[ExI] A potential COVID-19 vaccine

[William Flynn Wallace]

In the religion I invented, it is the opposite: you get points for
disbelieving.  When I explain it to people, some say, oh that is silly.  Of
course that promotes them to higher status in the religion that values
skepticism rather than faith.  spike

But wait a minute here.  If presented with a belief, I deny it, getting
points.  But then couldn't I deny my own denial, paradoxically believing in
the presented belief, which you then have to deny again to maintain
consistency, and then deny that...

That reads like a positive feedback cycle to me.  Your religion is based on
a premise of not creating positive feedback loops and your own religion
creates them, so in essence the religion is denying itself.  Or.....?

bill w

On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 2:50 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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> *>…*> *On Behalf Of *John Clark via extropy-chat
> *Subject:* [ExI] A potential COVID-19 vaccine
>
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> >…A lab in Briton has used genetic engineering to jump ahead of everybody
> else and has developed a COVID-19 vaccine in record time... If it works in
> humans as well as it does in monkeys (a big IF) we could manufacture
> several million doses of the vaccine by September, much earlier than
> previously thought…
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> John this is the most positive thing you have posted in I don’t remember
> how long.  Keep up the good work.
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> >…Keep your fingers crossed, I don't believe that superstition helps but
> they say it works even if you don't believe it.
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> In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-vaccine-update-oxford.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage>
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> John K Clark
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> Note that Oxford is where our own Anders Sandberg is living.
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> Regarding that business about crossing fingers for good luck, I have
> invented a new religion that is the kind of thing one might expect from a
> controls engineer.
>
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> In that field, we control machines and processes by setting up negative
> feedback loops and eliminating positive feedback loops.  Traditional
> religions are filled with positive feedback loops, oh mercy, poles in the
> right half plane as we say in the biz.  I thought of a way to deal with it:
> I have taken those positive feedbacks and converted them to negative
> feedbacks.
>
>
>
> In traditional religions, belief in that religion is a virtue: saved by
> faith, which is you get points for believing.  In the religion I invented,
> it is the opposite: you get points for disbelieving.  When I explain it to
> people, some say, oh that is silly.  Of course that promotes them to higher
> status in the religion that values skepticism rather than faith.
>
>
>
> In one major religion, there is a formalized sainthood process, with one
> requirement being that miracles happen in the person’s presence.  In
> spike-ism, the sainthood path is when natural occurrences happen in the
> presence of the skeptic.  If a miracle occurs in the presence of a skeptic,
> that damages his or her standing in spike-ism, unless a natural explanation
> can be found.
>
>
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> I can explain everything.  And I disbelieve my own religion with all my
> heart, mind and… and that’s all because a heart and a mind I have, the rest
> of it, not so much, so heart and mind full stop.
>
>
>
> spike
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