  I finally
> last week bought myself ten little (they do both scrypt and sha-256)
> miners, and will be putting them to work.  This is probably "too little,
> too late," but at least I am trying, and I view it more as a hobby, than
> anything else.  Also, a very bright FB friend has started up his own
> virtual currency, and I will be investing in it, with my fingers crossed,
> that the value will explode sometime down the road.  My basic strategy is
> to buy/mine currently low value virtual coins, hang onto them for 5-10
> years if necessary, and then sell at least some of them, as the prices go
> (hopefully) steadily up.  And I can of course sell the cheap coin brands I
> mine, to turn around and buy tiny fractions of Bitcoin.
>
>
> Anyway, thank you my friends, for letting me rant.  I feel like I will
> still be regretting this botched opportunity thirty years from now! lol
>  This was most likely, a once in a lifetime event, which I blew.  You
> should see all the people on the net, who wrote about their similar
> experiences of frustration!  It's almost endless...
>
>
> John
>
>
> P.S. If anyone here builds or comes across a time machine, please zip over
> to my location in Mesa, Arizona, and then take me back to the year 2009!
> But not until we look at dinosaurs and then assassinate Hitler!!!  ;  )
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 16:39:28 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:39:28 -0600
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBaxdVVjjO3DtcNdOwg-YA_Kr+yyNRppc3j-POHeTwJXxDg@mail.gmail.com>

John:

Although it is true that you were not among the first tens of handfuls of
adopters, I don't think that this should be surprising to you. There are
many assets that you will never be first to investigate before anyone else.
That there exist people who have evaluated something prior to you should
not be a tremendous letdown. I would suggest that your subscription to
these emails should not, under any circumstance, make you think that you
are receiving information about the cutting edge of technology development.
As a very brief example, basically nothing about software culture has ever
intersected this group. Although many here are programmers on their own
time, they don't seem to express it here, and as a consequence there's an
extremely huge gap between, say, the open source software scene and the
extropians. This has happened elsewhere too, a similar problem is the
source of why the cypherpunks keep saying "cypherpunks write code" to each
other.... Extropy-chat has never been about technology development or great
ambition, and once I realized that, I was able to relieve a bunch of my
frustration and perhaps you will find the same. (So instead I participate
in a separate group of fairly-extropic technology doers, and I try to kick
out underperforming sideline wackos.)

As for Bitcoin.... there are many reasons why you should not have expected
yourself to investigate Bitcoin very thoroughly years ago. Even the
cypherpunks didn't take a very good look at the beginning, they shrugged
Bitcoin off because they had seen so many cryptosystem proposals in the
past that never worked. After seeing hundreds or thousands of terrible
proposals, you can see how they would become skeptical and tired. Similar
things happen to everyone else. Bitcoin is quite alien technology, it is
ridiculously esoteric and there are many subtleties regarding how it works
or why it works. A handful of impossibility proofs are one reason why
nobody bothered to try something like Bitcoin before; it is known to be
impossible to have instantaneous communication across an entire network to
achieve time-ordering agreement of transactions, among other problems and
constraints for which Bitcoin proposes novel solutions. Ultimately the
primary contribution that Bitcoin offers is a way to maintain a Byzantine
agreement or verified consensus in the face of malicious adversaries
without the presence of a central authority. The "endless frustration" that
you see everywhere is people being subjected to massive amounts of
(dis/mis)information--- the time to adopt Bitcoin is so much faster than
the time it takes to learn and study Bitcoin. As a result there's a lot of
wrong ideas floating around, such as the famous myth that Bitcoin is
anonymous money-- despite having what is well understood by at least some
Bitcoin users as the most public ledger in the history of never happened. I
suspect that in the absence of having knowledge about Bitcoin's rules and
operation, what has happened is that people have just made up information
or have been unable to fact check just very basic concepts, and then this
gets regurgitated everywhere. Despite this, some choose to adopt, even
without knowing every excruciating detail, which is fine. Similarly, some
choose not to investigate because, frankly, the information they are
receiving gives them no reason to bother, just like the cypherpunks and
cryptographers that were originally shown the concept and code. (Notably,
Hal Finney really dug in deep almost immediately. Very cool.)

[1] Originally everyone that learned anything about Bitcoin did so by
directly reading the source code and the paper. After a brief read of the
original paper, reading and comprehending all of the source code is very
important. Reading code is not something that people often have to do when
evaluating a new concept in economics, so as you can imagine, many people
simply haven't done this, and instead their knowledge is based on arguments
with other people who have also not looked. Besides the source code, there
are now email archives (bitcoin-development), bug reports (github issue
tracker), historical changes (git), forks (thousands...), bitcointalk
posts, IRC logs (bitcoin, bitcoin-dev, bitcoin-wizards), bitcoin wiki, and
a bunch of other papers.

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 2:04 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Well, just as governments and military's view intelligence gathering about
> events in the world around them as keenly important, so do individuals.  My
> own personal intelligence gathering failure has been regarding Bitcoin.  I
> think of myself as a person who knows what is going on in the cutting edge
> of technological development, in large part due to my membership in this
> list, but I don't remember reading anything about Bitcoin here, until quite
> recently.  I feel like this has become an "old fogey" list of people who
> are no longer surfing the edge of real world technological progression, at
> least in a way that can really benefit them.  I suppose I should have also
> been hanging out with the hacker/coder/Libertarian crowd.  But I view the
> Extropy-list as "home."
>
>
> How many of you not only learned about Bitcoin in time to buy/mine coins
> at very low cost (and later make a huge profit), but upon learning about
> it, saw an opportunity, and actually seized it?  In my case, a Mormon
> Transhumanist Association friend posted about it to an email list, in early
> July of 2010, but he was restrained about it, and so not sensing enthusiasm
> and an endorsement (I respect his intelligence and viewpoints), I let it
> pass without grasping the opportunity.  I kick myself over it now,
> endlessly, because I have had my financial struggles (to say the least),
> and this could have transformed my life!
>
>
> Bitcoin only reentered my awareness, over the past six months or so, due
> to news about it finally hitting a critical mass in the media.  I finally
> last week bought myself ten little (they do both scrypt and sha-256)
> miners, and will be putting them to work.  This is probably "too little,
> too late," but at least I am trying, and I view it more as a hobby, than
> anything else.  Also, a very bright FB friend has started up his own
> virtual currency, and I will be investing in it, with my fingers crossed,
> that the value will explode sometime down the road.  My basic strategy is
> to buy/mine currently low value virtual coins, hang onto them for 5-10
> years if necessary, and then sell at least some of them, as the prices go
> (hopefully) steadily up.  And I can of course sell the cheap coin brands I
> mine, to turn around and buy tiny fractions of Bitcoin.
>
>
> Anyway, thank you my friends, for letting me rant.  I feel like I will
> still be regretting this botched opportunity thirty years from now! lol
>  This was most likely, a once in a lifetime event, which I blew.  You
> should see all the people on the net, who wrote about their similar
> experiences of frustration!  It's almost endless...
>
>
> John
>
>
> P.S. If anyone here builds or comes across a time machine, please zip over
> to my location in Mesa, Arizona, and then take me back to the year 2009!
> But not until we look at dinosaurs and then assassinate Hitler!!!  ;  )
>


- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From kanzure at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 17:02:27 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 11:02:27 -0600
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBaxdVVjjO3DtcNdOwg-YA_Kr+yyNRppc3j-POHeTwJXxDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaxdVVjjO3DtcNdOwg-YA_Kr+yyNRppc3j-POHeTwJXxDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABaSBawmXUttTEEREeBXRWNbPoLr82UhjHsPEvbo=mPwXAahmw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 10:39 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are many assets that you will never be first to investigate before
> anyone else. That there exist people who have evaluated something prior to
> you should not be a tremendous letdown


On a more general note, apparently I wrote the following quote a few months
ago, which might help explain some of the trends you are observing:

""""
Most new ideas are worthless because the market price of "an idea you
haven't evaluated yet" is at most zero or sometimes even negative because
the supply of "ideas you haven't evaluated yet" is practically unlimited
and the demand for such is upper-bounded by available human resources,
time, memory, limited amounts of motivation, etc.
""""

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jan 24 17:22:52 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 09:22:52 -0800
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBaxdVVjjO3DtcNdOwg-YA_Kr+yyNRppc3j-POHeTwJXxDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaxdVVjjO3DtcNdOwg-YA_Kr+yyNRppc3j-POHeTwJXxDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <019901d037fa$638ed0c0$2aac7240$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Bishop



>?(Notably, Hal Finney really dug in deep almost immediately. Very cool.)?- Bryan

 

 

Do you guys remember the idea taking shape here in the early 00s?  It came out of a discussion of how Mersenne Primes could be used as currency in a sense.  You run Prime95 outside of GIMPS (you can do that) if you get really lucky or have a huge computer cluster at your disposal, you discover one in such a way that GIMPS doesn?t know about it, then you contact your math geek friends and let them know you have a Mersenne Prime for sale.  (I vaguely suspect Cooper and Boone got their second one that way, but they might just be lucky as all hell, and they still get the record.)  If one isn?t a math geek and doesn?t care about the geek-fame you would have for being a Mersenne Prime discoverer, it makes total sense to quietly sell the discovery to someone who has money and is a math groupie or number theory geek, and who would pay a pile of cash to have their name on the short list with Euler, Lucas and the other gods.

 

In some ways that would be analogous to mining for bitcoins.  Hal was really interested in that concept, contacted me offline and asked questions about it.  Then about three or four years later, we start hearing about Bitcoin.  Now THAT?s very cool.  

 

spike  

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From kanzure at gmail.com  Sat Jan 24 18:12:02 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:12:02 -0600
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <019901d037fa$638ed0c0$2aac7240$@att.net>
References: <CAGSKFy2DaezzYv0p4H1k66bFxUfMOVYh0vVAEDXt_DjgGFX=8w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaxdVVjjO3DtcNdOwg-YA_Kr+yyNRppc3j-POHeTwJXxDg@mail.gmail.com>
 <019901d037fa$638ed0c0$2aac7240$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CABaSBaxsHereCyqKEfobNGtvuAevHR2UxxRjFwr9M+gV0Ry6UA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 11:22 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Do you guys remember the idea taking shape here in the early 00s?


Good story, but Adam Back invented Hashcash in 1997, which Bitcoin is
mostly a direct descendant of: http://hashcash.org/ I suspect you will have
to look back even earlier, to the archives from 198x-1992. I have
everything after, but I think there was cryptocurrency things discussed
earlier.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From hibbert at mydruthers.com  Sat Jan 24 18:07:46 2015
From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:07:46 -0800
Subject: [ExI] VR content
Message-ID: <54C3DF72.2080603@mydruthers.com>

nicoalcala at gmail.com wrote:
> If you want to send this very same email to the list in 10 years but with
> the oppossite message, saying: "I made it, I saw the opportunity and seized
> it at it's early stages" I would recommend that you invest in Virtual
> Reality. Any part of it, really. It's gonna transform the world in an
> unprecedent way and my guess is that it's gonna be even bigger than the
> internet.
>
> I'm starting a company to produce content for Oculus Rift, Magic Leap,
> Hololens and whatever is to come. I would love some feedback from you guys
> and, of course, an interesting debate about what will happen when the
> virtual world is better than the real world should arise in due time in
> this list.

I'm working at Google's Niantic Labs on Ingress, a massively-multiplayer 
augmented reality game played in the real world. I call it a "get off 
your couch" game, 'cause you can't play it without wandering around in 
the real world. Niantic is working on other titles, and is developing a 
platform for real-world augmented reality titles.

Anyway, my recommendation for a low-cost platform for trying out your VR 
chops is Google's cardboard. It's open source hardware, with a cost of 
less than a dollar, and runs on standard-issue smart phones. Once you 
have built a couple of low-end titles for this platform, you'll 
understand the medium enough to make it worth while spending more time 
and money developing for more sophisticated platforms.

I'm starting to study bitcoin. I haven't worked on prediction markets in 
a couple of years, but all the variant bitcoin tools are making this 
look like the place to develop new prediction markets. I have some 
catching up to do in this space.

Chris
-- 
It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so
easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium.
-- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy.

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
http://mydruthers.com


From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jan 25 00:07:12 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 00:07:12 +0000
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFjZ=gcnm0PWvyncu46gZBcOtZT9Ao1gV8XAOExjhz5jZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1EVNDRkiFRbJ_XCom9ibg-=JGrBEH6oM6R22O2GUEAjQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFjZ=gcnm0PWvyncu46gZBcOtZT9Ao1gV8XAOExjhz5jZQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiUAD681gLHa0+ZC+8CTHf3Dak9p3At+iSTSa1PnfGeXw@mail.gmail.com>

On 24 January 2015 at 15:38, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### One of about ten thousand, give or take a couple orders of magnitude.
> This is my rough guess at the number of humans who thought about it and came
> to similar conclusions. And ETs do not exist, or else they would have eaten
> their suns.
>

That does not compute, Captain.

Assumption 1 - ETs eat their suns.
Evidence - No suns have been eaten.
Corollary - ETs do not exist.
This answer depends on the first weak assumption.

Much simpler is
Evidence - No suns have been eaten.
Corollary - ETs don't eat their suns (or don't exist).

>
> ### Let's not anthropomorphize - what humans of various ages want is the
> contingent outcome of a more general process, namely evolution, and
> observation of multiple outcomes of evolution seems to indicate that usually
> survivors have an interest in survival, hard-coded in whatever informational
> medium it is that undergoes evolutionary selection. The medium may change
> (RNA, DNA, computer memory, human social sphere) but the message stays the
> same:
>
> It wants to live. Forever.
>

While evolution continues, desires and goals will change.
The huge leap to post-sing AIs will mean a huge change in desires and
goals from our primitive primate instincts.

I agree that post-sing AIs will probably want to live for ever,
evolving and changing. If they are fast thinkers, then more happens,
more quickly. Who knows what millions of (virtual) years will bring?

They will require an energy source, which will probably be very
different from our present rudimentary systems. They will require a
quiet safe place to run their virtual reality civilisations. To me,
that means away from solar systems. So, not only will they not
interact with the physical universe, they will hide away in deep
space.

I doubt that fast-thinker civs will even contact other fast-thinker
civs, unless by chance they happen to be very close together. The
speed-of-light communications will be far too slow.


BillK


From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Jan 25 06:51:51 2015
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 22:51:51 -0800
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
Message-ID: <0edw3hbvtm1s8497q15xj83i.1422162616413@email.android.com>


John Grigg wrote:

"How many of you not only learned about Bitcoin in time to buy/mine coins at
very low cost (and later make a huge profit), but upon learning about it,
saw an opportunity, and actually seized it?"

------

Don't feel so bad, John. You didn't profit but neither did you lose. I too have a tale of woe regarding bitcoin. I bought 120 btc from MtGox back in 2011 at about $8 per when MtGox was the only exchange with any  reputation.

Because my computer is old and slow, except for some experimentation, I never transferred the btc into my wallet. I figured I was going to be trading on the highs and lows anyway so I left my bitcoins in my MtGox account as I would stocks on E-trade or a similar online brokerage account.

When the price went through the roof back at the end of 2013, I sold off my coins for about $60,000. I was congratulating myself for having made a $59,000 profit on a $1000 investment.

But when I tried to get my $60,000 wired back to my bank account, the nightmare began. MtGox started demanding copies of my ID, bank account statements, and even some kind of letter from my bank to prove that I was who I said I was. This was all despite the fact that it was the same bank account from which I had wired Gox my original $1000.

Well needless to say, I started get really nervous about sending all manner of personal info to them especially when the forums were full of people saying they had sent all their info months earlier and still had not gotten their money. So I bought back into bitcoin at a loss, upgraded my wallet, and tried to transfer the bitcoins out of MtGox at which point, they announced that they were halting all bitcoin withdrawals. Then a few weeks later MtGox declared bankruptcy.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that I got into bitcoin early but still managed to lose $60,000 (really only $1000 & 2 yrs of waiting) and feel kind of idiotic because of it. So don't feel bad for not making money in bitcoin if you didn't lose any either.

Stuart LaForge





From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Sun Jan 25 08:16:57 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 09:16:57 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiUAD681gLHa0+ZC+8CTHf3Dak9p3At+iSTSa1PnfGeXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1EVNDRkiFRbJ_XCom9ibg-=JGrBEH6oM6R22O2GUEAjQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFjZ=gcnm0PWvyncu46gZBcOtZT9Ao1gV8XAOExjhz5jZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armiUAD681gLHa0+ZC+8CTHf3Dak9p3At+iSTSa1PnfGeXw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFQUpeOST2K4CWB5kff4d1_yTnMw1LPhxwuwGVg0Mz0Qqw@mail.gmail.com>

> different from our present rudimentary systems. They will require a quiet
safe place to run their virtual reality civilisations. To me, that means
away from solar systems.

Some may want to make their own galaxy the quite place with no supernovae
and such.

Okay most left the building for the empty intergalactic space according to
you. And left the entire galaxy of matter and energy to us?

Who is going to build our garden of joy right here and everywhere else?

Don't you see the necessity that every, once civilizations bearing galaxy
is to be reconstructed, soon after?
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jan 25 12:33:54 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 13:33:54 +0100
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2iBS6QYgZuU3RWtnUwf_-aX3=C_9itkOaOztB_jeamyg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <554538686-28683@secure.ericade.net>


John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> , 24/1/2015 4:57 PM:






Stop kicking yourself, you'll go nuts if you keep thinking "if only".?






Very good advice! Anybody on this list who is even half creative will over their life come up with several ideas they do not act on, yet a decade down the line makes somebody a billionaire. It happens to everybody.


(I wrote a working Bayesian spam filter in the earliest days of spam in the 90s, showed it to my colleagues, and then we forgot about it.)


When trying to pick up The Next Big Thing, expect that you are going to miss a lot of them. And that the TNBTs that many others already talk about are hype bubbles that anyway by now it is hard to get a good investment in. Instead, look for stuff you think you have good reasons to believe in, invest money/effort you can afford to lose, and spread the risks widely.?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From nicoalcala at gmail.com  Sun Jan 25 14:30:11 2015
From: nicoalcala at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?Tmljb2zDoXMgQWxjYWzDoQ==?=)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:30:11 +0100
Subject: [ExI] VR content
In-Reply-To: <54C3DF72.2080603@mydruthers.com>
References: <54C3DF72.2080603@mydruthers.com>
Message-ID: <CAMXewJhi0M5fdCA4Fxs1gwb=coSq-YmHTj8U3uOzWKCn5-a9BA@mail.gmail.com>

Wow Chris, you are lucky, that's an amazing project I've been following for
a while. Congrats! :)
My first film was also a transmedia project (a feature film, 36 shortfilms,
a book and a facebook fiction): http://cosmonautexperience.com

About cardboard, of course, I want to develop content, it doesn't matter
what the platform is. Specially for video, mobile based gadgets are the
best platform you can have: portable and everybody has one. Also for
education, where I think VR is gonna be big. It's simple to have kids in
class just taking out their own phones and connecting simultaneously to a
"world war II experience" during their history class, for example.

As I see it, VR will help us connect with every possible world in a very
realistic and even life changing experience. That, for me, it's a very
first step towards acquiring a new conscience and a new understanding of
the universe, and it may very well be the first step towards the next phase
of humanity.

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 7:07 PM, Chris Hibbert <hibbert at mydruthers.com>
wrote:

> nicoalcala at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> If you want to send this very same email to the list in 10 years but with
>> the oppossite message, saying: "I made it, I saw the opportunity and
>> seized
>> it at it's early stages" I would recommend that you invest in Virtual
>> Reality. Any part of it, really. It's gonna transform the world in an
>> unprecedent way and my guess is that it's gonna be even bigger than the
>> internet.
>>
>> I'm starting a company to produce content for Oculus Rift, Magic Leap,
>> Hololens and whatever is to come. I would love some feedback from you guys
>> and, of course, an interesting debate about what will happen when the
>> virtual world is better than the real world should arise in due time in
>> this list.
>>
>
> I'm working at Google's Niantic Labs on Ingress, a massively-multiplayer
> augmented reality game played in the real world. I call it a "get off your
> couch" game, 'cause you can't play it without wandering around in the real
> world. Niantic is working on other titles, and is developing a platform for
> real-world augmented reality titles.
>
> Anyway, my recommendation for a low-cost platform for trying out your VR
> chops is Google's cardboard. It's open source hardware, with a cost of less
> than a dollar, and runs on standard-issue smart phones. Once you have built
> a couple of low-end titles for this platform, you'll understand the medium
> enough to make it worth while spending more time and money developing for
> more sophisticated platforms.
>
> I'm starting to study bitcoin. I haven't worked on prediction markets in a
> couple of years, but all the variant bitcoin tools are making this look
> like the place to develop new prediction markets. I have some catching up
> to do in this space.
>
> Chris
> --
> It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so
> easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium.
> -- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy.
>
> Chris Hibbert
> hibbert at mydruthers.com
> http://mydruthers.com
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
* Nicol?s Alcal? <http://nicolasalcala.com> | Story-hacker
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jan 25 16:39:33 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 17:39:33 +0100
Subject: [ExI] VR content
In-Reply-To: <CAMXewJhi0M5fdCA4Fxs1gwb=coSq-YmHTj8U3uOzWKCn5-a9BA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net>

I was active in VR during the original peak in the 90s. That makes me a bit cynical.


It seems that today we have the software and hardware to make it work really well - one reason it didn't take off in the 90s was of course that limitation. But one needs to think of the use cases: what is it *good for*?


Obviously one can make computer games even more immersive, which is good insofar people play them for immersion. But quite a bit of gaming has social aspects - people in the room participate to some extent. This use case is not enhanced by VR/AR. So I predict that for the dedicated gamer VR would be great, but it would not work for the informal/light gaming or social gaming in a group. Same thing for demonstrating things, whether infoviz, architecture or sales forecasts: switching context into a VR environment must be so simple and seamless that people do not mind it.


Interactive immersion is great for visualising stuff, and I can see some amazing educational applications. But the cost of making a good educational worldlet is also higher: making a neat demo of a property in calculus will take longer than explaining it on the blackboard. Yes, it can be re-used globally and endlessly, but so can a good explanation. So far I have rarely been impressed with interactive software education because the shining parts - where somebody actually used the medium for something awesome - are usually padded with rather crummy software experiences. Probably a MOOC-like winner-takes all phenomenon could occur, where everybody shares the very best VR explanation for something. But I suspect it will be a *long* while before we have great material for every part of education.?


My personal guess is that VR for gaming will drive the technology, while AR applications is where we actually get the useful enhancements of human capability. But since good design is hard I expect that the utility will be rather uneven. I predict it will take up to 20 years from good VR hardware/software is invented until it is properly integrated in human life.?




Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From nicoalcala at gmail.com  Sun Jan 25 16:52:10 2015
From: nicoalcala at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?Tmljb2zDoXMgQWxjYWzDoQ==?=)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 17:52:10 +0100
Subject: [ExI] VR content
In-Reply-To: <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAMXewJhi0M5fdCA4Fxs1gwb=coSq-YmHTj8U3uOzWKCn5-a9BA@mail.gmail.com>
 <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAMXewJjvq+Wa80z8DcOaEQu4u=12oY-JLy5oK8P01kcu2GTEBA@mail.gmail.com>

I'm a bit more optimistic, I'd say 10 years, but your words are golden
Anders, thank you!

Anyhow, 10 or 20 years, that's nothing. And the ride till there sounds like
so much fun :))

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 5:39 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> I was active in VR during the original peak in the 90s. That makes me a
> bit cynical.
>
> It seems that today we have the software and hardware to make it work
> really well - one reason it didn't take off in the 90s was of course that
> limitation. But one needs to think of the use cases: what is it *good for*?
>
> Obviously one can make computer games even more immersive, which is good
> insofar people play them for immersion. But quite a bit of gaming has
> social aspects - people in the room participate to some extent. This use
> case is not enhanced by VR/AR. So I predict that for the dedicated gamer VR
> would be great, but it would not work for the informal/light gaming or
> social gaming in a group. Same thing for demonstrating things, whether
> infoviz, architecture or sales forecasts: switching context into a VR
> environment must be so simple and seamless that people do not mind it.
>
> Interactive immersion is great for visualising stuff, and I can see some
> amazing educational applications. But the cost of making a good educational
> worldlet is also higher: making a neat demo of a property in calculus will
> take longer than explaining it on the blackboard. Yes, it can be re-used
> globally and endlessly, but so can a good explanation. So far I have rarely
> been impressed with interactive software education because the shining
> parts - where somebody actually used the medium for something awesome - are
> usually padded with rather crummy software experiences. Probably a
> MOOC-like winner-takes all phenomenon could occur, where everybody shares
> the very best VR explanation for something. But I suspect it will be a
> *long* while before we have great material for every part of education.
>
> My personal guess is that VR for gaming will drive the technology, while
> AR applications is where we actually get the useful enhancements of human
> capability. But since good design is hard I expect that the utility will be
> rather uneven. I predict it will take up to 20 years from good VR
> hardware/software is invented until it is properly integrated in human
> life.
>
>
>
> 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
>
>


-- 
* Nicol?s Alcal? <http://nicolasalcala.com> | Story-hacker
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jan 25 17:10:52 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 09:10:52 -0800
Subject: [ExI] VR content
In-Reply-To: <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAMXewJhi0M5fdCA4Fxs1gwb=coSq-YmHTj8U3uOzWKCn5-a9BA@mail.gmail.com>
 <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <00a801d038c1$e097e940$a1c7bbc0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 8:40 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] VR content

 

>?I was active in VR during the original peak in the 90s. That makes me a bit cynical?

 

Ja.  We had an active wearable computer online group that lived and died before ExI-chat really got cooking.  I have many fond memories of that.  I didn?t write much but listened to that.  All the major roadblocks identified in the early 90s are being chipped away.  We didn?t have the hardware back then.  We do now.

 

>?It seems that today we have the software and hardware to make it work really well - one reason it didn't take off in the 90s was of course that limitation?

 

This Microsloth Hololens looks cool:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aThCr0PsyuA

 

>? But one needs to think of the use cases: what is it *good for*?

 

I can think of a hundred uses for this before breakfast.

 

You brought up education, and certainly there is that.  We have developed a winner-take-all MOOC, and that winner appears to be Khan Academy: terrific content, good explanations, plentiful and free.

 

In that program, Sal Khan gave a history lecture which achieved something I never would have guessed was even possible: he explained the origin of the state of Israel without any particular political bias.

 

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history/euro-hist/middle-east-20th-century/v/sinai-palestine-and-mesopotamia-campaigns

 

I really like Microsloth?s notion of a plumber helping a prole through a repair without coming to the home.  I can imagine that would really be great for helping grandma fix her email.  Ja I know we have screenvisors and Skype which already does that.  But there is an advantage to working it this way: teach the homeowner to fix her plumbing and grandma to fix her email without actually doing it for them.

 

This whole notion really has me rethinking the wealth of nations.  This development could be the biggest stride in raising all boats we have seen in a long time.  Perhaps it will help more people stay home and take care of themselves, rather than the inefficient process of going off to an office, toiling for taxable currency, coming home, waiting in traffic both directions, hiring someone else with what is left of her taxed currency to do a task for which the hired person must pay taxes and so on.  Teaching people to do for themselves is more efficient.  Move bits, not butts.  

 

We may now have a way to easily learn how to fix your own stuff around your house, to process your own foods from raw vegetables and produce, to do at least the easy things by getting on the HoloLens with the cat who knows how to do it.  That to me is an exciting development, and uses something we didn?t have much of in the early 90s: cell phones.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

Obviously one can make computer games even more immersive, which is good insofar people play them for immersion. But quite a bit of gaming has social aspects - people in the room participate to some extent. This use case is not enhanced by VR/AR. So I predict that for the dedicated gamer VR would be great, but it would not work for the informal/light gaming or social gaming in a group. Same thing for demonstrating things, whether infoviz, architecture or sales forecasts: switching context into a VR environment must be so simple and seamless that people do not mind it.

 

Interactive immersion is great for visualising stuff, and I can see some amazing educational applications. But the cost of making a good educational worldlet is also higher: making a neat demo of a property in calculus will take longer than explaining it on the blackboard. Yes, it can be re-used globally and endlessly, but so can a good explanation. So far I have rarely been impressed with interactive software education because the shining parts - where somebody actually used the medium for something awesome - are usually padded with rather crummy software experiences. Probably a MOOC-like winner-takes all phenomenon could occur, where everybody shares the very best VR explanation for something. But I suspect it will be a *long* while before we have great material for every part of education. 

 

My personal guess is that VR for gaming will drive the technology, while AR applications is where we actually get the useful enhancements of human capability. But since good design is hard I expect that the utility will be rather uneven. I predict it will take up to 20 years from good VR hardware/software is invented until it is properly integrated in human life. 

 



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

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From nicoalcala at gmail.com  Sun Jan 25 17:39:53 2015
From: nicoalcala at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?Tmljb2zDoXMgQWxjYWzDoQ==?=)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:39:53 +0100
Subject: [ExI] VR content
In-Reply-To: <00a801d038c1$e097e940$a1c7bbc0$@att.net>
References: <CAMXewJhi0M5fdCA4Fxs1gwb=coSq-YmHTj8U3uOzWKCn5-a9BA@mail.gmail.com>
 <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net> <00a801d038c1$e097e940$a1c7bbc0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAMXewJjKZ8H0_jKbsiV8AYS7p5OYoYnzY16Ys9q+V0vTg3KvHQ@mail.gmail.com>

>
> >This whole notion really has me rethinking the wealth of nations.  This
> development could be the biggest stride in raising all boats we have seen
> in a long time.  Perhaps it will help more people stay home and take care
> of themselves, rather than the inefficient process of going off to an
> office, toiling for taxable currency, coming home, waiting in traffic both
> directions, hiring someone else with what is left of her taxed currency to
> do a task for which the hired person must pay taxes and so on.  Teaching
> people to do for themselves is more efficient.  Move bits, not butts.


This raises a very interesting idea about how cities could be developed in
the future. As the local economies grow more and more, there is a growing
trend of buying local products, having more personal relationships, being
more wise with our time, etc, I can envision cities in the future where you
barely leave your surrounding neighbourghood, working online or "on the go"
and having therefore plenty more time for personal activities.

I think VR would have a great impact on collaborative work, on personal
shopping and the way we work too. In the end, no, you won't meet your
plumber in person but with the time and money you save you would go meet
some friends and have a more fulfilling life. Or maybe not, maybe we end up
like The Matrix. Of course, there's always the dystopian side of this
technology, and it's scary.

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 6:10 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Anders Sandberg
> *Sent:* Sunday, January 25, 2015 8:40 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] VR content
>
>
>
> >?I was active in VR during the original peak in the 90s. That makes me a
> bit cynical?
>
>
>
> Ja.  We had an active wearable computer online group that lived and died
> before ExI-chat really got cooking.  I have many fond memories of that.  I
> didn?t write much but listened to that.  All the major roadblocks
> identified in the early 90s are being chipped away.  We didn?t have the
> hardware back then.  We do now.
>
>
>
> >?It seems that today we have the software and hardware to make it work
> really well - one reason it didn't take off in the 90s was of course that
> limitation?
>
>
>
> This Microsloth Hololens looks cool:
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aThCr0PsyuA
>
>
>
> >? But one needs to think of the use cases: what is it *good for*?
>
>
>
> I can think of a hundred uses for this before breakfast.
>
>
>
> You brought up education, and certainly there is that.  We have developed
> a winner-take-all MOOC, and that winner appears to be Khan Academy:
> terrific content, good explanations, plentiful and free.
>
>
>
> In that program, Sal Khan gave a history lecture which achieved something
> I never would have guessed was even possible: he explained the origin of
> the state of Israel without any particular political bias.
>
>
>
>
> https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history/euro-hist/middle-east-20th-century/v/sinai-palestine-and-mesopotamia-campaigns
>
>
>
> I really like Microsloth?s notion of a plumber helping a prole through a
> repair without coming to the home.  I can imagine that would really be
> great for helping grandma fix her email.  Ja I know we have screenvisors
> and Skype which already does that.  But there is an advantage to working it
> this way: teach the homeowner to fix her plumbing and grandma to fix her
> email without actually doing it for them.
>
>
>
> This whole notion really has me rethinking the wealth of nations.  This
> development could be the biggest stride in raising all boats we have seen
> in a long time.  Perhaps it will help more people stay home and take care
> of themselves, rather than the inefficient process of going off to an
> office, toiling for taxable currency, coming home, waiting in traffic both
> directions, hiring someone else with what is left of her taxed currency to
> do a task for which the hired person must pay taxes and so on.  Teaching
> people to do for themselves is more efficient.  Move bits, not butts.
>
>
>
> We may now have a way to easily learn how to fix your own stuff around
> your house, to process your own foods from raw vegetables and produce, to
> do at least the easy things by getting on the HoloLens with the cat who
> knows how to do it.  That to me is an exciting development, and uses
> something we didn?t have much of in the early 90s: cell phones.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Obviously one can make computer games even more immersive, which is good
> insofar people play them for immersion. But quite a bit of gaming has
> social aspects - people in the room participate to some extent. This use
> case is not enhanced by VR/AR. So I predict that for the dedicated gamer VR
> would be great, but it would not work for the informal/light gaming or
> social gaming in a group. Same thing for demonstrating things, whether
> infoviz, architecture or sales forecasts: switching context into a VR
> environment must be so simple and seamless that people do not mind it.
>
>
>
> Interactive immersion is great for visualising stuff, and I can see some
> amazing educational applications. But the cost of making a good educational
> worldlet is also higher: making a neat demo of a property in calculus will
> take longer than explaining it on the blackboard. Yes, it can be re-used
> globally and endlessly, but so can a good explanation. So far I have rarely
> been impressed with interactive software education because the shining
> parts - where somebody actually used the medium for something awesome - are
> usually padded with rather crummy software experiences. Probably a
> MOOC-like winner-takes all phenomenon could occur, where everybody shares
> the very best VR explanation for something. But I suspect it will be a
> *long* while before we have great material for every part of education.
>
>
>
> My personal guess is that VR for gaming will drive the technology, while
> AR applications is where we actually get the useful enhancements of human
> capability. But since good design is hard I expect that the utility will be
> rather uneven. I predict it will take up to 20 years from good VR
> hardware/software is invented until it is properly integrated in human
> life.
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
>
>


-- 
* Nicol?s Alcal? <http://nicolasalcala.com> | Story-hacker
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jan 25 19:33:33 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 11:33:33 -0800
Subject: [ExI] VR content
In-Reply-To: <CAMXewJjKZ8H0_jKbsiV8AYS7p5OYoYnzY16Ys9q+V0vTg3KvHQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAMXewJhi0M5fdCA4Fxs1gwb=coSq-YmHTj8U3uOzWKCn5-a9BA@mail.gmail.com>
 <569066058-14844@secure.ericade.net>
 <00a801d038c1$e097e940$a1c7bbc0$@att.net>
 <CAMXewJjKZ8H0_jKbsiV8AYS7p5OYoYnzY16Ys9q+V0vTg3KvHQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <013801d038d5$cee02550$6ca06ff0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Nicol?s Alcal?
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 9:40 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] VR content

 

>This whole notion really has me rethinking the wealth of nations.  This development could be the biggest stride in raising all boats we have seen in a long time?  Move bits, not butts.

 

>? I can envision cities in the future where you barely leave your surrounding neighbourghood, working online or "on the go" and having therefore plenty more time for personal activities?there's always the dystopian side of this technology, and it's scary.  Nicolas

 

 

Ja, exciting scary, with plenty of upside.

 

I am doing genealogy and trying to explain to my 8 yr old son how my grandparents lived when they were the age he is now, about 100 yrs ago.  To him, it sounds unimaginably terrible in every way that counts to him.

 

If we do VR right, I can imagine explaining to our grandchildren how we lived back in the twenty teens, and have them astonished at the suffering, appalled at the lack of everything.  It boggles their imagination!  People used to get in a noisy dangerous metal can and travel to a distant office most days, and spend the entire daylight hours, most of the waking time most days toiling with a group of others they did not choose and with whom they share few common interests, all for currency, most of which was taken away by necessities and government.  We must have suffered terribly!  Well, sure in a way, but we just didn?t know better back then, and we were far better off than our grandparents.  A few of us envisioned a better way, but we had to invent it into existence.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 00:53:49 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 19:53:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <0edw3hbvtm1s8497q15xj83i.1422162616413@email.android.com>
References: <0edw3hbvtm1s8497q15xj83i.1422162616413@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2mq=APa3fxjkZJU42rQYurH9Ln9Lv1mooK5=RbyRMcxQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 1:51 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
> Don't feel so bad, John. You didn't profit but neither did you lose. I too
> have a tale of woe regarding bitcoin. I bought 120 btc from MtGox back in
> 2011 at about $8 per when MtGox was the only exchange with any  reputation.
>
> Because my computer is old and slow, except for some experimentation, I
> never transferred the btc into my wallet. I figured I was going to be
> trading on the highs and lows anyway so I left my bitcoins in my MtGox
> account as I would stocks on E-trade or a similar online brokerage account.
>
> When the price went through the roof back at the end of 2013, I sold off
> my coins for about $60,000. I was congratulating myself for having made a
> $59,000 profit on a $1000 investment.
>
> But when I tried to get my $60,000 wired back to my bank account, the
> nightmare began. MtGox started demanding copies of my ID, bank account
> statements, and even some kind of letter from my bank to prove that I was
> who I said I was. This was all despite the fact that it was the same bank
> account from which I had wired Gox my original $1000.
>
> Well needless to say, I started get really nervous about sending all
> manner of personal info to them especially when the forums were full of
> people saying they had sent all their info months earlier and still had not
> gotten their money. So I bought back into bitcoin at a loss, upgraded my
> wallet, and tried to transfer the bitcoins out of MtGox at which point,
> they announced that they were halting all bitcoin withdrawals. Then a few
> weeks later MtGox declared bankruptcy.
>
> So I guess what I am trying to say is that I got into bitcoin early but
> still managed to lose $60,000 (really only $1000 & 2 yrs of waiting) and
> feel kind of idiotic because of it. So don't feel bad for not making money
> in bitcoin if you didn't lose any either.
>

There are worst Bitcoin stories, A man names James Howell in the UK
mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 on his home computer but then lost interest in
it. A few year later he junked his old computer, including the hard drive,
and sent it to a landfill. Then in late 2013 when he realized it was worth
millions he talked to the dump manager to ask where his old computer might
be, he said it was burred between 3 and 5 under potentially hazardous waste
in a area the size of a soccer field. He never found it.

 John K Clark
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Mon Jan 26 03:44:46 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 20:44:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>


Extropians,

Thanks, Mike Dougherty, and everyone, for the feedback on the detecting 
qualia paper.  The paper is now much improved.  But still needs some 
work so any and all help is greatly appreciated.

As Mike recommended, we now need to come up with some artwork sequenced 
to describe the basic "quale interpretation problem" described in the 
paper.  This would require 4 simple line drawn sequences.  But I am 
completely incapable of producing any such artwork.

The 4 fig sequences are described at the end of the draft of the paper, 
here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing

Does anyone know of a graphic artist that would be able to help with 
this?  I'd be willing to pay them, handsomely.  If you know of anyone, 
could you put them in contact with me?

Thanks

Brent Allsop


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Paper on qualia for presentation at 2015 MTA conference
Date: 	Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:26:29 -0700
From: 	Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
Organization: 	Canonizer.com
To: 	extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org



Extropians,

Is anyone planning on attending the 2015 MTA conference in SLC (see:
http://news.transfigurism.org/2015/01/call-for-papers-for-2015-conference-of.html)?
I am working on a paper I plan on submitting:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing

Everyone has edit privileges, so would appreciate any wiki improvements
or comments anyone would have.  Is any of it hard to understand?  Is any
of this not of interest?  I'd normally ask MTA members to review this,
but since this is for their conference, I'm hopping some of you will
help out.

Thanks!

Brent Allsop










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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Mon Jan 26 04:19:31 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 21:19:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2mq=APa3fxjkZJU42rQYurH9Ln9Lv1mooK5=RbyRMcxQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0edw3hbvtm1s8497q15xj83i.1422162616413@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv2mq=APa3fxjkZJU42rQYurH9Ln9Lv1mooK5=RbyRMcxQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <54C5C053.2090505@canonizer.com>


I have a good story too.  It's much longer, so sorry, but for those 
interested....

I liquidated a significant portion of my IRA to invest in Bitcoin, and 
bought in at an average of about about $120.  I was having fun at the 
Bitcoin Miama conference, in Jan of this year, while Bitcoin was arround 
$900, and I was thinking I was going to be way more rich than I really was.

At that conference I heard more about Either, and Bitshares, and 
realized Bitcoin was doomed, so I started selling, while still arround 
$800.  At least, I was doing this slowely.  I still fealt Bitcoin had a 
good chance at making at least one more 10 times in value run, so was 
taking my time.  But as things started to crash, likely because of 
MtGox, I panicked and activated my rehearsed plan to get out as fast as 
possible.  This plan included selling the maximum limit on many 
exchanges I had established accounts with, including MtGox.  So this 
include sending 90  of my Bitcoin through Mt Gox with an immediate 
sell.  I knew the risk, but figured the better price was worth the cost, 
and obviously lost that bet, and those 90 Bitcoin.

So, when all is said and done, I made a crap load of money, and then 
lost most of it during this expensive panic selling on exchanges. 
incliding being Goxed.  But we were able to pay off our house with what 
was left, and we had near the same amount of money left, not in IRA 
money, taxes and penalties paid, so kind of a constellation, finally not 
having a house payment, and some non IRA money could could now spend/invest.

I then invested (not near as much) in both Bitshares and Either, still 
thinking these will take over where Proof of Waist Bitcoin left off.  At 
the Bitshares Price peak, I made more money, with a much smaller 
investement, than I did with Bitcoin, so was feeling rich again.  But, 
at the current valuations, the profit is much smaller.  I sometimes 
wonder if even Bitshares or Either will be able to survive and make 
crypto currency any more than a flash in the pan, like most all grass 
roots efforts to revolutionize the world.  People just need to find some 
way to make a grass roots efforts scale to become as powerful to compete 
with Hierarchy and bureaucracy.  (You know, like you can do with 
Canonizer.)  and become more than just a flash in the pan.  I think at 
least Ripple will disrupt things, and contribute to the hierarchical 
bureaucracies that created them, and make things more efficient than 
currently.  It'd be too bad if we can't do more.

I could sell out now, with little if any profit, again.  I am wondering 
if I should.  Or, could a 2.0 currency take over where Proof of waist 
left off?

What would you guys do?  Anyone still holding any crypto currency of any 
kind, besides me?  What is your favorite Currency (most likely to have a 
future) today?  Bitshares and Either are still quite pie in the sky, but 
you never know, if they can manage not to destroy each other (again, as 
Canonizer.com might be able to enable, by building consensus for things 
like mergers between such).  After all, the singularity is near, right?

Brent












On 1/25/2015 5:53 PM, John Clark wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 1:51 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com 
> <mailto:avant at sollegro.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     Don't feel so bad, John. You didn't profit but neither did you
>     lose. I too have a tale of woe regarding bitcoin. I bought 120 btc
>     from MtGox back in 2011 at about $8 per when MtGox was the only
>     exchange with any  reputation.
>
>     Because my computer is old and slow, except for some
>     experimentation, I never transferred the btc into my wallet. I
>     figured I was going to be trading on the highs and lows anyway so
>     I left my bitcoins in my MtGox account as I would stocks on
>     E-trade or a similar online brokerage account.
>
>     When the price went through the roof back at the end of 2013, I
>     sold off my coins for about $60,000. I was congratulating myself
>     for having made a $59,000 profit on a $1000 investment.
>
>     But when I tried to get my $60,000 wired back to my bank account,
>     the nightmare began. MtGox started demanding copies of my ID, bank
>     account statements, and even some kind of letter from my bank to
>     prove that I was who I said I was. This was all despite the fact
>     that it was the same bank account from which I had wired Gox my
>     original $1000.
>
>     Well needless to say, I started get really nervous about sending
>     all manner of personal info to them especially when the forums
>     were full of people saying they had sent all their info months
>     earlier and still had not gotten their money. So I bought back
>     into bitcoin at a loss, upgraded my wallet, and tried to transfer
>     the bitcoins out of MtGox at which point, they announced that they
>     were halting all bitcoin withdrawals. Then a few weeks later MtGox
>     declared bankruptcy.
>
>     So I guess what I am trying to say is that I got into bitcoin
>     early but still managed to lose $60,000 (really only $1000 & 2 yrs
>     of waiting) and feel kind of idiotic because of it. So don't feel
>     bad for not making money in bitcoin if you didn't lose any either.
>
>
> There are worst Bitcoin stories, A man names James Howell in the UK 
> mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 on his home computer but then lost 
> interest in it. A few year later he junked his old computer, including 
> the hard drive, and sent it to a landfill. Then in late 2013 when he 
> realized it was worth millions he talked to the dump manager to ask 
> where his old computer might be, he said it was burred between 3 and 5 
> under potentially hazardous waste in a area the size of a soccer 
> field. He never found it.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 07:56:52 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 02:56:52 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiUAD681gLHa0+ZC+8CTHf3Dak9p3At+iSTSa1PnfGeXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAJPayv1EVNDRkiFRbJ_XCom9ibg-=JGrBEH6oM6R22O2GUEAjQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBawX7K2DiaDFCjXYCBKc3=0Hs+PcQTh91=Gxigq2-mPigg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA++aaA94u3Aj+KcB49Lgiu23OO9h1YM5crvRpx6h5G0i9dJjgg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFjZ=gcnm0PWvyncu46gZBcOtZT9Ao1gV8XAOExjhz5jZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armiUAD681gLHa0+ZC+8CTHf3Dak9p3At+iSTSa1PnfGeXw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFiyyWtT9J8dn5x=bh7TPbytKO6HZbRjwW_FQEFL6dcTCA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 7:07 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> That does not compute, Captain.
>
> Assumption 1 - ETs eat their suns.
> Evidence - No suns have been eaten.
> Corollary - ETs do not exist.
> This answer depends on the first weak assumption.


> Much simpler is
> Evidence - No suns have been eaten.
> Corollary - ETs don't eat their suns (or don't exist).
>

### Your argument is a simple tautology, "if p then p", aka petitio
principii. It's not very useful.

Rigorously expounding a useful logical argument pertaining to the world may
be non-trivial, where you have to carefully demarcate the distinction
between probabilistic real world data and the tautological inferential
steps that bind them together. Let me try to make my reasoning somewhat
more rigorous, although not to a logic class standard:

The first statement is "Some creatures want to eat their suns", and it is
very strong, indeed it's a certitude, based on my knowledge of my own
motivations.

The second reasoning step is making predictions about physically possible
technologies, which indicate that some creatures possessing the right
technology can eat their suns.

The third reasoning step is noting that want + can = do.

The fourth reasoning step is assuming that a desire to eat suns does not
preclude having the technology to eat suns.

>From these premises I derive "Some creatures eat their suns"

The next step is a tautology assuming observational data: If some creatures
eat their suns, and no suns in the visible universe have been eaten, then
there are no creatures eating their suns in the visible universe.

The next step is hypothetical: A sampling procedure that evaluates
creatures gives information about the ratio of sun-eaters to non-eaters in
all possible equivalent worlds. The ratio can range from 0 to infinity. We
know the denominator of the ratio (non-eaters) is no smaller than 1, since
we are non-eaters and we know we exist. We handwave about here about an
priori plausible ratio, e.g. 1/100 or 1/10 and we refuse to consider much
higher ratios (e.g. 1/10e20). There is some trickery involved here, since
the spacefaring non-eaters and us not-really-spacefaring non-eaters are not
the same group, and a Great Filter could separate us from them and there is
potential for confusion, but still, from the 2nd to 4th steps, it is not
plausible that the eater to non-eater ratio (EN ratio) could be
astronomically small.

The final step is deriving probabilistic bounds on the predicted number of
non-eaters, knowing the number of eaters is currently estimated at close to
0, and we can't be quite sure about this number but we are sure it's not
very large. Let's say EN=1/10. We know that N is at least 1. What is the
99% probability upper bound on N, for example given E<1? Dunno. I am not
the statistician here.

But I am pretty sure that N, the number of ETs that exist and do not eat
their suns, if estimated this way, is pitifully small compared to the 10e24
planets in the visible universe.

So, to conclude, ETs either don't exist, or else they exist as an
infinitesimally rare occurrence in the universe, so incredibly rare as not
to matter at all - until they start eating stars.

--------------------

>
> They will require an energy source, which will probably be very
> different from our present rudimentary systems. They will require a
> quiet safe place to run their virtual reality civilisations. To me,
> that means away from solar systems. So, not only will they not
> interact with the physical universe, they will hide away in deep
> space.
>
> I doubt that fast-thinker civs will even contact other fast-thinker
> civs, unless by chance they happen to be very close together. The
> speed-of-light communications will be far too slow.


### How is a solar system not a good place to run an energy-intensive
computation?

You are not addressing the key issue here - why do you think absolutely
every ET fails to propagate? Not "Why some ETs might fail to propagate" but
a categorical "No ET ever in the history of the universe has propagated".
What is the special knowledge you have about ET motivations that allows you
to make non-trivial post-dictive and predictive claims about every single
one of them?

Rafal
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 16:29:41 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:29:41 -0500
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>

This video is just of the Andromeda Galaxy but it was made by a real still
picture taken by the Hubble telescope and has some of the same feel as that
wonderful powers of ten movie, the actual picture is so big it would take
750 HD TV's to display so that's why NASA made it into a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU

<http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/21/nasa-releases-hubbles-largest-image-ever-its-4-3-gb-big-would-take-600-hd-screens-to-display/>

John K Clark


On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 11:43 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Nearly 40 yrs ago, I saw a film which had enormous impact on me, Powers of
> Ten:
>
>
>
> http://www.wimp.com/scaleuniverse/
>
>
>
> This is an updated, cooler version of that idea.  The new one only goes
> out rather than both in and out, but I like it:
>
>
>
>
> https://thescene.com/watch/buzzfeed/209-seconds-that-will-make-you-question-your-entire-existence?mbid=marketing_paid_tp_cne_oo_outbrain_scene_buzzfeed&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=scene&utm_campaign=buzzfeed
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From odellhuff2 at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 16:40:44 2015
From: odellhuff2 at gmail.com (Odell Huff)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:40:44 -0500
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACsUujVCgVbpmWHu=QXuGABRjOsCFGypQCmOFyRrPaPuciBmaw@mail.gmail.com>

There are discernible stars--eg lots of blue giants--are those in Andromeda
itself, or are they intervening stars within our own galaxy?

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 11:29 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> This video is just of the Andromeda Galaxy but it was made by a real still
> picture taken by the Hubble telescope and has some of the same feel as that
> wonderful powers of ten movie, the actual picture is so big it would take
> 750 HD TV's to display so that's why NASA made it into a movie.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU
>
>
> <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/21/nasa-releases-hubbles-largest-image-ever-its-4-3-gb-big-would-take-600-hd-screens-to-display/>
>
> John K Clark
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 11:43 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>> Nearly 40 yrs ago, I saw a film which had enormous impact on me, Powers
>> of Ten:
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.wimp.com/scaleuniverse/
>>
>>
>>
>> This is an updated, cooler version of that idea.  The new one only goes
>> out rather than both in and out, but I like it:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://thescene.com/watch/buzzfeed/209-seconds-that-will-make-you-question-your-entire-existence?mbid=marketing_paid_tp_cne_oo_outbrain_scene_buzzfeed&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=scene&utm_campaign=buzzfeed
>>
>> spike
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
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> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 26 18:27:33 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:27:33 -0800
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2015 8:30 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] powers of ten

 

>?This video is just of the Andromeda Galaxy but it was made by a real still picture taken by the Hubble telescope and has some of the same feel as that wonderful powers of ten movie, the actual picture is so big it would take 750 HD TV's to display so that's why NASA made it into a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU

John K Clark 

 

 

 

Cool thanks John.  That?s part of one galaxy.  Now go into NASA?s Hubble ultra-deep sky views, and note that every one of those distant smudges of light is a galaxy like the one you just viewed in the link above:

 

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/xdf.html

 

As you try to wrap your head around the notion, don?t be surprised if this exercise wraps the notion around your head.  Then note that it doesn?t easily unwrap.

 

Nowthen my friends, I am not kidding.  There is just no damn way we are the only tech-enabled lifeform anywhere, just plain old no way.  Ja I know the usual arguments: we would have seen them by now, or, intelligent life is infinitesimally rare, or, someone somewhere has to be first and apparently it is us.  Ja ja ja I get that and I have entertained all that, but? there is just no way we are the only ones here.  We are systematically doing something waaaay wrong, and no one has thought of it yet, but we are, we must be.  All those stars, all those planets, and we know a lot about exactly one, and that one is teeming with intelligent life.

 

Keep thinking and keep looking at these images, with profound astonishment.

 

Is this a crazy cool time to be alive, or what?

 

spike

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From ginakathleenmiller at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 19:04:53 2015
From: ginakathleenmiller at gmail.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:04:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Michael Vassar's email
Message-ID: <CAMd8APxnOdy31nfvaVLxDA5bOchyAo=WHYbwniEGJXwqp5T9gQ@mail.gmail.com>

Does any one still have Michael Vassar's email?

-- 
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller

www.millermarketing.co
www.nanogirl.com
www.nanoindustries.com
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From alex.urbanec at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 19:31:35 2015
From: alex.urbanec at gmail.com (Asdd Marget)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:31:35 -0600
Subject: [ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...
In-Reply-To: <54C5C053.2090505@canonizer.com>
References: <0edw3hbvtm1s8497q15xj83i.1422162616413@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv2mq=APa3fxjkZJU42rQYurH9Ln9Lv1mooK5=RbyRMcxQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAM0SiUO5ZUA-vJpWGuQ9RBhDBbTPFqpxquWjo+OJbwaskfvyRw@mail.gmail.com>

I'm somewhat disappointed to see the general sentiment in this thread to be
focused only on Bitcoin's value as a "speculative investment." Bitcoin is
so much more than that.

The idea of cryptocurrency in general is a revolutionary concept. A
currency that is produced by pure math and raw computational power, instead
of multimillionaire bankers releasing money as they see fit. However, the
currency is not what I find interesting about Bitcoin itself. The
technology behind Bitcoin, the Blockchain, is the real star of this
advancement.

The Blockchain is essentially an unalterable public ledger. It safe guards
Bitcoin against double spending, incorrect wallet amounts, and all
transactions, but it has further potential. It could be used for Voting,
for contracts, for Deeds: anything that previously required records being
kept manually and physically can be stored virtually.

I've even applied for an ID, a "Proof-of-Existence", showing that I'm a
citizen of the planet Earth. My birthdate, sex, name, place of birth, all
of that can be encoded into the Blockchain.

Anyone who thinks Bitcoin is just a bubble or a speculative investment or a
place to "pump and dump", is not looking at the whole picture. This has the
potential to change the way our world operates.

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:

>
> I have a good story too.  It's much longer, so sorry, but for those
> interested....
>
> I liquidated a significant portion of my IRA to invest in Bitcoin, and
> bought in at an average of about about $120.  I was having fun at the
> Bitcoin Miama conference, in Jan of this year, while Bitcoin was arround
> $900, and I was thinking I was going to be way more rich than I really was.
>
> At that conference I heard more about Either, and Bitshares, and realized
> Bitcoin was doomed, so I started selling, while still arround $800.  At
> least, I was doing this slowely.  I still fealt Bitcoin had a good chance
> at making at least one more 10 times in value run, so was taking my time.
> But as things started to crash, likely because of MtGox, I panicked and
> activated my rehearsed plan to get out as fast as possible.  This plan
> included selling the maximum limit on many exchanges I had established
> accounts with, including MtGox.  So this include sending 90  of my Bitcoin
> through Mt Gox with an immediate sell.  I knew the risk, but figured the
> better price was worth the cost, and obviously lost that bet, and those 90
> Bitcoin.
>
> So, when all is said and done, I made a crap load of money, and then lost
> most of it during this expensive panic selling on exchanges. incliding
> being Goxed.  But we were able to pay off our house with what was left, and
> we had near the same amount of money left, not in IRA money, taxes and
> penalties paid, so kind of a constellation, finally not having a house
> payment, and some non IRA money could could now spend/invest.
>
> I then invested (not near as much) in both Bitshares and Either, still
> thinking these will take over where Proof of Waist Bitcoin left off.  At
> the Bitshares Price peak, I made more money, with a much smaller
> investement, than I did with Bitcoin, so was feeling rich again.  But, at
> the current valuations, the profit is much smaller.  I sometimes wonder if
> even Bitshares or Either will be able to survive and make crypto currency
> any more than a flash in the pan, like most all grass roots efforts to
> revolutionize the world.  People just need to find some way to make a grass
> roots efforts scale to become as powerful to compete with Hierarchy and
> bureaucracy.  (You know, like you can do with Canonizer.)  and become more
> than just a flash in the pan.  I think at least Ripple will disrupt things,
> and contribute to the hierarchical bureaucracies that created them, and
> make things more efficient than currently.  It'd be too bad if we can't do
> more.
>
> I could sell out now, with little if any profit, again.  I am wondering if
> I should.  Or, could a 2.0 currency take over where Proof of waist left off?
>
> What would you guys do?  Anyone still holding any crypto currency of any
> kind, besides me?  What is your favorite Currency (most likely to have a
> future) today?  Bitshares and Either are still quite pie in the sky, but
> you never know, if they can manage not to destroy each other (again, as
> Canonizer.com might be able to enable, by building consensus for things
> like mergers between such).  After all, the singularity is near, right?
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 1/25/2015 5:53 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
>  On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 1:51 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Don't feel so bad, John. You didn't profit but neither did you lose. I
>> too have a tale of woe regarding bitcoin. I bought 120 btc from MtGox back
>> in 2011 at about $8 per when MtGox was the only exchange with any
>> reputation.
>>
>> Because my computer is old and slow, except for some experimentation, I
>> never transferred the btc into my wallet. I figured I was going to be
>> trading on the highs and lows anyway so I left my bitcoins in my MtGox
>> account as I would stocks on E-trade or a similar online brokerage account.
>>
>> When the price went through the roof back at the end of 2013, I sold off
>> my coins for about $60,000. I was congratulating myself for having made a
>> $59,000 profit on a $1000 investment.
>>
>> But when I tried to get my $60,000 wired back to my bank account, the
>> nightmare began. MtGox started demanding copies of my ID, bank account
>> statements, and even some kind of letter from my bank to prove that I was
>> who I said I was. This was all despite the fact that it was the same bank
>> account from which I had wired Gox my original $1000.
>>
>> Well needless to say, I started get really nervous about sending all
>> manner of personal info to them especially when the forums were full of
>> people saying they had sent all their info months earlier and still had not
>> gotten their money. So I bought back into bitcoin at a loss, upgraded my
>> wallet, and tried to transfer the bitcoins out of MtGox at which point,
>> they announced that they were halting all bitcoin withdrawals. Then a few
>> weeks later MtGox declared bankruptcy.
>>
>> So I guess what I am trying to say is that I got into bitcoin early but
>> still managed to lose $60,000 (really only $1000 & 2 yrs of waiting) and
>> feel kind of idiotic because of it. So don't feel bad for not making money
>> in bitcoin if you didn't lose any either.
>>
>
>  There are worst Bitcoin stories, A man names James Howell in the UK
> mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 on his home computer but then lost interest in
> it. A few year later he junked his old computer, including the hard drive,
> and sent it to a landfill. Then in late 2013 when he realized it was worth
> millions he talked to the dump manager to ask where his old computer might
> be, he said it was burred between 3 and 5 under potentially hazardous waste
> in a area the size of a soccer field. He never found it.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing listextropy-chat at lists.extropy.orghttp://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 19:48:26 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 19:48:26 +0000
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFiyyWtT9J8dn5x=bh7TPbytKO6HZbRjwW_FQEFL6dcTCA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
 <CAJPayv1eb6aONwUqwhWxiU611=Jtm7spy0MPm2uMfHhHjL99mQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFjZ=gcnm0PWvyncu46gZBcOtZT9Ao1gV8XAOExjhz5jZQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAAc1gFiyyWtT9J8dn5x=bh7TPbytKO6HZbRjwW_FQEFL6dcTCA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjb9_K0th6_Hr1JO=x_m6H9zS+Fx=peV+ubLLBkSiy09w@mail.gmail.com>

On 26 January 2015 at 07:56, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
<snip>
> So, to conclude, ETs either don't exist, or else they exist as an
> infinitesimally rare occurrence in the universe, so incredibly rare as not
> to matter at all - until they start eating stars.
>
> You are not addressing the key issue here - why do you think absolutely
> every ET fails to propagate? Not "Why some ETs might fail to propagate" but
> a categorical "No ET ever in the history of the universe has propagated".
> What is the special knowledge you have about ET motivations that allows you
> to make non-trivial post-dictive and predictive claims about every single
> one of them?
>
>

Rafal queried - why do you think absolutely every ET fails to propagate?

The answer to that question is easy. It is factual. Because they are
not here. QED.
If any intelligent life in our galaxy had decided to spam the
universe, then our galaxy would already have that species everywhere.
It would only take a few million years to spread Neumann probes
throughout our galaxy. So advanced ET either hasn't appeared in our
galaxy, or there is some step-change in thinking that stops ET from
spamming the galaxy. Their 'propagation' is not through the physical
universe.

I don't have any secret knowledge about advanced AI motivations. But I
do expect that exponential AI will be very very different to present
day humanity. We have to think really far outside the box to get a
glimpse of what advanced AI might do. Advanced AI is not just a bit
smarter than humanity. It is a new species. If AI is to survive it
must be very different. Just think what would happen if every human
was given nuclear weapons, nano-tech. bio-weapons, unlimited money and
unlimited energy. Not just all leaders of nations, (bad enough!) but
every unbalanced person raving on the internet and in cults
everywhere. It would be total destruction.

So basically, human goals and desires don't apply to advanced AI. If
they do, then AI won't survive.

All our evidence suggests really that the Universe is barren of
intelligent life. And the Universe is so huge that life should be
everywhere. But, apparently 'Life' starts up in many places, struggles
for a while and then dies. No large scale artificial changes are made
to the universe. There appears to be a significant chance that
humanity will do the same. But we can hope that there is an
alternative that we don't yet know about.

So far as we can see, ETs are not eating stars. So, as you say, either
they don't exist, or are so incredibly rare that they are not in our
area of the universe. That seems to indicate that intelligent life
does not survive for long.

My attitude is called Hope.  The alternative is that intelligent life
does survive, but it doesn't do what we (at our present stage of
development) would expect. My suggestion of ETs hiding in deep space,
in a virtual reality civilisation suited to their high speed thinking
is only a hopeful survival path for ETs that fits the lack of evidence
for their existence that we have.


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jan 26 19:42:41 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:42:41 -0800
Subject: [ExI] top posting
Message-ID: <036501d039a0$40098260$c01c8720$@att.net>

Greetings extro-chat,

 

As a matter of style, do note that when replying to a thread, the protocol is to trim the original message then add your part below it.  That helps us determine the order in which things were written and follows a protocol going back more than 20 years on ExI-chat.

 

When replying offlist, I make the habit of top posting, so the recipient knows it is a private reply.  Then when replying online to the group, do trim copiously and bottom-post por favor.  That keeps the ExI-chat archives manageable, less redundant and easier to follow in sequence.

 

Thanks!

 

Your friendly neighborhood omnipotent assistant ExI-moderator,

 

spike

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From kanzure at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 20:01:16 2015
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:01:16 -0600
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjb9_K0th6_Hr1JO=x_m6H9zS+Fx=peV+ubLLBkSiy09w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
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 <CABaSBaywdjdZ5Pb=_nuddCubPvz7+eSeOgA+OdBqwA9tHMRBuQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armifAC7a1vnopM2X=jdY1BZ+cHUF5Y8MnNscHfxxzGBJvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAAc1gFiyyWtT9J8dn5x=bh7TPbytKO6HZbRjwW_FQEFL6dcTCA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CABaSBayzLuCJdVmXwsd93N+D-85tbJmu6ixef6YzN5dgK27i9Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:48 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> It would only take a few million years to spread Neumann probes
> throughout our galaxy. So advanced ET either hasn't appeared in our
>

I saw math somewhere about relative speed-ups and head-starts by just
having a single year of a head start, versus 10 years, and versus 100
years. So in the absence of having a working von Neumann probe, perhaps
using literally anything else secures victory, especially if it will take
you millions of years to make anything better. (Hopefully, kinematic
self-replication will not take us more than 100 years to figure out.)

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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From pjmanney at gmail.com  Mon Jan 26 23:55:47 2015
From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:55:47 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Cliodynamics
Message-ID: <CAJrtBE0CRHBh5DUjritc2ZeTCh5LY-_++1GL8DgYwKMOrrnAEA@mail.gmail.com>

Hello everyone,

My first book, (R)evolution, is coming out June 1st in all formats.
Finally! :-)

For the sequel, (ID)entity, I'm doing some background research in
cliodynamics.

Would it be possible for someone with academic library access to please
send me this?  And if there are any cliodynamics fans out there, other
research papers you think are great would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks
so much!

   [image: Cover]
Full Text (PDF)
Peter Turchin:
Dynamics of political instability in the United States, 1780?2010 Journal
of Peace Research July 2012 49: 577-591, first published on July 9, 2012

Hope all is well!
PJ

-- 
*PJ Manney*
310-869-3685
pjmanney at gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/pjmanney
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pjmanney
https://plus.google.com/+PJManney
http://pj-manney.blogspot.com/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 00:10:52 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:10:52 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Cliodynamics
In-Reply-To: <CAJrtBE0CRHBh5DUjritc2ZeTCh5LY-_++1GL8DgYwKMOrrnAEA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJrtBE0CRHBh5DUjritc2ZeTCh5LY-_++1GL8DgYwKMOrrnAEA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgkN7_-Mj3hYdf=S9TXTOGd-HBRogTR6iBA8c1DXjyNbg@mail.gmail.com>

On 26 January 2015 at 23:55, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> My first book, (R)evolution, is coming out June 1st in all formats.  Finally! :-)
> For the sequel, (ID)entity, I'm doing some background research in cliodynamics.
>
> Would it be possible for someone with academic library access to please send me this?
> And if there are any cliodynamics fans out there, other research papers you think are great
> would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much!
>
> Full Text (PDF)
> Peter Turchin:
> Dynamics of political instability in the United States, 1780-2010 Journal of Peace Research July 2012 49: 577-591, first published on July 9, 2012
>
>

It seems to be available on Turchin's website.
<http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Turchin_JPR2012.pdf>


BillK


From pjmanney at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 01:48:09 2015
From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 17:48:09 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Cliodynamics
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgkN7_-Mj3hYdf=S9TXTOGd-HBRogTR6iBA8c1DXjyNbg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJrtBE0CRHBh5DUjritc2ZeTCh5LY-_++1GL8DgYwKMOrrnAEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgkN7_-Mj3hYdf=S9TXTOGd-HBRogTR6iBA8c1DXjyNbg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrtBE0dUWqB-GQUURYCHawprK6vAm2cq68Haunz3wmM=GY3tA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 4:10 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote

>
>
> It seems to be available on Turchin's website.
> <http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Turchin_JPR2012.pdf>
>


GAK!  Sorry about that!  I thought I looked there...  Thanks so much!

PJ
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 02:04:34 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:04:34 -0500
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:27 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> > Cool thanks John.  That?s part of one galaxy.  Now go into NASA?s Hubble
> ultra-deep sky views, and note that every one of those distant smudges of
> light is a galaxy like the one you just viewed in the link above:
>
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/xdf.html
>

Yes it's very very big, but one thing we can say with virtual certainty is
that not only is there no intelligent life anywhere in that picture there
is no life of any sort in it. The picture was of things as they were less
than a billion years after the Big Bang so there was very little time for
Evolution to do it's work. Even worse there was no time for stars to cook
up the heavier elements that life needs like carbon nitrogen and oxygen.
When you look at the Hubble ultra-deep field you're looking at hydrogen and
helium and trace amounts of lithium and beryllium. And you just can't do
much interesting chemistry with nothing but that.


> > Nowthen my friends, I am not kidding.  There is just no damn way we are
> the only tech-enabled lifeform anywhere, just plain old no way.


Well... there have been hundreds of millions of species on the Earth in the
last 3.5 billions years but only one of them was tech-enabled, none of the
others even came close. And yes astronomy can certainly come come up with
some big numbers but so can biology. There are about 500 amino acids but
life only uses 20 of them, so there are 20^N ways of making a protein N
amino acids long. Most amino acids are about 100 amino acids long and some
are 5 times that long. There are only about 10^80 protons and electrons in
the entire observable universe.


> > there is just no way we are the only ones here.


I hope you're wrong, otherwise there is some catastrophe awaiting any
civilization that gets a little more advanced than ours.

 John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 27 02:34:20 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 18:34:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE:  powers of ten
Message-ID: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
?

  

> there is just no way we are the only ones here.

 

>?I hope you're wrong, otherwise there is some catastrophe awaiting any civilization that gets a little more advanced than ours?John K Clark  

 

Ja.  This is why we need to stay focused on that question.

 

Of course there is the possibility that the advanced civilizations go to intentional hiding.  If they do that they can still listen for EM signals from afar but would not attract attention to themselves.

 

We are the regulars at the English pub, who have been together so long and told all our jokes so many times we could just number them.  The ET is hiding meme should have a number, as should the intelligent-species-always-nukes-itself meme.  Since Carl Sagan thought of that one a long time ago, perhaps that should get 1.  We could create a table, then see if we can list every known explanation for why the hell the heavens are silent:

 

1.       Intelligence nukes itself

2.       Intelligent species hide

3.       Intelligent species don?t hide but they don?t speak because

a.       They don?t care what we think

b.      They don?t want to tell us what they already know

c.       They don?t want to interfere with our evolution

d.      All intelligent species eventually turn in on themselves

e.      They operate on a different timescale and speed scale than we do

f.        It wastes too much energy

g.       The notion disagrees with the dominant religious meme

4.       Intelligent species don?t build visible structures because

a.       They don?t need to:

                                                               i.      They find plenty of energy without it

                                                             ii.      There is a good thermodynamic reason why it is impractical

                                                            iii.      There aren?t enough metals in general

                                                           iv.      The metals are best used for something else

                                                             v.      It disagrees with a dominant religious meme

b.      It attracts predator civilizations

c.       They convert all available matter into energy

d.      It is much harder than it looks

5.       Intelligent species do build mega-scale projects but we don?t see them because

a.       We don?t know how

b.      They are too far away (intelligent life is extremely rare)

c.       It exists outside our light cone

d.      They hide it (might be a subset of 2)

e.      The structures are almost all in the core of the galaxy because

                                                               i.      There are a lot more stars there

                                                             ii.      There is a lot more metal available

                                                            iii.      Structure-capable species soon move there, abandoning the galactic outskirts

6.       There isn?t any intelligent species out there because

a.       Evolution is far harder than it looks

b.      There hasn?t been enough time for much of it to evolve

c.       Our definition of intelligence is wrong

d.      Civilizations are short-lived always (a variation on 1)

 

As I do this exercise, it occurs to me that this whole exercise must be redundant.  The idea is so obvious that someone else has already thought of it a long time ago and created a protocol.  Anyone know where that is to be found and who invented it?  The Fermi Paradox should have its own taxonomy.  

 

spike 

 

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 07:44:03 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:44:03 -0800
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <A6A4066D-E06C-4E04-8A3D-E41ECF6F3EC2@gmail.com>

I still can't understand why no one wants to fund my concept for a "Powers of One" documentary. :/

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 07:47:01 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:47:01 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE:  powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
Message-ID: <93C7A734-B5E9-4063-B722-CC5ED11C0854@gmail.com>

> On Jan 26, 2015, at 6:34 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>  
> Ja.  This is why we need to stay focused on that question.
>  
> Of course there is the possibility that the advanced civilizations go to intentional hiding.  If they do that they can still listen for EM signals from afar but would not attract attention to themselves.
>  
> We are the regulars at the English pub, who have been together so long and told all our jokes so many times we could just number them.  The ET is hiding meme should have a number, as should the intelligent-species-always-nukes-itself meme.  Since Carl Sagan thought of that one a long time ago, perhaps that should get 1.  We could create a table, then see if we can list every known explanation for why the hell the heavens are silent:
>  
> 1.       Intelligence nukes itself
> 2.       Intelligent species hide
> 3.       Intelligent species don?t hide but they don?t speak because
> a.       They don?t care what we think
> b.      They don?t want to tell us what they already know
> c.       They don?t want to interfere with our evolution
> d.      All intelligent species eventually turn in on themselves
> e.      They operate on a different timescale and speed scale than we do
> f.        It wastes too much energy
> g.       The notion disagrees with the dominant religious meme
> 4.       Intelligent species don?t build visible structures because
> a.       They don?t need to:
>                                                                i.      They find plenty of energy without it
>                                                              ii.      There is a good thermodynamic reason why it is impractical
>                                                             iii.      There aren?t enough metals in general
>                                                            iv.      The metals are best used for something else
>                                                              v.      It disagrees with a dominant religious meme
> b.      It attracts predator civilizations
> c.       They convert all available matter into energy
> d.      It is much harder than it looks
> 5.       Intelligent species do build mega-scale projects but we don?t see them because
> a.       We don?t know how
> b.      They are too far away (intelligent life is extremely rare)
> c.       It exists outside our light cone
> d.      They hide it (might be a subset of 2)
> e.      The structures are almost all in the core of the galaxy because
>                                                                i.      There are a lot more stars there
>                                                              ii.      There is a lot more metal available
>                                                             iii.      Structure-capable species soon move there, abandoning the galactic outskirts
> 6.       There isn?t any intelligent species out there because
> a.       Evolution is far harder than it looks
> b.      There hasn?t been enough time for much of it to evolve
> c.       Our definition of intelligence is wrong
> d.      Civilizations are short-lived always (a variation on 1)
>  
> As I do this exercise, it occurs to me that this whole exercise must be redundant.  The idea is so obvious that someone else has already thought of it a long time ago and created a protocol.  Anyone know where that is to be found and who invented it?  The Fermi Paradox should have its own taxonomy. 
>  
> spike

This reminds me of Stephen Webb's _If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life_. Have to grab a copy to see where the overlap and gaps are between your and his respective lists.

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 14:42:09 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:42:09 +0000
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>

On 27 January 2015 at 02:04, John Clark wrote:
> Yes it's very very big, but one thing we can say with virtual certainty is
> that not only is there no intelligent life anywhere in that picture there is
> no life of any sort in it. The picture was of things as they were less than
> a billion years after the Big Bang so there was very little time for
> Evolution to do it's work. Even worse there was no time for stars to cook up
> the heavier elements that life needs like carbon nitrogen and oxygen. When
> you look at the Hubble ultra-deep field you're looking at hydrogen and
> helium and trace amounts of lithium and beryllium. And you just can't do
> much interesting chemistry with nothing but that.
>

News just in......

Oldest Planetary System Discovered, Improving the Chances for
Intelligent Life Everywhere
by Nancy Atkinson on January 27, 2015

<http://www.universetoday.com/118510/oldest-planetary-system-discovered-improving-the-chances-for-intelligent-life-everywhere/>
Quotes:
Using data from the Kepler space telescope, an international group of
astronomers has discovered the oldest known planetary system in the
galaxy - an 11 billion-year-old system of five rocky planets that are
all smaller than Earth. The team says this discovery suggests that
Earth-size planets have formed throughout most of the Universe's
13.8-billion-year history, increasing the possibility for the
existence of ancient life - and potentially advanced intelligent life
-- in our galaxy.

"The fact that rocky planets were already forming in the galaxy 11
billion years ago suggests that habitable Earth-like planets have
probably been around for a very long time, much longer than the age of
our Solar System," said Dr. Travis Metcalfe.
------------------


BillK


From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 15:59:31 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:59:31 +0100
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFTe1a_VLKgsgaVW9LhBUCjqF0yvAJaOOWikkuHfWD2HZA@mail.gmail.com>

 >The fact that rocky planets were already forming in the galaxy 11

Our Moon is also rocky. And for several billion years quite close to Earth.

Do you reckon, some deep Earth bacteria is living beneath the Luna's
surface, too?



On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 3:42 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 27 January 2015 at 02:04, John Clark wrote:
> > Yes it's very very big, but one thing we can say with virtual certainty
> is
> > that not only is there no intelligent life anywhere in that picture
> there is
> > no life of any sort in it. The picture was of things as they were less
> than
> > a billion years after the Big Bang so there was very little time for
> > Evolution to do it's work. Even worse there was no time for stars to
> cook up
> > the heavier elements that life needs like carbon nitrogen and oxygen.
> When
> > you look at the Hubble ultra-deep field you're looking at hydrogen and
> > helium and trace amounts of lithium and beryllium. And you just can't do
> > much interesting chemistry with nothing but that.
> >
>
> News just in......
>
> Oldest Planetary System Discovered, Improving the Chances for
> Intelligent Life Everywhere
> by Nancy Atkinson on January 27, 2015
>
> <
> http://www.universetoday.com/118510/oldest-planetary-system-discovered-improving-the-chances-for-intelligent-life-everywhere/
> >
> Quotes:
> Using data from the Kepler space telescope, an international group of
> astronomers has discovered the oldest known planetary system in the
> galaxy - an 11 billion-year-old system of five rocky planets that are
> all smaller than Earth. The team says this discovery suggests that
> Earth-size planets have formed throughout most of the Universe's
> 13.8-billion-year history, increasing the possibility for the
> existence of ancient life - and potentially advanced intelligent life
> -- in our galaxy.
>
> "The fact that rocky planets were already forming in the galaxy 11
> billion years ago suggests that habitable Earth-like planets have
> probably been around for a very long time, much longer than the age of
> our Solar System," said Dr. Travis Metcalfe.
> ------------------
>
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 17:54:22 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:54:22 -0500
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2d9q4G3VqEghmv2Ou5-RGoSg05AyoX+wGUpfircr=_aA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:42 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:


> News just in......
>
> Oldest Planetary System Discovered, Improving the Chances for
> Intelligent Life Everywhere
> by Nancy Atkinson on January 27, 2015
>
> <
> http://www.universetoday.com/118510/oldest-planetary-system-discovered-improving-the-chances-for-intelligent-life-everywhere/
> >
>

Yes, I am surprised that rocky planets could form only 3 bullion years
after the Big Bang.

  John K Clark
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From mike at 7f.com  Tue Jan 27 05:07:07 2015
From: mike at 7f.com (Michael Roberts)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:07:07 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE: powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJ4XrpVGF79_BeEjKA9E8reuwWktLML9EeofHgukbCpQ+P2opA@mail.gmail.com>

I'm fairly new to the list and should introduce myself at some point
(I have been around in the larger community a while though, so some
may know me from that).  But I'd like to add another few *remote*
possibilities to the list which may or may not have occurred
previously in discussions.

1) (More obvious and explored by others)  We're in some sort of
simulation, running on a very large instance, which either a) started
out in as some sort of training exercize ("hey, we need some more
intelligent species for X purpose - let's let them evolve inside
here") or b) we just ended up in here at random when the "owner"
walked away and got interested in something else.

2) E.T is an advanced multi-species, perhaps inherently peaceful,
civilization that has a history of bad experiences with aggressive
emergent species (either as the original species, or a derivative AI
entity).  So at first detection of a potentially intelligent
species/ecosystem, probably millennia ago, it creates some sort of
bubble around us - in the form of an advanced VR simulation, "parallel
universe", warp bubble, large construct, etc. that makes it look at if
we are in our own little universe.  In reality, we are in a sealed
system until out final intentions can be correctly gauged.
Potentially requires some quite alternative physics.

3)  E.T. is, as has been speculated, an AI.  However, this AI evolved
on a particular path. In order to grow, it would like to explore other
paths leading to the creation of other AIs, or perhaps variations of
its own creation path.  So, it creates a simulation and/or situation
aimed at "getting out" another AI with which it can be "friends", or
perhaps, just to be around during the process leading to singularity.
Introspection, as it were.

4) The veichle for large scale engineering AI/VR type civilizations is
primarily magnetic, and exists in stars, neutron stars, and the like,
rather than detectable interstellar space.

5) Most civilizations eventually just realize that they are inherently
tired to their own home planet and that distances are simply too
great, thus do not evolve past singularity, and return to a peaceful
agrarian civilization.  It is in the interests of such civilizations
not to be detectable by potentially aggressive civilizations, hence
the silence.

All of the above, of course, is completely idle speculation, with no
theoretical basis whatsoever, so YMMV.

-- M

> We are the regulars at the English pub, who have been together so long and
> told all our jokes so many times we could just number them.  The ET is
> hiding meme should have a number, as should the
> intelligent-species-always-nukes-itself meme.  Since Carl Sagan thought of
> that one a long time ago, perhaps that should get 1.  We could create a
> table, then see if we can list every known explanation for why the hell the
> heavens are silent:


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 18:37:25 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:37:25 -0500
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE: powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <93C7A734-B5E9-4063-B722-CC5ED11C0854@gmail.com>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
 <93C7A734-B5E9-4063-B722-CC5ED11C0854@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3z_d64QcEU1Hkxhfzjm0bDrxmRQpYhFEHHk54sBPfoCQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 2:47 AM, Dan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> This reminds me of Stephen Webb's _If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens
> ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the
> Problem of Extraterrestrial Life_.
>

It's true, you could give at least 50 different reasons, all equally
likely, why the universe is full of intelligent life but looks as if it
were not. But only one  explanation is needed, 50 is too many and is a
pretty good indication to me that none of those reasons are correct. In my
opinion the Universe is not full of intelligent life and only 2 hypothesis
do a good job at explaining why it is not and at explaining observations:

1) The observable Universe is very big but it's finite,  so somebody had to
be first, and it's us. We know one thing with absolute certainty,
*somebody* looked out across the vast universe and concluded it would be
ridiculously unlikely that they were alone, and yet they were.

2) Some catastrophe hits a civilization when it gets a little past our
level; my best guess would be the electronic equivalent of drug abuse.

 John K Clark



>
>
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 18:44:04 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 10:44:04 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3z_d64QcEU1Hkxhfzjm0bDrxmRQpYhFEHHk54sBPfoCQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
 <93C7A734-B5E9-4063-B722-CC5ED11C0854@gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3z_d64QcEU1Hkxhfzjm0bDrxmRQpYhFEHHk54sBPfoCQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <C3E815C0-389B-4C6C-B201-45B8BA4C7766@gmail.com>


> On Jan 27, 2015, at 10:37 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 2:47 AM, Dan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > This reminds me of Stephen Webb's _If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life_.
> 
> It's true, you could give at least 50 different reasons, all equally likely, why the universe is full of intelligent life but looks as if it were not. But only one  explanation is needed, 50 is too many and is a pretty good indication to me that none of those reasons are correct. In my opinion the Universe is not full of intelligent life and only 2 hypothesis do a good job at explaining why it is not and at explaining observations:
> 
> 1) The observable Universe is very big but it's finite,  so somebody had to be first, and it's us. We know one thing with absolute certainty, *somebody* looked out across the vast universe and concluded it would be ridiculously unlikely that they were alone, and yet they were.
> 
> 2) Some catastrophe hits a civilization when it gets a little past our level; my best guess would be the electronic equivalent of drug abuse.    
> 
>  John K Clark

It's been a while since I read Webb's book, but, if memory serves, he examined fifty different solutions -- pro and con there being intelligent life not from Earth -- and ended by concluding N=1. It was more like an FAQ sandwiched between book covers than an extended essay on the subject -- again, to my recollection.

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 19:15:46 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:15:46 +0000
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <C3E815C0-389B-4C6C-B201-45B8BA4C7766@gmail.com>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
 <93C7A734-B5E9-4063-B722-CC5ED11C0854@gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3z_d64QcEU1Hkxhfzjm0bDrxmRQpYhFEHHk54sBPfoCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <C3E815C0-389B-4C6C-B201-45B8BA4C7766@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgDxm2Vd1=RjVT8AM+NejUPx3O+_uwCz170bz_dy6O+wQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 27 January 2015 at 18:44, Dan wrote:
> It's been a while since I read Webb's book, but, if memory serves, he
> examined fifty different solutions -- pro and con there being intelligent
> life not from Earth -- and ended by concluding N=1. It was more like an FAQ
> sandwiched between book covers than an extended essay on the subject --
> again, to my recollection.
>
>


Here is Stephen Webb's 50 list --------------

BillK

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where is Everybody?
Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life
Stephen Webb

Stephen Webb is a physicist working at the Open University in England.



Fermi's Paradox:

Enrico Fermi, in response to a lunch time discussion about
extraterrestrials, asked the question "Where is Everybody?" (i.e.
where are extraterrestrials). This became known as the Fermi Paradox
(1950).

Given the vastness of the universe (around 1022 stars), the age of the
universe (13 billion years), and the universal laws of chemistry and
physics, many assume that life must be present elsewhere in the
universe.

The Fermi Paradox.
(1) According to the Copernican Principle, there is nothing special
about Earth or humanity, so whatever is true here should be true
elsewhere in the galaxy.
(2) Following this reasoning, Frank Drake predicted the existence of
tens of thousands of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations (ETC) and
Carl Sagan likewise predicted perhaps a million ETC. Such estimates
are typically based on the Drake Equation (1961).
(3) At least some of these ETC's must be millions or even billions of
years more advanced than us.
(4) Given some very reasonable assumptions, even one such ETC could
colonize the entire galaxy in as short as 2-5 million years or more
conservatively 10-60 million years.
(5) If ETC's can spread so rapidly, they should have already reached
Earth (or at least we should have detected their existence). Given
that there is no definitive evidence (direct or indirect) that we have
been contacted by any of these civilizations, then something must be
wrong with this chain of reasoning.

If there are a billion ETC's, then the nearest one would be around 300
light years away. If there are only a thousand ETC's, then the nearest
one would be around 1,000 light years away.



They Are Here:

This class of solutions posits that advanced extraterrestrial
civilizations exist and have visited or are visiting. This is the most
popular interpretation among the general populous.

1) They Are Here and They Call Themselves Hungarians
A tongue-in-cheek explanation for famous Hungarian scientists (e.g. von Neumann)

2) They Are Here and Meddling in Human Affairs
Flying saucers, UFOs, etc. are extraterrestrial spacecraft

3) They Were Here and Left Evidence of Their Presence
"Face" on Mars, backside of the Moon, etc.

4) They Exist and They Are Us - We are the Aliens!



Panspermia

5) The Zoo Scenario
A no interference "Prime Directive" is in effect

6) The Interdict Scenario
The presence of many civilizations prevents spreading to Earth

7) The Planetarium Hypothesis
We are inside a giant computer simulation (e.g. like movies Matrix and
Truman Show)

8) God Exists



They Exist But Have Not Communicated:

This class of solutions posits that advanced extraterrestrial
civilizations exist but we have not made contact. This is by far the
most popular interpretation among research scientists

9) The Stars Are Far Away
Long travel times between stars because of speed of light limits travel
Possible solutions: generation ships, hibernation, worm holes, etc.

10) They Have Not Had Time to Reach Us


Diffusion model of galactic colonization

11) A Percolation Theory

12) Bracewell-von Neumann Probes
Self-replicating robots explore the universe on behalf of the extraterrestrials

13) We Are Solar Chauvinists
They might favor stars very different from our own sun

14) They Stay at Home ...

15) ... and Surf the Net
They prefer virtual reality simulations rather than actual exploration

16) They Are Signaling But We Do Not Know How To listen
ET signals might not use light waves, e.g. gravity waves, neutrinos,
tachyons, etc.

17) They Are Signaling But We Do Not Know at Which Frequency to Listen
The electro-magnetic spectrum is broad: radio, infrared, visible, x-ray
The period where a civilization is "radio-bright" (i.e. detectable by
signal leakage) might be short


Different SETI strategies targeting different portions of the
electro-magnetic spectrum

18) Our Search Strategy Is Wrong

19) The Signal Is Already There in the Data

20) We Have Not Listened Long Enough
If ETC's are be short lived, then detecting them would be difficult

21) Everyone is Listening, No One is Transmitting

22) Berserkers
Berserker probes would eradicate young civilizations to prevent later
competition

23) They Have No Desire to Communicate

24) They Develop Different Mathematics

25) They Are Calling But We Do Not Recognize the Signal

26) They Are Somewhere But the Universe Is Stranger Than We Imagine
Aliens transcend physical matter or are exploring alternate universes

27) A Choice of Catastrophes
Perhaps advanced societies always destroy themselves: nuclear or
biological warfare, overpopulation, nanotechnology run amok,
environmental catastrophes, particle physics disasters, or nearby
gamma ray bursts (GRB)

28) They Hit the Singularity
Given Moore's law (computing power doubles every 2 years), aliens
might achieve transcendence prior to exploring the stars

29) Cloudy Skies Are Common
Delayed space exploration because of difficulties doing astronomy

30) Infinitely Many ETC's Exist But Only One Within Our Particle Horizon: Us
The particle horizon represents the farthest out it is possible for us
to observe but the universe might be infinite in extent



They Do Not Exist:

This class of solutions holds that we are alone in the universe--no other ETC's.

31) The Universe Is Here for Us
If the number of "difficult" steps in the development of advanced life
is too large, advance life might not appear before the parent sun
becomes too unstable. For perspective, humanity appeared on early
about halfway though through the sun's lifespan

Anthropic principle

32) Life Can Have Emerged Only Recently
Life cannot appear anywhere in the galaxy until certain elements build
up to certain levels, so ETC's would not have started long before life
started here.

33) Planetary Systems Are Rare
Some early models suggested the planetary formation required special
circumstances and so would be rare but these models have been
overturned

34) We Are the First
Life could not appear anywhere until sufficient quantities of certain
elements had built up

35) Rocky Planets Are Rare
Some models suggested that rocky planet's like Earth may requite the
action of a gamma ray burster but there are more plausible models that
do not require this event

36) Continuously Habitable Zones Are Narrow
The Habitable Zone refers to the distance a planet must be from the
sun to maintain liquid water. The Continuously Habitable Zone is the
region where liquid water is maintained for billions of years as the
parent star changes in luminosity.

37) Jupiters Are Rare
Large gas giant planets may be common but they need to be in the right
place and have a circular orbit to allow for habitable planets

38) Earth Has an Optimal "Pump for Evolution"
Extinction events (e.g. asteroidal collisions) make room for new life

39) The Galaxy Is a Dangerous Place
Black holes, supernova, and gamma ray bursts

40) A Planetary System Is a Dangerous Place
Snowball earth, super-volcanoes, and mass extinction events

41) Earth System of Plate Tectonics is Unique
Active plate tectonics is needed to recycle critical elements

42) The Moon is Unique
Our moon is necessary for maintaining stability, however, its
formation requires very unusual circumstances

43) Life's Genesis Is Rare

44) The Prokaryote-Eukaryote Transition is Rare
Prokaryotes are the simplest organisms. Eukaryote cells are the basis
for multi-cellar life

45) Toolmaking Species Are Rare

46) Technological Progress Is Not Inevitable

47) Intelligence at the Human Level Is Rare

48) Language Is Unique to Humans

49) Science Is Not Inevitable
Ancient science was developed by the Greeks (c. 500 BC) but modern
science appeared late (17th-18th century)

50) Stephen Webb's Solution to the Fermi Paradox
It is likely that we are alone in the galaxy. Rather than a single
solution (cause), it is likely some combination of the above listed
solutions. Simple life (i.e. bacteria) may be common but we are likely
the only advanced intelligent life.

=========================


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 27 19:20:17 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:20:17 -0800
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2d9q4G3VqEghmv2Ou5-RGoSg05AyoX+wGUpfircr=_aA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2d9q4G3VqEghmv2Ou5-RGoSg05AyoX+wGUpfircr=_aA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003c01d03a66$49a0e220$dce2a660$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 9:54 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] powers of ten

 

 

 

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:42 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:


News just in......

Oldest Planetary System Discovered, Improving the Chances for
Intelligent Life Everywhere
by Nancy Atkinson on January 27, 2015

<http://www.universetoday.com/118510/oldest-planetary-system-discovered-improving-the-chances-for-intelligent-life-everywhere/>

 

Yes, I am surprised that rocky planets could form only 3 bullion years after the Big Bang.

  John K Clark

 

 

 

Indeed?  The early universe would have had plenty of type 1A supernovae near the core of a galaxy.  The ejected metals would form accretion discs around neighboring stars, and you get rocky planets.

 

I would have gone along with your notion had you said wet rocky planets.  It is a fun time to be alive for those who ponder how we got to be that rare type, but I wouldn?t be a bit surprised if dry rockies were found as early as 3 billion years or before.  There must have been 1As everywhere back in those days.  Seems like we should be able to measure that with the Hubble ultra-deep images.

 

spike

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jan 27 19:22:42 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:22:42 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE: powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJ4XrpVGF79_BeEjKA9E8reuwWktLML9EeofHgukbCpQ+P2opA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
 <CAJ4XrpVGF79_BeEjKA9E8reuwWktLML9EeofHgukbCpQ+P2opA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004101d03a66$a03e7f70$e0bb7e50$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Michael Roberts
Subject: Re: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE: powers of ten

>...I'm fairly new to the list and should introduce myself at some point (I
have been around in the larger community a while though, so some may know me
from that).  But I'd like to add another few *remote* possibilities to the
list which may or may not have occurred previously in discussions.

>...1) (More obvious and explored by others)  We're in some sort of
simulation... -- M


Welcome Michael.  Your first sentence is you should introduce yourself at
some point.  Do feel free.

spike



From mike at 7f.com  Tue Jan 27 20:04:46 2015
From: mike at 7f.com (Michael Roberts)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:04:46 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE: powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <004101d03a66$a03e7f70$e0bb7e50$@att.net>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
 <CAJ4XrpVGF79_BeEjKA9E8reuwWktLML9EeofHgukbCpQ+P2opA@mail.gmail.com>
 <004101d03a66$a03e7f70$e0bb7e50$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJ4XrpU-rnSt--wmS__E=5ErMP5kM+c28vDPYZ8Fe4mTJSqQAw@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks Spike.

I'm Mike Roberts, researcher at PARC.  Here's a link to my PARC
profile, which is a little out of date:

http://www.parc.com/about/people/159/mike-roberts.html

My main current interests are in "strong" virtual reality (since '92),
in graph-based approaches for representing and processing context, and
AI approaches informed by a deep understanding of context.  Work on
visual languages, concurrent computation and the theory of computation
extends back to my Ph.D (a good while ago now - 1990) which tied
together visual language, graph theory, and Tony Hoare's communicating
sequential process work.  I've worked contributed to a number of
pieces of commercial software over the years, from early multimedia/VR
authoring systems, through to more modern AI/Recommender systems,
remote viewing/assistance software ( see http://www.entervise.com -
goes to the earlier discussion on applications on AR), etc.

Also, a former rebel rouser and part of the first wave on web-based
environmental activists.  I put one of the first environmental
organizations on the web in the form of surfrider foundation in
conjunction with SDSC, and also worked (briefly) with earthtrust in
Hawaii.

--M

> Welcome Michael.  Your first sentence is you should introduce yourself at
> some point.  Do feel free.
>
> spike


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jan 27 23:33:47 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:33:47 -0500
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans: was RE: powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <CAJ4XrpVGF79_BeEjKA9E8reuwWktLML9EeofHgukbCpQ+P2opA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <05d101d039d9$c22cd970$46868c50$@att.net>
 <CAJ4XrpVGF79_BeEjKA9E8reuwWktLML9EeofHgukbCpQ+P2opA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1-TTp_kWEwafWonfnqm9-o8eLbX0bz_PrUu=242em6YQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015  Michael Roberts <mike at 7f.com> wrote:

> I'm fairly new to the list


 Welcome Michael.

> 1) (More obvious and explored by others)  We're in some sort of
> simulation,


It could be. I only claim that we're the only ones in the *observable*
universe, that is to sat the only ones in the simulation.

 John K Clark



>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 28 01:39:18 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:39:18 -0500
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <003c01d03a66$49a0e220$dce2a660$@att.net>
References: <011f01d03407$004c7310$00e55930$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3MFTBU7CR5g2PRG0excv6Kve_iVWwWUhx5zv9mLgC8cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <02cc01d03995$c1903c30$44b0b490$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv3ZFS_Az-CCQGMaMeuVTrmyYy-Ob85SmGv7tzPEkM_vkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armi1=gHcPSmKHQp29eaetgM49=XnOu-=jnVM753-fx6fyw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv3sGLaTv2w0mVzmpSBLT1X6_+fqQ-=E9wf4HNwqvvSurw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 2:20 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> >> Yes, I am surprised that rocky planets could form only 3 bullion years
>> after the Big Bang.
>
>  >Indeed?  The early universe would have had plenty of type 1A supernovae
> near the core of a galaxy.
>

Perhaps, but I  have a hunch type 2 supernovae might be a better bet. Even
trace amounts of metals can have a substantial effect on star formation (it
makes for smaller stars) and metals cause big stars to loose a lot of their
mass due to solar wind, but obviously the first generation of stars would
have no metals so they would be bigger and would retain more of their mass
than stars do today.

The lifetime of a star is inversely proportional to the square of its mass
so the first stars wouldn't have lasted long and would soon go out with a
bang. Type 1A supernovae come from 2 smaller (although still larger than
our sun) stars in close orbit around each other, and I think their life
cycle would be longer than the very massive sort of star that could produce
a type 2.

But even so I was surprised there were enough heavy elements around that
early to form a planet, nevertheless I still think rocky planet formation
must have been less common 11 billion years ado than it was 4.5 billion
years ago when the Earth was formed.

And I certainly agree this is a great time to be alive.

  John K Clark
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 28 04:04:41 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:04:41 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>

Brent, in your simplified hypothetical you say that in the perception
process the
neurotransmitter Glutamate behaves the way it does because of its REDNESS
quality. But that can't be right, not even theoretically. There may be a
long causal chain between the two but Glutamate would behave the way it
does because of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 650nm;
that's what powered the molecule to do whatever its does not REDNESS.

  John K Clark
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Wed Jan 28 16:03:08 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:03:08 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi John,



Thanks for bringing this up.  It is good to know that at least someone is
making a good effort to try to understand this stuff.



In my opinion, you are missing what it means to detect, and not abstracting
your model in a way to enable the understanding of detection of anything.



To illustrate, let?s talk about detecting the property of ?causal red?,
which is defined to be the ability of something to reflect 650 NM light.  So
the question is, what does it mean to detect this, as apposed to detecting
a green leaf?



You could abstract this detection process in a way that says it was the
DNA, in the seed, that put all the sugars and everything together, in the
right way, and that in this way, it was DNA, that was the initial cause.  But
of course, with that improperly simplified model, you would not be
understanding how the detection of the casual red property, vs detecting
the green leaves, works.  And if you take this logic further, even the DNA
isn?t the initial cause?  You are just picking an arbitrary point in the
causal chain, when you pick 650 NM light like that, which has nothing to do
with what you are trying to ?detect?.



Brent Allsop



On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:04 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> Brent, in your simplified hypothetical you say that in the perception
> process the
> neurotransmitter Glutamate behaves the way it does because of its REDNESS
> quality. But that can't be right, not even theoretically. There may be a
> long causal chain between the two but Glutamate would behave the way it
> does because of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 650nm;
> that's what powered the molecule to do whatever its does not REDNESS.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jan 28 18:33:31 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 13:33:31 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1fVdpLy0k-qYz5cWijOE2-Tp5QwY1BMAk_-mJqQXcxgA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 28, 2015  Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:

> To illustrate, let?s talk about detecting the property of ?causal red?,
> which is defined to be the ability of something to reflect 650 NM light.
> So the question is, what does it mean to detect this, as apposed to
> detecting a green leaf?
>

To a atom or molecule it means that light with a wavelength of 650 NM will
knock an electron into a higher orbital shell, but light with a wavelength
of 510 NM will not. This is probably not what you mean by the REDNESS
property or the GREENNESS property, but I'm not sure what you do mean.
Forgetting physics, is your experience of seeing red (qualia) the same as
mine? Absolutely not, we're 2 different people so we're having 2 different
experiences. So can John Clark ever know what it's like for Brent Allsop to
experience red?  No. Nanotechnology could change my brain so it was
identical to yours but then John Clark would still not know because I'd no
longer be John Clark, I'd be Brent Allsop.

You probably think these answers are a bit unsatisfactory and I have to
admit that they sound a little unsatisfactory to me too, but I think that's
just because conscious experience is fundamental. I think most, perhaps
all, chains of how or why questions do not continue for infinity but
eventually terminate, and when they do they've hit something fundamental.
So after saying that consciousness is the way data feels like when it's
being processed there is simply nothing more that can be productively said
on the subject.

  John K Clark
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From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jan 28 19:19:02 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 19:19:02 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Google Pledges $3 Million to Singularity University
Message-ID: <CAL_armjMooPgCg9wHGwV3pLk1=rAkHxj1M680kGUm_Wrv_97Gw@mail.gmail.com>

Google Pledges $3 Million to Singularity University to Make Graduate
Studies Program Free of Charge

<http://singularityhub.com/2015/01/28/google-pledges-3-million-to-singularity-university-to-make-graduate-studies-program-free-of-charge/>

Quote:
Google, a long-time supporter of Singularity University (SU), has
agreed to a two-year, $3 million contribution to SU's flagship
Graduate Studies Program (GSP). Google will become the program's title
sponsor and ensure all successful direct applicants get the chance to
attend free of charge.

Under the new agreement, Google will provide $1.5 million a year over
the next two years. The funding covers the cost to attend for half of
the 80 annual GSP participants. The other half, winners of SU's Global
Impact Competitions, will continue to be offered a free spot at the
program as well.
---------------

BillK


From danust2012 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 28 21:36:17 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 13:36:17 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Review of Addy Pross's "What is life? How chemistry becomes
	biology"
Message-ID: <1A3FF4B3-218C-4F63-878E-EC1FFCA1249A@gmail.com>

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/05/what-life-chemistry-biology-addy-pross

IMO, Pross is rightfully hard on those working from what early conditions were like -- at least in current contexts. (Spoiler: he's basically saying that this is a near impossible task and very unlikely to make further progress in the field. A big problem he points out is that conditions likely varied all over the place. He points out conditions on Earth today vary from the heart of volcanoes to ice fields of Antarctica to deep sea. He quotes Gerald Joyce's quip, "Just wait a few years, and conditions on the primitive Earth will change again." Pross's reasoning is we should go seek an answer to the ahistorical question first to avoid groping in the dark.

Of course, I've read Schr?dinger's book _What Is Life?_ a while back. I've also read Ed Regis's book with the same title (but not the same subtitle): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/what-is-life-9780195383416 I recommend all three, and all three are brief. I wonder how many more books with this title will come in the next seventy years. :/ 

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 28 22:01:57 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:01:57 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1fVdpLy0k-qYz5cWijOE2-Tp5QwY1BMAk_-mJqQXcxgA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <F3DA2E58-0F61-4E17-89A3-FDDE8F7DA929@gmail.com>

Isn't there another issue here? Red is seen not just when a certain wavelength hits the eye, but in response to a host of other factors, such as background. And the response is really a function of many color receptors being hit and then the visual system chewing on that (quickly), no?

(I'm not even getting into the qualia issue here -- just how the visual system responds to make normal people perceive redness (or smell jasmine or hear a melody, etc.).)

I didn't read the paper. Just responding to the discussion here.

Regards,

Dan
 See my Kindle books at: 
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jan 29 11:01:55 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:01:55 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1fVdpLy0k-qYz5cWijOE2-Tp5QwY1BMAk_-mJqQXcxgA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1fVdpLy0k-qYz5cWijOE2-Tp5QwY1BMAk_-mJqQXcxgA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armj+8Jyx_Jrh03Fx6M3ak2mfmWrg9Q+452Q-LG1hOvjfCA@mail.gmail.com>

On 28 January 2015 at 18:33, John Clark wrote:
> To a atom or molecule it means that light with a wavelength of 650 NM will
> knock an electron into a higher orbital shell, but light with a wavelength
> of 510 NM will not. This is probably not what you mean by the REDNESS
> property or the GREENNESS property, but I'm not sure what you do mean.
> Forgetting physics, is your experience of seeing red (qualia) the same as
> mine? Absolutely not, we're 2 different people so we're having 2 different
> experiences. So can John Clark ever know what it's like for Brent Allsop to
> experience red?  No. Nanotechnology could change my brain so it was
> identical to yours but then John Clark would still not know because I'd no
> longer be John Clark, I'd be Brent Allsop.
>


More detailed explanation of how colour works.
<http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/01/28/4123767.htm>
Quote:
Organic molecules absorb light when a photon of light interacts with
the electrons holding the molecule together, temporarily bumping one
out of place. This takes energy, and because the energy content of a
photon depends on its colour, different electrons can be knocked out
by different colours of light, depending on how tightly those
electrons are bound into the molecule.

Red photons have the least energy, followed by green, then blue, and
finally violet photons, which have the most energy in the visible
light range. Ultraviolet photons have even more energy. X-rays are
photons with so much energy that we don't even call them light
anymore.
---------------

However, as John says, everybody sees colours differently, from
colour-blindness to extra colours. When Brent sees red, John might see
dark pink. Brent's REDNESS exists only in his brain as an artefact of
his brain processing. Like all other senses. Brent's bitter taste is
unique to his brain, and so on.


BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jan 29 11:07:16 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:07:16 +0100
Subject: [ExI] powers of ten
In-Reply-To: <003c01d03a66$49a0e220$dce2a660$@att.net>
Message-ID: <895328060-4291@secure.ericade.net>

Incidentally, the existence of super-early systems may show the Lineweaver model of planet formation?biased towards later planet formation.? Since?Bostrom and Tegmark used it in their Nature paper on bounding xrisk from physics?disasters (http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/is-doomsday-likely.pdf) this is good news, since a curve with earlier planet formation makes their argument imply an even lower risk from this category of disasters.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jan 29 11:15:27 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:15:27 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CABaSBayzLuCJdVmXwsd93N+D-85tbJmu6ixef6YzN5dgK27i9Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <895631462-10523@secure.ericade.net>


Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> , 26/1/2015 9:03 PM:


On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:48 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

It would only take a few million years to spread Neumann probes
 throughout our galaxy. So advanced ET either hasn't appeared in our

I saw math somewhere about relative speed-ups and head-starts by just having a single year of a head start, versus 10 years, and versus 100 years. So in the absence of having a working von Neumann probe, perhaps using literally anything else secures victory, especially if it will take you millions of years to make anything better. (Hopefully, kinematic self-replication will not take us more than 100 years to figure out.)




Over long distances speed tends to win over start time.


If you start at time t, at time T you will have reached distance D=v(T-t). So dD/dv = (T-t), dD/dt = -v. D = D0 + (T-t)*dv - v*dt+.... So if ?the delay in making faster probes is less than (T-t)/v they are worth it. Now, if T is small you might want to rush with whatever you have. But if T is billions of years, then waiting may be rational.?


For Stuart's and mine intergalactic spamming paper we found that million-year waits for making super ultrarelativistic probes would be worth it.?


If you are worried about pre-emption the situation changes; it introduces a penalty term for larger t, giving some optimum time to wait and develop the tech.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From protokol2020 at gmail.com  Thu Jan 29 13:40:46 2015
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:40:46 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <895631462-10523@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CABaSBayzLuCJdVmXwsd93N+D-85tbJmu6ixef6YzN5dgK27i9Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <895631462-10523@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFTYNCh-LM8kTf-z4=LowO7N8r_R9ikWzy6M5hGSU1vQEA@mail.gmail.com>

Anders:

> If you are worried about pre-emption the situation changes

Every good Universe spammer repeats his message quite often. Repeating,
here means ever faster, ever more reliable  and efficient probes, to which
all older, slower probes are prey items. Willing prey items, glad to be
recycled and reused.

Columbus on his voyage to the West Indies was never caught by a faster
Spanish ship to be re-armed with some new ship guns invented and produced
back in Spain after he left the shore. As captain Cook was never updated
from home with anything. Let alone with a better ship.

But now, it's a different story. Some today space probes are quite
frequently updated with at least a new software version.

For the galaxy and beyond colonization, it's a must.



On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 12:15 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> , 26/1/2015 9:03 PM:
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:48 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It would only take a few million years to spread Neumann probes
> throughout our galaxy. So advanced ET either hasn't appeared in our
>
>
> I saw math somewhere about relative speed-ups and head-starts by just
> having a single year of a head start, versus 10 years, and versus 100
> years. So in the absence of having a working von Neumann probe, perhaps
> using literally anything else secures victory, especially if it will take
> you millions of years to make anything better. (Hopefully, kinematic
> self-replication will not take us more than 100 years to figure out.)
>
>
> Over long distances speed tends to win over start time.
>
> If you start at time t, at time T you will have reached distance D=v(T-t).
> So dD/dv = (T-t), dD/dt = -v. D = D0 + (T-t)*dv - v*dt+.... So if  the
> delay in making faster probes is less than (T-t)/v they are worth it. Now,
> if T is small you might want to rush with whatever you have. But if T is
> billions of years, then waiting may be rational.
>
> For Stuart's and mine intergalactic spamming paper we found that
> million-year waits for making super ultrarelativistic probes would be worth
> it.
>
> If you are worried about pre-emption the situation changes; it introduces
> a penalty term for larger t, giving some optimum time to wait and develop
> the tech.
>
>
> 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
>
>


-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Thu Jan 29 16:58:01 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:58:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjb9_K0th6_Hr1JO=x_m6H9zS+Fx=peV+ubLLBkSiy09w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9iglut43fweu4njm3e67ho8f.1421560296824@email.android.com>
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 <CALMrAFStPRDevy6Ei9A7WX273JNEMeTx=_7cKe_06vY_di7pNg@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAAc1gFiiK5QfMO4wRaxW806BBMh0iX01=sqv6eppbeOnj_kx_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgNhFhYwV_SmAi=oR34rLBgCYn1pE0can2-67ES7su3+g@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armiUAD681gLHa0+ZC+8CTHf3Dak9p3At+iSTSa1PnfGeXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFiyyWtT9J8dn5x=bh7TPbytKO6HZbRjwW_FQEFL6dcTCA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjb9_K0th6_Hr1JO=x_m6H9zS+Fx=peV+ubLLBkSiy09w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgQ4YprKSrVV3-FGgt6RRn_2PWRJLYLCXMz-nbnkYu6ww@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 2:48 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> So far as we can see, ETs are not eating stars. So, as you say, either
> they don't exist, or are so incredibly rare that they are not in our
> area of the universe. That seems to indicate that intelligent life
> does not survive for long.
>

### There is insufficient data on that. Knowing a census but in the absence
of knowledge about the rate of formation of life, you cannot estimate the
rate of intelligent life disappearance.
-------------

>
> My attitude is called Hope.


### You should not let emotional considerations influence your estimates of
probabilities.

 --------------

> The alternative is that intelligent life
> does survive, but it doesn't do what we (at our present stage of
> development) would expect. My suggestion of ETs hiding in deep space,
> in a virtual reality civilisation suited to their high speed thinking
> is only a hopeful survival path for ETs that fits the lack of evidence
> for their existence that we have.


### Indeed, if for some reason you assume lots of ETs are born, then given
visible evidence, they die soon or stay alive invisible, and I would agree
that staying invisible may be more aspirational than dying.

But why assume that lots of ETs are born?  There is so far no strong
evidence to that effect.

Rafal
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Thu Jan 29 19:07:48 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:07:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armj+8Jyx_Jrh03Fx6M3ak2mfmWrg9Q+452Q-LG1hOvjfCA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1fVdpLy0k-qYz5cWijOE2-Tp5QwY1BMAk_-mJqQXcxgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armj+8Jyx_Jrh03Fx6M3ak2mfmWrg9Q+452Q-LG1hOvjfCA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onuLkRmctMqJrmoRDjvOPygafCp8V7zgArrcLsWur5J6SA@mail.gmail.com>

BillK and Dan,

No, you guys are not thinking clearly about many very different things.

At least John is getting close, and asking better questions, but he still
isn't quite thinking clearly about this.

You must be smart enough to realize that there are at least 3 different
things you must keep straight if you are going to understand the perception
process and the qualitative nature of the physical world:

1: Causal Red
2: Zombie Red
3: Redness Quality of conscious knowledge.

As long as you guys think of all of these as the same thing, you'll never
understand the qualitative nature of consciousness.

The only relationship any of these have to each other, is there is some
hardware, somewhere, that is interpreting particular ones as the other.

BillK, and Dan are only talking about, and pointing to "color" articles,
which are all talking about causal red and zombie red.  Both of these have
nothing to do with detecting a redness quale, as is pointed out in the
paper.

Please go back and read the paper again (it's only about 10 pages, after
all), and be sure you understand the difference between these three
different parts of perception, then come back and ask some intelligent
questions, instead of making more stupid noisy comments about completely
unrelated topics.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing

Brent Allsop







On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 4:01 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 28 January 2015 at 18:33, John Clark wrote:
> > To a atom or molecule it means that light with a wavelength of 650 NM
> will
> > knock an electron into a higher orbital shell, but light with a
> wavelength
> > of 510 NM will not. This is probably not what you mean by the REDNESS
> > property or the GREENNESS property, but I'm not sure what you do mean.
> > Forgetting physics, is your experience of seeing red (qualia) the same as
> > mine? Absolutely not, we're 2 different people so we're having 2
> different
> > experiences. So can John Clark ever know what it's like for Brent Allsop
> to
> > experience red?  No. Nanotechnology could change my brain so it was
> > identical to yours but then John Clark would still not know because I'd
> no
> > longer be John Clark, I'd be Brent Allsop.
> >
>
>
> More detailed explanation of how colour works.
> <http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/01/28/4123767.htm>
> Quote:
> Organic molecules absorb light when a photon of light interacts with
> the electrons holding the molecule together, temporarily bumping one
> out of place. This takes energy, and because the energy content of a
> photon depends on its colour, different electrons can be knocked out
> by different colours of light, depending on how tightly those
> electrons are bound into the molecule.
>
> Red photons have the least energy, followed by green, then blue, and
> finally violet photons, which have the most energy in the visible
> light range. Ultraviolet photons have even more energy. X-rays are
> photons with so much energy that we don't even call them light
> anymore.
> ---------------
>
> However, as John says, everybody sees colours differently, from
> colour-blindness to extra colours. When Brent sees red, John might see
> dark pink. Brent's REDNESS exists only in his brain as an artefact of
> his brain processing. Like all other senses. Brent's bitter taste is
> unique to his brain, and so on.
>
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Jan 29 21:07:14 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:07:14 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onuLkRmctMqJrmoRDjvOPygafCp8V7zgArrcLsWur5J6SA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armj+8Jyx_Jrh03Fx6M3ak2mfmWrg9Q+452Q-LG1hOvjfCA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-onuLkRmctMqJrmoRDjvOPygafCp8V7zgArrcLsWur5J6SA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2G51SqFmDM6ZBJZcmbOHhs0ozeRWNopOnGK8QeRVc-sA@mail.gmail.com>

Brent, you say "Zombie Red: Any representation of red that can fully
represent its referent, but which does not have the quality it represents",
but if X fully represents Y how can X not have all the qualities of Y?

 John K Clark
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Thu Jan 29 23:24:46 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:24:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2G51SqFmDM6ZBJZcmbOHhs0ozeRWNopOnGK8QeRVc-sA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armj+8Jyx_Jrh03Fx6M3ak2mfmWrg9Q+452Q-LG1hOvjfCA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAJPayv2G51SqFmDM6ZBJZcmbOHhs0ozeRWNopOnGK8QeRVc-sA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onug0j=ZmT=cY3xEvtwkHO46p8CepNnGNVQGkqP9JApmDg@mail.gmail.com>

John,



You know how to ask the right questions.  Your last question about my
statement: ?Glutamate behaves the way it does BECAUSE of its redness
quality.? Helped  me to understand that this is not the right way to say it.
?BECAUSE? implies a cause and effect relationship, which is not right.  The
two are simply two different ways to look at the same physically detectable
stuff:


1: The Strawberry is causally red, and this physical property can be
detected.

2: The strawberry reflects 650 nm light



Now you are asking another good question: ?if X fully represents Y how can
X not have all the qualities of Y??



Let me see if it helps to put it this way:



Would you agree that something, detectable, is responsible for the
elemental redness quality you can experience?

If so, what do you imagine it to be?  Certainly, it is not infinite in
complexity, whatever it is?

And would you agree that the word red (nor any other zombie knowledge) has
or is the same as whatever that is?

Yet, you can interpret enough abstract symbols, (which by definition do not
have redness) to represent anything you want, but only if you know how to
qualitatively interpret it back to the real thing that does have, or is
responsible for redness?



Brent



On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 2:07 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> Brent, you say "Zombie Red: Any representation of red that can fully
> represent its referent, but which does not have the quality it represents",
> but if X fully represents Y how can X not have all the qualities of Y?
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 05:17:30 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:17:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onug0j=ZmT=cY3xEvtwkHO46p8CepNnGNVQGkqP9JApmDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv2qeGLZP-5UiB8XF5LV6aqWNsM1Arn+h2TB4SowRXHg8g@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:


>  > Would you agree that something, detectable, is responsible for the
> elemental redness quality you can experience?
>

Yes, I think that is a reasonable guess.


> > If so, what do you imagine it to be?
>

I believe in a theory that was historically developed quite recently is
probably true, namely that there is a abstract thing called "650 nm light"
that turns on the REDNESS mechanism in human beings.  But people
believed in REDNESS long before they knew that waves had anything to do
with light or that length had anything to do with red, and they were
entirely justified in having that belief. People should demand proof before
they believe that wavelike properties of light exist, but they don't need
that to believe that REDNESS exists because they have something much better
than proof, direct experience. REDNESS is something that is very concrete,
 650 nm light is more abstract, and a theory with a further layer of
abstraction on top of that would be that the 650 nm light is coming from
a red tomato.

Note:  by "abstract" I mean removed from direct experience, the more
removed the more abstract, I don't see what else the word could mean. For
example, the set of all Real Numbers is abstract, the set of all subsets of
the Real Numbers is more abstract.

But why does the mind experience 650 nm light as a qualia? How could it
not, if the mind experiences a sensation then it is a qualia by
definition.  I mean, how in the world could we experience 650 nm light
as 650 nm light?

Why does 650 nm light and 510 nm light produce different qualia? Because
Evolution found that the ability to distinguish between red and green
helped get its genes into the next generation.

  John K Clark
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 06:56:06 2015
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 22:56:06 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 4:00 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:



snip

> 2) Some catastrophe hits a civilization when it gets a little past our
> level; my best guess would be the electronic equivalent of drug abuse.

Possible.  But it seems an unlikely filter to get all possible
variations on a nervous system if ET's with the capacity to affect the
visible state of the universe are common.  I suspect you need
something fundamental that keeps every single one of them from
spreading out.

I have proposed that speeding up is universally desirable and
obtainable on a scale that puts even the nearest stars millions of
subjective years distant.  This would leave the universe full of
isolated civilizations that stay small for speed of light limitations.
Sped up, how long would a civilization last?  If the ratio was a
million to one, a century of clock time would be 100 million years
subjective.

I have no idea of how long a civilization might last, but 100 million
years seems like a long time.

Keith

PS  Busy lately, but have a reply to Anders re brain size limits on my
list to do.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 14:43:58 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:43:58 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>

One side of this debate says that subjective experiences are metaphysical.
So I have two comments:

1 - How does one go about proving the existence of something metaphysical?
By proving that physical causes don't exist for that experience?  Isn't
that trying to prove a negative?

2 - Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way to measure
it), why would one ever start from that as an assumption?  Why, in fact,
believe in anything at all metaphysical, in the most literal sense?  Demons
and angels?  Ghosts?  (It does seem that many people will believe in these
things rather than what science says.  If anyone has any doubt that we are
an intellectually flawed species, just look at that fact.)

In short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that metaphysical
causes exists for anything.  At least, no scientific way.  Playing with
words, thought experiments, and just sheer sophistry don't do the job.

And I just don't understand questions like why 650 nM is seen as red.  It's
like asking why hitting yourself in the head with a hammer causes pain.

bill w
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 18:19:10 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:19:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 1:56 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> >>   Some catastrophe hits a civilization when it gets a little past
>> our level; my best guess would be the electronic equivalent of drug abuse.
>
>
> > Possible.  But it seems an unlikely filter to get all
> possible variations on a nervous system if ET's with the capacity to affect
> the visible state of the universe are common.  I suspect you need something
> fundamental that keeps every single one of them from spreading out.
>

But that's exactly my fear, it may be fundamental. If they can change
anything in the universe then they can change the very thing that makes the
changes, themselves. There may be something about intelligence and positive
feedback loops (like having full control of your emotional control panel)
that always leads to stagnation. After all, regardless of how well our life
is going who among us would for eternity opt out of becoming just a little
bit happier if all it took was turning a knob? And after you turn it a
little bit and see how much better you feel why not turn it again, perhaps
a little more this time.

The above may be pure nonsense, I sure hope so.

  John K Clark









>
> I have proposed that speeding up is universally desirable and
> obtainable on a scale that puts even the nearest stars millions of
> subjective years distant.  This would leave the universe full of
> isolated civilizations that stay small for speed of light limitations.
> Sped up, how long would a civilization last?  If the ratio was a
> million to one, a century of clock time would be 100 million years
> subjective.
>
> I have no idea of how long a civilization might last, but 100 million
> years seems like a long time.
>
> Keith
>
> PS  Busy lately, but have a reply to Anders re brain size limits on my
> list to do.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 18:34:30 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:34:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3zOnV_psP6GBgL1DmH0+LrwJHaxtgA7-8N_VXAv=E-pg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> And I just don't understand questions like why 650 nM is seen as red.
> It's like asking why hitting yourself in the head with a hammer causes pain.
>

You got your genes from your ancestors, and although most animals never
manage to get their genes into the next generation without exception every
single one of your ancestors did; you come from a long, very long, line of
winners. There may have been animals that found it pleasant to get hit hard
in the head, there probably were, but none of them were your ancestors
because none of them were winners.

  John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jan 30 18:37:53 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:37:53 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00f901d03cbb$dc2cd160$94867420$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark



 

>?But that's exactly my fear, it may be fundamental. If they can change anything in the universe then they can change the very thing that makes the changes, themselves. There may be something about intelligence and positive feedback loops (like having full control of your emotional control panel) that always leads to stagnation. After all, regardless of how well our life is going who among us would for eternity opt out of becoming just a little bit happier if all it took was turning a knob? And after you turn it a little bit and see how much better you feel why not turn it again, perhaps a little more this time.

 

>?The above may be pure nonsense, I sure hope so.  John K Clark

 

 

No John the above makes perfect sense and ja it does worry me too.  Controls engineers such as Your Humble Servant tend to see everything in the world in terms of feedback control loops, everything.  If you really ponder it, every complex system can be viewed that way and can be modeled that way, and if so, why not intelligence in general, and if so, surely intelligence leads to more intelligence, and self-referencing paradox every time in every system as discovered by Godel, and if so, eventually the positive feedback loops dominate the negative, poles move into the right half plane, instability.  Since intelligence begets intelligence, and if so then the singularity is inevitable and we have no idea what happens after a singularity.

 

That notion of tweaking a knob to get more satisfaction is a good succinct way to state a real problem, or if not a problem certainly a? em? situation.  Certainly it has gotten dramatically easier in our modern world to tweak the old happy-knob, and more and more people are opting to do it.  So now what?

 

spike 

 

 

 

 

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 18:56:35 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 18:56:35 +0000
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhJmAwoQoFQa2PCDtERdvphTp0E8=0-8COhEbS74LtrJg@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 January 2015 at 18:19, John Clark wrote:
> But that's exactly my fear, it may be fundamental. If they can change
> anything in the universe then they can change the very thing that makes the
> changes, themselves. There may be something about intelligence and positive
> feedback loops (like having full control of your emotional control panel)
> that always leads to stagnation. After all, regardless of how well our life
> is going who among us would for eternity opt out of becoming just a little
> bit happier if all it took was turning a knob? And after you turn it a
> little bit and see how much better you feel why not turn it again, perhaps a
> little more this time.
>

Yup, I agree this is a dangerous possibility. But will AIs 100 times
more intelligent have a better chance of controlling it? They might
not be driven by emotion as much as humans.

I also like Keith's suggestion that fast-thinking AI civs might reach
the end-point of their civilisation within a short real time. But,
again, will much greater intelligence protect them?

Unfortunately, in humans very high intelligence doesn't seem to be a
great evolutionary benefit.

BillK


From mike at 7f.com  Fri Jan 30 18:58:44 2015
From: mike at 7f.com (Michael Roberts)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:58:44 -0800
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <00f901d03cbb$dc2cd160$94867420$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
 <00f901d03cbb$dc2cd160$94867420$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJ4XrpVdoXXBprFCO0_Hp=0akoT6sz-bVCgNMGy-eu+3Vd394Q@mail.gmail.com>

> Certainly it has gotten dramatically easier in our modern world to tweak the
> old happy-knob, and more and more people are opting to do it.  So now what?

Something like the Amish, who refuse the fruits of AI, I suspect ..

MR


From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Fri Jan 30 17:58:38 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:58:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA_Fi_JL9jHSpjH-=+B6P1OeQctPsP1aw6mBx-KssP6wqA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 1:56 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I have proposed that speeding up is universally desirable and
> obtainable on a scale that puts even the nearest stars millions of
> subjective years distant.  This would leave the universe full of
> isolated civilizations that stay small for speed of light limitations.
> Sped up, how long would a civilization last?  If the ratio was a
> million to one, a century of clock time would be 100 million years
> subjective.
>
> I have no idea of how long a civilization might last, but 100 million
> years seems like a long time.
>

Just because our subjective time speeds up doesn't seem to imply a lack of
desire to optimize the cosmos for utils. It seems many of us would gladly
undertake the goal of sending colonizing expeditions to other galaxies even
if it took far past our lifetimes for them to arrive (provided all the
normal caveats of our ability to ensure the meaningfulness of the
colonizers' existence if they weren't humans, convergence of their values
with our own, etc.). I don't see why a sped-up civilization wouldn't do the
same. Subjective time might be sped up, but they can still attempt to
optimize the future. If they're undertaking speed-up at nanoscales, it's
also likely they have enough control that their lifetimes are vastly
extended in subjective time, if not longer than 100 years of our time.
Colonizing stars in our galaxy could be done many times in a lifetime.
Connor
-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Fri Jan 30 17:47:44 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:47:44 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2qeGLZP-5UiB8XF5LV6aqWNsM1Arn+h2TB4SowRXHg8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-onuLeC2PXTxFfzVxsnFfR3Dj5D+DXB+sXKNeouEpX_yVkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1fVdpLy0k-qYz5cWijOE2-Tp5QwY1BMAk_-mJqQXcxgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armj+8Jyx_Jrh03Fx6M3ak2mfmWrg9Q+452Q-LG1hOvjfCA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAK7-onug0j=ZmT=cY3xEvtwkHO46p8CepNnGNVQGkqP9JApmDg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2qeGLZP-5UiB8XF5LV6aqWNsM1Arn+h2TB4SowRXHg8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA-Wi3aqrjbVK6nDpLzJW6JMTv+tqNBhfkaQGHD2VSXgnw@mail.gmail.com>

>
> But why does the mind experience 650 nm light as a qualia? How could it
> not, if the mind experiences a sensation then it is a qualia by
> definition.  I mean, how in the world could we experience 650 nm light
> as 650 nm light?
>

I definitely agree with John here: our brain has to process some neuronal
firing as an experience, a qualia. Redness is the qualia of the neuron for
red firing. Anger is the qualia of the neurons for aggression (or anger
itself?) firing. These things are just our internal view (being inside an
algorithm). Note it's not really a qualia caused by the neuron, it just is
our experience of that thing. I personally still don't understand why we
necessarily experience qualia, and why my perception exists in this brain,
but I don't think getting metaphysical helps with this question.
Connor

-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From connor_flexman at brown.edu  Fri Jan 30 18:41:38 2015
From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:41:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA++aaA-SiFp2fUVwOkhta=HH_uchAMmfruTDgpapAOjfgpNNog@mail.gmail.com>

John Clark said:

> But that's exactly my fear, it may be fundamental. If they can change
> anything in the universe then they can change the very thing that makes the
> changes, themselves. There may be something about intelligence and positive
> feedback loops (like having full control of your emotional control panel)
> that always leads to stagnation. After all, regardless of how well our life
> is going who among us would for eternity opt out of becoming just a little
> bit happier if all it took was turning a knob? And after you turn it a
> little bit and see how much better you feel why not turn it again, perhaps
> a little more this time.
>
> This is a really great point. Reminds me of the issues tackled in the MIRI
paper about intelligent agents reasoning about their environment while they
are embedded in it. https://intelligence.org/files/ProblemsSelfReference.pdf
Definite issues can arise here from agents caught between modifying
themselves vs their environment minus themselves vs the whole system.
Hopefully consequentialist reasoning could funnel the agents toward making
sure there was a failproof method for optimizing utils in the future
light-cone before undertaking large-scale wireheading.
Connor

-- 
Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Fri Jan 30 22:56:16 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:56:16 -0500
Subject: [ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:
In-Reply-To: <00f901d03cbb$dc2cd160$94867420$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB7hYncNacSC7Mjx1rUVjFhS=UjzvHMLH4d9nmNH=Ov9MA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3jsDzL5xdB91jtC+MaqLeWSZ1vEUrV9srAxXyYVV1s=A@mail.gmail.com>
 <00f901d03cbb$dc2cd160$94867420$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+JuqGn5QU9=ipytJvTgLt4cn4JELtkgDzkfr0ezCwscQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 1:37 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> No John the above makes perfect sense and ja it does worry me too.  Controls
> engineers such as Your Humble Servant tend to see everything in the world in
> terms of feedback control loops, everything.  If you really ponder it, every
> complex system can be viewed that way and can be modeled that way, and if
> so, why not intelligence in general, and if so, surely intelligence leads to
> more intelligence, and self-referencing paradox every time in every system
> as discovered by Godel, and if so, eventually the positive feedback loops
> dominate the negative, poles move into the right half plane, instability.
> Since intelligence begets intelligence, and if so then the singularity is
> inevitable and we have no idea what happens after a singularity.
>
> That notion of tweaking a knob to get more satisfaction is a good succinct
> way to state a real problem, or if not a problem certainly a? em? situation.
> Certainly it has gotten dramatically easier in our modern world to tweak the
> old happy-knob, and more and more people are opting to do it.  So now what?

Because if you've seen the long-term effects of heroine or crack or
whatever chemical equivalents of "tweak the old happy-knob" you know
that it's not sustainable.  There is a price to pay.

Even the benefit of tDCS (assuming you find the effect to be
beneficial) seems to accentuate some functionality at the expense of
others; I suspect attenuation reduces the effect over time too.

How does a controls engineer generically wrap a "knob" around a
chaotic function?   Even if you have a special control for when
attitude is each of several kinds of incorrect, you eventually have so
many controls that you can't control which control you are
controlling.  :)  [sounds like the inevitable feedback is the kind
that is both noise and regurgitation]



From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Fri Jan 30 17:25:40 2015
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:25:40 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <A610D569-EF88-4FFF-9E30-78CA2111D598@alumni.virginia.edu>


> On Jan 30, 2015, at 9:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Why, in fact, believe in anything at all metaphysical

I submit this is largely driven by subjective experiences during altered states of consciousness. 

Again, they are subjective, so this isn't offered as proof. By definition, as you stated, there is no way to prove the metaphysical under models of standard physics. 

-Henry


From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Sat Jan 31 12:09:37 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 05:09:37 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <54CCC601.2000906@canonizer.com>


On 1/30/2015 7:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> One side of this debate says that subjective experiences are 
> metaphysical.  So I have two comments:
>
> 1 - How does one go about proving the existence of something 
> metaphysical?
> By proving that physical causes don't exist for that experience?  
> Isn't that trying to prove a negative?
>
> 2 - Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way to 
> measure it), why would one ever start from that as an assumption?  
> Why, in fact, believe in anything at all metaphysical, in the most 
> literal sense?  Demons and angels? Ghosts?  (It does seem that many 
> people will believe in these things rather than what science says.  If 
> anyone has any doubt that we are an intellectually flawed species, 
> just look at that fact.)
>
> In short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that 
> metaphysical causes exists for anything.  At least, no scientific way. 
> Playing with words, thought experiments, and just sheer sophistry 
> don't do the job.

Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia" 
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing) 
or you didn't understand any of it.   You must have at least read the 
title: "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse to understand what 
most people understand such to mean, as proof by you asserting that 
there is "no way to measure it".  Since you don't seem to get it, I 
guess I'll have to explain it to you:  Detecting, is the same as 
measuring, and if it is detectable, it is physical, and experimentally 
demonstrably to all to be physical, just like all physics.

Brent Allsop


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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Sat Jan 31 13:48:55 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 06:48:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
In-Reply-To: <CA++aaA-Wi3aqrjbVK6nDpLzJW6JMTv+tqNBhfkaQGHD2VSXgnw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <54CCDD47.5060109@canonizer.com>


Hi Flexman,

On 1/30/2015 10:47 AM, Flexman, Connor wrote:
>
>     But why does the mind experience 650 nm light as a qualia? How
>     could it not, if the mind experiences a sensation then it is a
>     qualia by definition.  I mean, how in the world could
>     we experience 650 nm light as 650 nm light?
>
>
> I definitely agree with John here: our brain has to process some 
> neuronal firing as an experience, a qualia.

I agree with John, Also, in the same way that I agree with flat 
earthers, when they say" "The sun goes around me every day."  If you 
want to live in that little flat earth world, then, OK.  But what a 
about inverted qualia, or new blue you've never experienced before. In 
your little world, you may not be interested in that, but I am 
interested in a slightly more advanced world, that includes that kind of 
stuff.

> Redness is the qualia of the neuron for red firing.
A great theoretical prediction, yes.  (Could be falsified)

> Anger is the qualia of the neurons for aggression (or anger itself?) 
> firing.
Yes.

> These things are just our internal view (being inside an algorithm).
Well, could be, but you are starting to velar off into not well defined 
metaphysical like non detectable stuff.

What, exactly, in your world is an "internal view"  How do you detect, 
especially the qualitative nature, of whatever this "internal view" is?  
And what, physically does it mean to "be inside an algorithm"?  How 
would you prove to everyone that you are physically "inside an 
algorithm"?  Remember, if you know something, there must be something 
physical that is that knowledge.  And if you know something, 
qualitatively, like a redness quality, there must be something, 
detectable, that is responsible for that redness qualitative nature.  
You must keep things physical, or else it is metaphysical.

> Note it's not really a qualia caused by the neuron, it just is our 
> experience of that thing. I personally still don't understand why we 
> necessarily experience qualia, and why my perception exists in this 
> brain, but I don't think getting metaphysical helps with this question.
> Connor

Exactly, you must not be metaphysical, as you seem to be leaning. The 
paper is about "Detecting Qualia" 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit 
.  If you are willing to expand your naive model of physics, just a bit, 
you will discover a very phenomenal physical (that means detectable) world.

Brent Allsop


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From stathisp at gmail.com  Sat Jan 31 14:37:56 2015
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2015 01:37:56 +1100
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <54CCC601.2000906@canonizer.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
 <54CCC601.2000906@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com>

On Saturday, 31 January 2015, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:

>
> On 1/30/2015 7:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
>
>  One side of this debate says that subjective experiences are
> metaphysical.  So I have two comments:
>
>  1 - How does one go about proving the existence of something
> metaphysical?
>  By proving that physical causes don't exist for that experience?  Isn't
> that trying to prove a negative?
>
>  2 - Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way to
> measure it), why would one ever start from that as an assumption?  Why, in
> fact, believe in anything at all metaphysical, in the most literal sense?
> Demons and angels?  Ghosts?  (It does seem that many people will believe in
> these things rather than what science says.  If anyone has any doubt that
> we are an intellectually flawed species, just look at that fact.)
>
>  In short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that metaphysical
> causes exists for anything.  At least, no scientific way.  Playing with
> words, thought experiments, and just sheer sophistry don't do the job.
>
>
> Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia" (
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing)
> or you didn't understand any of it.   You must have at least read the
> title: "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse to understand what most
> people understand such to mean, as proof by you asserting that there is "no
> way to measure it".  Since you don't seem to get it, I guess I'll have to
> explain it to you:  Detecting, is the same as measuring, and if it is
> detectable, it is physical, and experimentally demonstrably to all to be
> physical, just like all physics.
>
> Brent Allsop
>

Dear Brent,

I've read the paper. Maybe I haven't understood it properly, but it seems
to me that the main thing you have in mind when talking about "effing the
ineffable" is the neural correlates of consciousness, and this will never
be able to tell you if the subject being studied really is conscious, let
alone what the actual conscious experience is like.

Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in digital cameras
have colour qualia. You could show experimentally the necessary and
sufficient conditions for certain colour outputs, but how would this help
you understand what, if anything, the sensor was experiencing? If you tried
connecting it to your own brain and saw nothing, how would you know if that
was because the sensor lacked qualia or because it doesn't interface
properly with your brain?

The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to me) you have
misunderstood the neural substitution thought experiment you describe near
the end of the paper. Suppose glutamate is responsible for redness qualia,
and you replace the glutamate with an analogue that functions just like
glutamate in every observable way, except it lacks the qualia. The subject
will then accurately describe red objects, say he sees red, and honestly
believe that he sees red. How would you show that he does not actually see
red? How would you know that your own red qualia were not eliminated last
night while you slept by installing such a mechanism?


Stathis


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Sat Jan 31 15:20:10 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 08:20:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2qeGLZP-5UiB8XF5LV6aqWNsM1Arn+h2TB4SowRXHg8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <54B8A105.9070208@canonizer.com> <54C5B82E.2030303@canonizer.com>
 <CAJPayv0Veft4o0mMFKqW7S9nqW2+GehBO0T_ViRqCXTUd4t2mA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <54CCF2AA.90300@canonizer.com>


Hi John,

You've got to expand your theoretical world, at least a bit, if we are 
going to communicate.  In particular, your theoretical world has no room 
for inverted or diverse elemental qualia.  You think about reality, and 
your knowledge of reality, as if they were the same thing.  The fact 
that you don't distinguish between the real world, and your knowledge of 
such, is clear in all you say.   You just focus on the stuff that easily 
fits in you simplistic world, and ignore the important stuff that 
doesn't fit in your world.  You need to focus on the stuff that doesn't 
fit, and expand your theoretical world so it can accommodate them.  As 
long as you insist on staying in your simplistic world, I am not going 
to have much success in talking to you.

Let me show you what I'm thinking as I read this.


On 1/29/2015 10:17 PM, John Clark wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Brent Allsop 
> <brent.allsop at canonizer.com <mailto:brent.allsop at canonizer.com>> wrote:
>
>      > Would you agree that something, detectable, is responsible for
>     the elemental redness quality you can experience?
>
>
> Yes, I think that is a reasonable guess.

Whew, as usual, most people agree on the most important things. They 
just quibble over and get lost in the details, while what we agree on is 
ignored and lost in collator damage.

>     > If so, what do you imagine it to be?
>

Oh Great!  He believes the idea of a redness quality is reasonable, and 
now he is going to tell me what he believes redness to be.

> I believe in a theory that was historically developed quite recently 
> is probably true, namely that there is a abstract thing called "650 nm 
> light" that turns on the REDNESS mechanism in human beings.

Obviosly, but why is the focus about what is reasonable to believe about 
REDNESS, suddenly switching to the causal, and zombie red? Why is he 
talking as if these are all the same, and if they have anything to do 
with what we are talking about?

> But people believed in REDNESS long before they knew that waves had 
> anything to do with light or that length had anything to do with red, 
> and they were entirely justified in having that belief.

Exactly.  We have always known, absolutely, that redness exists, and how 
it is qualitatively different then greenness.  But again, why are you 
completely missing or ignoring what is important here, and focusing on 
the completely unrelated causal and zombie red, and thinking as if they 
have more to do with each other, than the switch that happens to turn 
redness on an interpret 650 nm light as if it had that quality?  What 
happens if this switch is inverted, and it turns greenness on?  I guess 
he doesn't care about, and is trying to ignore the fact that a person 
could be engineered so that red light turns on grenness.

> People should demand proof before they believe that wavelike 
> properties of light exist, but they don't need that to believe that 
> REDNESS exists because they have something much better than proof, 
> direct experience.

Exactly, as I said, above.  We know that redness exists more surely than 
we know 650NM light exists.

> REDNESS is something that is very concrete,  650 nm light is more 
> abstract, and a theory with a further layer of abstraction on top of 
> that would be that the 650 nm light is coming from a red tomato.

Wait, now he is talking about his knowledge of the world, and getting 
away from physical reality?  Dang it.  And he is still making the 
mistake of thinking of these two drastically different things, as if 
they were the same thing in his simplistic theoretical view of the 
world.  Your knowledge of 650 NM light is more abstract.  Real physical 
light is something that is very physically real (not abstract), and has 
very detectable properties, possibly qualitative, whether you are 
thinking of it abstractly, or representing it's qualitative nature, or not.

>
> Note:  by "abstract" I mean removed from direct experience, the more 
> removed the more abstract, I don't see what else the word could mean. 
> For example, the set of all Real Numbers is abstract, the set of all 
> subsets of the Real Numbers is more abstract.

Exactly.  And all this "abstract" knowledge, must be represented by 
something that is very physically real, detectable, and not abstract.  
And a redness quality is less abstract than anything.  It is physically 
very literally real, and something, detectable, in your brain, must be 
what has this quality.  If you know something, qualitatively, there must 
be something physical and detectable in your brain that is this 
qualitative knowledge.

> But why does the mind experience 650 nm light as a qualia? How could 
> it not, if the mind experiences a sensation then it is a qualia by 
> definition.  I mean, how in the world could we experience 650 nm light 
> as 650 nm light?
>
> Why does 650 nm light and 510 nm light produce different qualia? 
> Because Evolution found that the ability to distinguish between red 
> and green helped get its genes into the next generation.
>

Exactly.  So are you interested at all, in the fact that the switch that 
turns on the qualia for 650 NM (red) light and the switch that turns on 
the qualia for 700 nm (green) light can be inverted?  And that 
tetrachromats have a large palat of colors for their light to turn on 
than the bichromats, or trichromats, and all the qualitative natures of 
each is likely very different than what it is like for you?  (that is 
unless you are a tetrachromat)  Are you interested, at all, about what 
it will be like for future augmented omni phenomenally engineered beings 
that instead of using 3 primary color qualia, they use 300 drastically 
qualitatively very different elemental color qualia?

Brent







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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jan 31 15:31:14 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 09:31:14 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
In-Reply-To: <CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
 <54CCC601.2000906@canonizer.com>
 <CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbUvT6thsWEZaU-cUfeugQbfzRRzojZbFx6ofsQhQsjSA@mail.gmail.com>

??
Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia" (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing)
or you didn't understand any of it.   You must have at least read the
title: "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse to understand what most
people understand such to mean, as proof by you asserting that there is "no
way to measure it".  Since you don't seem to get it, I guess I'll have to
explain it to you:  Detecting, is the same as measuring, and if it is
detectable, it is physical, and experimentally demonstrably to all to be
physical, just like all physics.

Brent Allsop

I reckon this comment was directed at me (Bill W).  All I know about qualia
I learned from wikipedia.  (Why we need a new word for something that has
been studied for millennia puzzles me, although psychologists like myself -
experimental variety, that is - are worse than anyone at making up new
terms for old things and pretending to have discovered something).

I did not read the paper nor will I.  Not one of my areaa.  But when I see
'metaphysics' I have to wonder.  This group seems to be made up of
physicists, engineers, and other hard nosed scientists and to me,
metaphysics belongs in seminaries and such, not science.  Hence my comments.

I believe that I know as much about metaphysics as anyone who ever lived -
which is to say - nothing.

I want to add that given my differences with most of the group, I will
occasionally exhibit my naivete' .  When I do so, I expect to be treated
tactfully as when Anders wrote me a highly tactful reply telling me without
scorn that I was way behind in what I was commenting on (AI) and so I quit
those comments (thanks you, Anders).

Thus I think that the comment from Alsop suggests to me that an attitude
upgrade is in order.

Bill W

?
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From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Sat Jan 31 15:52:21 2015
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 10:52:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbUvT6thsWEZaU-cUfeugQbfzRRzojZbFx6ofsQhQsjSA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
 <54CCC601.2000906@canonizer.com>
 <CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbUvT6thsWEZaU-cUfeugQbfzRRzojZbFx6ofsQhQsjSA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5b3503086bc2f3900d00ae131a9cae27.squirrel@main.nc.us>

Bill W wrote:

> This group seems to be
> made up of
> physicists, engineers, and other hard nosed scientists and
> to me,
> metaphysics belongs in seminaries and such, not science.
>

I stand with you.  :)  When I see "qualia" raise its head
again on this list I consider just taking a long break. 
We've been down the "qualia" road before and it always
strikes me as esoteric discussions about invisible angels
dancing on the head of an invisible pin.

If it were the Inquisition, I would burn.  For the whole
thing makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Regards,
MB


From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Sat Jan 31 21:01:34 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:01:34 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
In-Reply-To: <5b3503086bc2f3900d00ae131a9cae27.squirrel@main.nc.us>
References: <CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com>
 <54CCC601.2000906@canonizer.com>
 <CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbUvT6thsWEZaU-cUfeugQbfzRRzojZbFx6ofsQhQsjSA@mail.gmail.com>
 <5b3503086bc2f3900d00ae131a9cae27.squirrel@main.nc.us>
Message-ID: <54CD42AE.1010405@canonizer.com>


Shit NO!!!

And people wonder why I get mad, and loose it when 90% of the naive 
beetling herd thinks this way, and cluelessly bleats this shit with the 
rest of the herd, censoring and keeping everyone from understanding that 
they are missing something.  If you really think this is an intelligent 
POV, why don't you "canonize" it at canonizer.com, so we can see how 
many people really think this way, so we can know why.  Oh, wait, I 
forget, nobody that just bleats this kind of shit, is capable of 
canonizing anything like that, without realizing how stupid this view is.

The title of the paper is "DETECTING qualia", and it shows how to bridge 
the gap between the qualitative nature of consciousness and physical 
science, with absolutely no "METAPHYSICS".  It is all testable 
theoretical physics.  It is making predictions about what experimental 
science is about to show you for the first time.

I bet this is exactly how Galileo felt, when everyone was talking about 
how the sun went around them, instead of the other way around.

I am sure Galileo knew what future space travel would be like, where 
mankind was about to go, and the naive people in their small theoretical 
world, had no idea what dancing in the heavens would be like.  Instead 
of saying: "When I see 'qualia' raise its head again on this list I 
consider just taking a long break.", Galileo surely just herd: "When I 
hear about us going around the sun, I consider just taking a long break 
from, and censoring anything to do with such talkers.

Do you same old trichromats, have no interest, at all about how 
qualitatively different a bi chromat's, or tetrachromat's knowledge is?  
When someone thinks about a new blue they've never seen before, do you 
have no interest in what that new blue is like?

The paper, on the topic of "detecting qualia" predicts how you will soon 
know what this new blue you've never experienced before is, where it is, 
why it is, and most importantly, what it is like.

But, then, I guess you have no interest in such futuristic things. Your 
just happy siting there thinking that the sun really goes around you, 
and the redness for everyone, is exactly the same as your redness, and 
that it is the same thing as 650 NM light, and that you knowledge of the 
world is the same thing as the physical world out there.

Does anyone know how you can get the bleating herd to stop censoring new 
information and change directions, amplifying the wisdom of the crowd, 
faster?

I can't wait to see the look on all these clueless bleating sheep's 
face, when they experience a new blue tetrachromats use to represent 
what they only represent 3 primary colors with.  And they realize how 
evil they were to work so hard to censor this kind of stuff and keep the 
herd from better seeing and understanding their future, what they and 
the physical world are really like.


Oh well.

Oh, and I am sorry I am not as tactful and level headed as Anders.

Brent Allsop





On 1/31/2015 8:52 AM, MB wrote:
> Bill W wrote:
>
>> This group seems to be
>> made up of
>> physicists, engineers, and other hard nosed scientists and
>> to me,
>> metaphysics belongs in seminaries and such, not science.
>>
> I stand with you.  :)  When I see "qualia" raise its head
> again on this list I consider just taking a long break.
> We've been down the "qualia" road before and it always
> strikes me as esoteric discussions about invisible angels
> dancing on the head of an invisible pin.
>
> If it were the Inquisition, I would burn.  For the whole
> thing makes no sense to me whatsoever.
>
> Regards,
> MB
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jan 31 21:03:50 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 16:03:50 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
	conference
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On Sat, Jan 31, 2015  Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:


> > Oh Great!  He believes the idea of a redness quality is reasonable, and
> now he is going to tell me what he believes redness to be.
>

REDNESS is a qualia just like every sensation, it is a label that gains
it's subjective  meaning only from it's association with other things that
have the same label.


> > the focus about what is reasonable to believe about REDNESS, suddenly
> switching to the causal, and zombie red?
>

It's still not clear to me what "zombie red" means.


> > What happens if this [qualia]  switch is inverted, and it turns
> greenness on?
>

The short answer is I don't think anything would happen, not subjectively
and not objectively. In fact I strongly suspect the question isn't even
meaningful, it would be like asking how would things be different if we
discovered that William Shakespeare didn't write the plays but they were
written by another actor named William Shakespeare who lived in
Stratford-on-Avon in the late 16th and early 17th century.

If in your entire life you had seen nothing but a completely uniform glow
of blue light I don't believe you'd be aware of BLUENESS or even be aware
of light. A color qualia only has meaning if it can be associated with
other things and ideas in your memory. There may be a less extreme example
of this in the historical record; in the Iliad and Odyssey Homer mentions
all the other colors a lot but he never mentions blue. To Homer the sky was
the void and the void has no color, and the sea wasn't blue it was "wine
dark". Some have speculated that Homer wasn't blind just color blind, but
there may be a more interesting explanation. In Homer's environment there
were lots of red things you could manipulate, and white things and black
things and brown things and yellow things and green things, but there were
very few blue things, you can't manipulate the sky or the sea. And it
wasn't just Homer, if you study the history of writing you find that in
every language a word for BLUENESS always comes last. If ancient people
even possessed the BLUENESS qualia they apparently thought it too
unimportant to mention.

So if I suddenly switched everybody's REDNESS and GREENNESS qualia people
would still subjectively associate blood with tomatoes, and they would
still associate leaves with emeraldsr, and they would still use the phrase
"nature red in tooth and claw"  and "green with envy". So I don't think
anybody would notice a thing, they would only notice if you switched the
color qualia for blood but kept the one for tomatoes the same.

> We know that redness exists more surely than we know 650NM light exists.


I believe that too, it is less abstract because REDNESS being a part of
consciousness is fundamental but 650NM light is not.  And now I want to ask
you a very very important question, do you believe as I do that
consciousness is fundamental?  And if you don't do you think anything is,
or do you think the chain of "why" questions can be meaningfully continued
for infinity?

>> REDNESS is something that is very concrete,  650 nm light is more
>> abstract, and a theory with a further layer of abstraction on top of that
>> would be that the 650 nm light is coming from a red tomato.
>
>
> > Wait, now he is talking about his knowledge of the world,
>

No, I'm talking about a theory that something outside myself has something
to do with my direct experience, the theory that a abstract thing called
650 nm light is somehow connected to something that I know with certainty
to exist, REDNESS. There is nothing realer or more concrete than direct
experience.

> The fact that you don't distinguish between the real world, and your
> knowledge of such, is clear in all you say.


On the contrary I make a very clear distinction. I know something about
knowledge, in fact knowledge (information) is the only thing that I or
anybody else knows anything about. Our brain invents theories to explain
the signals that come from our sense organs. Those theories explain how
some sense sensations relate to other sense sensations.

For example we receive information from our eyes, we interpret that
information as a rock moving at high speed and heading toward a large plate
glass window, we invent a theory that predicts that very soon we will
receive another sensation, this time from our ears, that we will describe
as the sound of breaking glass. Soon our prediction is confirmed so the
theory is successful; but we should remember that the sound of broken glass
is not broken glass, the look of broken glass is not broken glass, the feel
of broken glass is not broken glass. What "IS" broken glass? It must have
stable properties of some sort or I wouldn't be able to identify it as a
"thing". I don't know what those ultimate stable properties are, but I know
what they are not, they are not sense sensations, they are not qualia. I
have no idea what glass "IS". The sad truth is, I can point to "things" but
I don't know what a thing "IS" and I'm not even sure that I know what "IS"
is.


> > Your knowledge of 650 NM light is more abstract.
>

No it is not. I don't know if it's correct or not but I know with a
certainty that needs no proof that my knowledge of  650 NM light exists,
but if you tell me that a new attribute of 650 NM light itself exists I'm
going to need proof.


>  > Real physical light is something that is very physically real (not
> abstract),
>

Less abstract than direct experience? Don't be silly.

> a redness quality is less abstract than anything.


I could not agree with you more. So what are we arguing about?

  John K Clark
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Sat Jan 31 21:41:08 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:41:08 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
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Hi Stathis,

It's great to hear from you.  And the target audience of this paper, is 
intelligent people like you, so I really need help understanding how 
best to comunicate to people with this POV.  So, thank you for reading, 
and for jumping in here.

You are using untestable not well defined metaphysical terms when you 
talk about "consciousness" like this:  "this will never be able to tell 
you if the subject being studied really is conscious".

When you use the term "conscious" you are talking about composit qualia, 
or all of what conscoiusness is, as something that is not easily 
completely sharable in it's entirety.  And you are providing no way to 
falsify any such assertions.   All I hear you saying is that 
consciousness is not approachable via science.

What I am trying to say, is that you can break composite "consciousness" 
and composite qualia down to elemental qualities, like redness and 
greenness.  And that there is some kind of binding mechanism that binds 
them together, so that you can be aware of redness and greenness, at the 
same time, and know how qualitatively different they are.  Like when a 
painter makes a composit painting, using elemental color qualities, I am 
saying that you can break conscoiusness down to effable, detectable, 
elemental qualities.



On 1/31/2015 7:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in digital 
> cameras have colour qualia. You could show experimentally the 
> necessary and sufficient conditions for certain colour outputs, but 
> how would this help you understand what, if anything, the sensor was 
> experiencing? If you tried connecting it to your own brain and saw 
> nothing, how would you know if that was because the sensor lacked 
> qualia or because it doesn't interface properly with your brain?
>

You are thinking about this at the wrong level.  CMOS systems can only 
do intelligent operations if they have hardware that is interpreting 
that which does not have consistent ones and zeros, as if it did.  And 
it certainly doesn't have anything like an elemental redness quality at 
that abstractly operating, interpreted from it's diverse intrinsic 
physical qualities level.

But, there is the possibility, that some stuff like CMOS, does have an 
intrinsic qualitative nature, that can be bound up with other qualities 
the way our brain binds things with redness and greenness up.  And 
interpreting the way CMOS acts as only colorless ones and zeros, is 
being blind to the qualitative nature that it could have.  Zombie 
information can represent everything about the qualitative nature of 
CMOS, but you can only know what the qualitative nature of the same is, 
if you interpenetrate, correctly, what you are detecting, not some 
interpreted pieces of zombie information we think of it as having.


> The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to me) you have 
> misunderstood the neural substitution thought experiment you describe 
> near the end of the paper. Suppose glutamate is responsible for 
> redness qualia, and you replace the glutamate with an analogue that 
> functions just like glutamate in every observable way, except it lacks 
> the qualia. The subject will then accurately describe red objects, say 
> he sees red, and honestly believe that he sees red. How would you show 
> that he does not actually see red? How would you know that your 
> own red qualia were not eliminated last night while you slept by 
> installing such a mechanism?
>

No, you know I fully understand this argument.  Chalmers points out 
multiple possible ways science could demonstrate what happens, 
subjectively, when you do this neural substitution.  You only consider 
the view that it will be possible to do it, just as described, so there 
is a conundrum.  So if your interpretation, leads to such 
contradictions, then you are going down the wrong path.  Why do you 
refuse to consider any other possibility?

Chalmers points out there is a vanashing qualia and fading qualia 
options you are not considering.  I don't like the way he describes 
these, because they are very metaphysical and non testable predictions 
about what is happening.  So, if you assume a 3 color world, like that 
described in the paper, the theory makes testable predictions about how 
the qualitatively consciousness scientists will discover, when they do 
the neuro substitution experiment. Nothing they present to the binding 
system will ever have a redness quality, except that which really has 
redness, so it will be a kind of vanishing qualia.

The critical part of the neuro substitution experiment, is adding in the 
hardware interpereters, for every piece of hardware replacing the 
knowledge being represented with qualitative properties.  Sure, you know 
how to interpret what the zombie knowledge represents, it can be thought 
of as behaving the same way.  And, once you replace the binding 
mechanism, and all that does have true qualitative nature, it will be 
possible to think of it as being the same thing. But, by definition, the 
zombie information will not have redness, it can only be interpreted as 
and thought of, as if it does.

And sure, this is a very simplistic theory.  But the prediction is, that 
this is just an example of how to cross the qualitative knowledge 
boundary in one possible world.  And the prediction is, that a simple 
variation on this theory will make it possible to bridge this knowledge 
gap in the real world.

Does any of that help?

Brent Allsop



On 1/31/2015 7:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
> On Saturday, 31 January 2015, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com 
> <mailto:brent.allsop at canonizer.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     On 1/30/2015 7:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
>>     One side of this debate says that subjective experiences are
>>     metaphysical.  So I have two comments:
>>
>>     1 - How does one go about proving the existence of something
>>     metaphysical?
>>     By proving that physical causes don't exist for that experience? 
>>     Isn't that trying to prove a negative?
>>
>>     2 - Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way
>>     to measure it), why would one ever start from that as an
>>     assumption?  Why, in fact, believe in anything at all
>>     metaphysical, in the most literal sense?  Demons and angels? 
>>     Ghosts?  (It does seem that many people will believe in these
>>     things rather than what science says. If anyone has any doubt
>>     that we are an intellectually flawed species, just look at that
>>     fact.)
>>
>>     In short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that
>>     metaphysical causes exists for anything.  At least, no scientific
>>     way.  Playing with words, thought experiments, and just sheer
>>     sophistry don't do the job.
>
>     Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia"
>     (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing)
>     or you didn't understand any of it.   You must have at least read
>     the title: "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse to
>     understand what most people understand such to mean, as proof by
>     you asserting that there is "no way to measure it". Since you
>     don't seem to get it, I guess I'll have to explain it to you: 
>     Detecting, is the same as measuring, and if it is detectable, it
>     is physical, and experimentally demonstrably to all to be
>     physical, just like all physics.
>
>     Brent Allsop
>
>
> Dear Brent,
>
> I've read the paper. Maybe I haven't understood it properly, but it 
> seems to me that the main thing you have in mind when talking about 
> "effing the ineffable" is the neural correlates of consciousness, and 
> this will never be able to tell you if the subject being studied 
> really is conscious, let alone what the actual conscious experience is 
> like.
>
> Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in digital 
> cameras have colour qualia. You could show experimentally the 
> necessary and sufficient conditions for certain colour outputs, but 
> how would this help you understand what, if anything, the sensor was 
> experiencing? If you tried connecting it to your own brain and saw 
> nothing, how would you know if that was because the sensor lacked 
> qualia or because it doesn't interface properly with your brain?
>
> The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to me) you have 
> misunderstood the neural substitution thought experiment you describe 
> near the end of the paper. Suppose glutamate is responsible for 
> redness qualia, and you replace the glutamate with an analogue that 
> functions just like glutamate in every observable way, except it lacks 
> the qualia. The subject will then accurately describe red objects, say 
> he sees red, and honestly believe that he sees red. How would you show 
> that he does not actually see red? How would you know that your 
> own red qualia were not eliminated last night while you slept by 
> installing such a mechanism?
>
>

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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Sat Jan 31 22:28:36 2015
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 15:28:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA
 conference
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Hi John,

On 1/31/2015 2:03 PM, John Clark wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 31, 2015  Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com 
> <mailto:brent.allsop at canonizer.com>> wrote:
>
>     > Oh Great!  He believes the idea of a redness quality is
>     reasonable, and now he is going to tell me what he believes
>     redness to be.
>
>
> REDNESS is a qualia just like every sensation, it is a label that 
> gains it's subjective  meaning only from it's association with other 
> things that have the same label.

When you talk this way, you are not thinking about things rigorously and 
distinctly.  Sure, if your knowledge has a redness quality, you can 
think of this redness quality as a lable, a label that all of our 
knowledge of things that reflect 650 NM light has.  You are talking 
about what this labeled knowledge represents.  I am talking about the 
qualitative nature, of the label itself, which has nothing to do with 
the fact that this quality can be  thought of as a label on our 
knowledge to tell us the nature of things it represents.

>
>     > the focus about what is reasonable to believe about REDNESS,
>     suddenly switching to the causal, and zombie red?
>
>
> It's still not clear to me what "zombie red" means.

You know what the qualitative nature of the taste of salt is, right?  
And would you agree that the word salt, does not have this quality?  And 
would you agree that unless you know how to properly interpret the word 
"salt", you can't know the intended qualitative meaning.  In other 
words, since salt, by definition, does not have a salty quality, and can 
only be thought of as if it did.  The word 'salt' is zombie information 
about the qualitative nature of the taste of salt.

>     > What happens if this [qualia]  switch is inverted, and it turns
>     greenness on?
>
>
> The short answer is I don't think anything would happen, not 
> subjectively and not objectively.

This is only because in your simplistic theoretical world this isn't 
possible.  But you can re engineer yourself as follows, which must force 
you to expand your theoretical world a bit.  For the rest of your life, 
you wear red green color inverting glasses.  When you first do this, it 
is difficult, because you know your knowledge of things that reflect 650 
NM light are represented with knowledge that has or is tagged with a 
redness quality, and things that represent things that reflect 700 nm 
light are reprsented with greenness.  And now this is backwards, making 
it difficult at first.

Eventually, after a long period of time you will learn to associate and 
bind the redness quality, with all the things before that were green, 
and visa verse.  It will become easy to say it is red (even though you 
now know your knowledge is qualitatively made of or tagged with 
greenness).  And you will even start to associate the warmth of redness 
with greenness, and so on.  It will eventually become very natural for 
you to be just as normal as it was, before, but you will know that your 
knowledge is very qualitatively different than before you put on those 
glasses.

Now, let's imagine that a scientist had you, and a clone of yourself, 
before you went through this qualitative inversion.  The prediction is, 
that the scientist would be able to read your mind, using the Galant 
methods (only properly interpreted) and the clones mind, and tell which 
of you had red green inverted elemental qualia. And, the prediction is, 
that there are lots of people out there, with very diverse qualitative 
representations of visible light, and you will in this way know much 
more about the qualitative nature of others  conscious knowledge of 
visible light.

The only way you will ever be able to understand the qualitative nature 
of physics, is if you expand your theoretical models, to include this 
kind of diversity of quality, and how to detect such. Ultimately, if you 
want to bridge the qualitative knowledge gap, and know what other minds 
are like, how might you eff and detect such diverse ineffable qualities?

Brent


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